These days its imperative to exhibit your inherent greenness, whether your a corporate titan like Chevron who allegedly hire militia to decimate local villages on the side, or a local grocer like Trader Joe’s who this week introduced shopping bags made from biodegradable EnviRo 6400.
Today also saw the launch of a new line of recyclable office supplies from Office Depot called “Office Depot Green“.
The line includes core supplies such as recycled paper, notebooks and file folders, as well as re-manufactured ink and toner cartridges, non-toxic cleaners and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
This comes on the back of their Tech Recycling Program launched last October. This involved selling boxes (with pre-paid postage) for $5, $10 and $15 (Apple does it for free) which customers fill with old electronics, though ironically, much of it may well get shipped out to China for a tidy profit.
Business takes the green dollar very seriously. Last year Best Buy initiated a program that sponsored drop-off events around the country, Wal-Mart held a pilot take-back day at 350 of its stores and HP announced it had reached one billion pounds of recycling sooner than expected.
Amazon also launched the now highly successful Green E-Commerce Page.
Whether buying green products or disposing of them responsibly, most American assume they’re helping the earth when they hand in their old computers, televisions and cellphones to these programs (often for a significant fee), but chances are they’re just adding to the lucrative trade in e-waste which endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.
It’s being recycled, but it’s being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine” said Jim Pruckett of the Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle-based environmental group
“we’re preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world.”
One way that we can help to reduce ewaste is by considering to buy and sell pre-owned or used consumer electronics like computers, gaming, PC hardware, cellphones and iPods. Trading in these productsreduces the demand for buying them new.
With the green bandwagon pacing ahead, it’s up to Americans to scrutinize and differentiate between those companies who make no impact but plenty of noise, and those who are genuinely concerned with effecting change over profit.
