Friday 18 April 2008

Green Or What?

Newport South Wales, as an example, while achieving accolades for its green credentials still uses 2.78 times its sustainable resources. And that is good going. Along with Plymouth it comes top of an ecological footprint measuring table of some 60 cities around the UK compiled by the WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund).
On May 11th this year the city goes into ecological overdraft for the year. Winchester went past their zero point on April 10th.

The explosion of recycling pods that has appeared in recent years in our supermarket car parks is encouraging. The inability of some people to catch the point and understand the message is not. Some drive a couple of miles with their carrier bag to dump it alongside the container because they can’t see the desirability of emptying the contents in to the container a bit at a time. A container for recycling books that clearly says they are for resale in charity shops was seen choked at the neck by telephone directories which had become wet from rain which was now able to get into the container and ruin the rest of the contents.

The publicity for the banning of the billions of carrier bags carted away by uncaring shoppers was good in that it was a wake up to some of them. It does the supermarket no harm to be seen doing something positive for the communities and the world outside to counteract the negative publicity underlining their ruthless price war on the small retailer. Locally grown produce can be carted hundreds of miles to be sorted and wrapped before delivery back where it started and labelled ‘locally grown’.

It’s all better than doing nothing. The few lone voices of the early seventies are making themselves felt now they are in charge. There is a very long way to go. How come it is cheaper to ship something from the other side of the World when it could easily be made here? And who is encouraging the emerging nations to adopt the new clean principles before all the rivers die? Economics? It’s all down to the money.

New opportunities for business arise out of these concepts. Bob Shepherd Associates has raised ecologically based funds to support the equipment needed for recycling and waste transfer. Don’t waste you time and resources, if you have a business idea that needs support or help with development speak to us. In the meantime switch off your computers overnight.

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