Tescos carbon footprint?

joe sod said:

recycling will become an academic debate in time, this is because plastics, paper etc will become so costly that recycling will not be a moral argument but will be essential, also some items that are grown or manufactured in far off places may again have to be produced close to home because transport and material costs will outweigh labour costs. A great levelling is hapening and chinese labour will not always be cheaper than western. In fact old landfills could be reopened to reclaim the materials thrown away in the past again not for moral reasons but out of necessity

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Why will paper become so expensive?
What not convert the ?

joe sod said:

rIn fact old landfills could be reopened to reclaim the materials thrown away in the past again not for moral reasons but out of necessity

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Open cast tiphead mining - it's the way of the future folks. Buy your shares here!!!

ClubMan said:

Open cast tiphead mining - it's the way of the future folks. Buy your shares here!!!

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Its actually quite common in some poorer areas of world.... eg. india, you can make a good living (by local stardards) from a tip....

Thanks - I'll bear it in mind for when the money from the electronics/software industries dries up in this part of the world.

jhegarty said:

Its actually quite common in some poorer areas of world.... eg. india, you can make a good living (by local stardards) from a tip....

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Rubbish

Purple - Why will paper become so expensive?

Its already got expensive, and will continue, due to increase in price of wood, and fuel.

Clubman, this is an economic debate,
Why are you so cynical?
Did you have a bad experience at the bottle bank?

elphaba - some posters on this site are of the opinion (which they are entitled to be) that some views are not backed by sufficient science and so don't add up and so they seem to think that people who advocate them are poor misguided souls or some such equivalent. The level of debate reminds me of university debating clubs, can't think why . . .

Examples of some of these general types of topics -
organic food
global warming
recycling
renewable energy sources
gm crops

The debates that go on here tend to highlight the cost and failings of 'green' alternatives, but quite often fail to acknowledge the hidden but real cost of not considering some of the green issues. For example people will say it costs money to recycle glass, so why not just stick it in a landfill since it is cheaper ? Then they will put on their debating club colours and point out that driving to the recycling bank will increase your carbon emissions . . . ho, ho, where did they think of that one ? It's a bit old at this stage. They will also point out that for all the <whatever> recycled by people in Ireland there are several huge countries in Asia dumping 1,000 times as much in their lakes, so why do the Irish even try ?

The answer (which is obvious to some of us) is that if people don't start pushing for some change, start initiating change (stop buying that stuff in Tesco, etc . . .) then the status quo will be maintained. If you start from the position that you are not happy with the status quo (but large comapnies and their shareholders are) then it is reasonably clear that you need to start making some changes.

z

Elphaba said:

Clubman, this is an economic debate,
Why are you so cynical?
Did you have a bad experience at the bottle bank?

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Huh!?

zag said:

Then they will put on their debating club colours and point out that driving to the recycling bank will increase your carbon emissions . . . ho, ho, where did they think of that one ? It's a bit old at this stage.

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I wasn't aware that it was "old" but are you actually insinuating that it's not true or something?

No, I'm not insinuating that it's not true. I recognise that driving (in the normal sense of the word) produces emissions. This is not in doubt. However, I do not accept it as a reason not to drive somewhere to recycle. I accept it as a cost of the activity, and a cost which can be minimised by consolidating the recyclables and minimising the number of trips to the centre.

z

From reading this depressing thread, I can't help worrying that there are a lot of people out there who won't be happy until we're back in the Stone Age...

zag said:

No, I'm not insinuating that it's not true. I recognise that driving (in the normal sense of the word) produces emissions. This is not in doubt. However, I do not accept it as a reason not to drive somewhere to recycle. I accept it as a cost of the activity, and a cost which can be minimised by consolidating the recyclables and minimising the number of trips to the centre.

z

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Can you quantify the damage done driving there vrs the goodness done by re-cycling. I have an employee who is always going on to me about recycling, I do some but apperently not enough. The same employee drives a 2.4 litre diesel car and has every gadget in the books from flatscreen TVs to a powerboat. Some pseudo greens need to analyse their own actions before preaching to others. In any event the Irish are not the main culprits talk to the yanks.

zag said:

No, I'm not insinuating that it's not true. I recognise that driving (in the normal sense of the word) produces emissions. This is not in doubt. However, I do not accept it as a reason not to drive somewhere to recycle. I accept it as a cost of the activity, and a cost which can be minimised by consolidating the recyclables and minimising the number of trips to the centre.

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Chances are, the many people who can feasibly get to a recycling facility through other means (often walking) would be better off doing that. But spreading the cost over a larger load is no harm either.

I still don't understand your "ho, ho" comments about this point being "old".

By the way - what's the abnormal sense of the word "driving"?

Driving a non-internal combustion engine based vehicle would be abnormal.

z