Love paper!
It’s no secret that plastic is having a devastating impact on the environment and on our lives.
Thankfully, we don’t usually have to cope with tons of plastic waste. Many do in poor countries where they don’t have any recycling capabilities. People either seem to fill their rivers with their rubbish, giving off toxic fumes and killing all the life in the river, or burn it. Both with terrible ill health consequences and terrible damage to the environment and its biodiversity.
The Fifth Session of the Global Treaty meeting was held back in December. Sadly it failed to reach an agreement. The plastic producers – the oil and gas companies – wanted to change the focus to increase recycling, not reduce quantities! It’s estimated that plastic production will triple by 2050. www.ecowatch.com/global-plastics-treaty-2024-negotiations.html
However, paper is the good news alternative. See lovepaper.org The organisation was started in 2008 and is called Two Sides. It is active in many countries, though not in the poorer ones. Maybe it’s linked to an absence of trees in these countries, often chopped down to provide essential fuel for cooking.
Two Sides promotes how sustainable and useful and recyclable paper production is. They have managed to bring together all the businesses involved with paper production and to promote this good news story, a much better alternative to so much single use plastic and in no way damaging to our health. It also allows us to be creative with it. We are all becoming more conscious of the environmental impacts of our purchases; paper and cardboard are the natural choices for sustainable packaging.
Maybe the best good news about paper production is that 79% of it in Europe and 73% in the UK is recycled; good news indeed.
Julie Fagan, volunteer, Sustainable Harborough Community and Eco Churches
Leicestershire Wildlife Hospital
