Paper book covers should be sacrificed for the environment
AdvertisementA recent survey from goo Ranking looked at what people thought it would be best to get rid of for the environment’s sake.
Demographics
Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2010 1,128 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 15.1% in their teens, 16.9% in their twenties, 28.8% in their thirties, 21.1% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 8.7% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
Most bookshops in Japan wrap your book (after asking you) in a simple paper cover. I think it’s quite a good idea myself, and it’s just a cheap sheet of brown paper usually with the bookstore’s logo, so the cost and environmental load must be pretty low. Getting rid of disposable chopsticks is a good way for a restaurant to advertise its green credentials, but I don’t think it’s really that positive an action, as reusable chopsticks need to be washed, and of course take more resources to make.
Just last week my wife told me that she’d seen on the television some program saying it was more green to drink milk straight out of the pack, rather than using a straw or pouring in into a cup, which is of course correct, but that seems so trivial a point in the great scheme of things.
Ranking result
Q: What would it be best to do away with for the sake of the environment? (Sample size=1,128)
Rank Score 1 Free book covers at bookshops 100 2 Getting home-use items wrapped 99.8 3 Illuminations in shopping streets 98.5 4 Late-night operation of comic cafes 90.8 5 Paper cups at the drinks machines at work, school 83.8 6 Free bags at the checkout 81.1 7 Out of season vegetables 71.7 8 Disposable chopsticks at restaurants 69.3 9 Late-night operation of restaurants, bars 68.8 10 Paper towels in shop, work toilets 63.5
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Reusable chopsticks make a pretty substantial difference to waribashi. Most of the production cost for either is in getting and transporting the raw material (almost all of it imported). And while regular chopsticks need to be washed, they just go along for the ride when the plates, glasses, cups and so on are washed up; the extra resources for a pair of hashi is small.
Besides, you don’t think the waribashi are being washed as part of the manufacture?
The milk thing was apparently a silly wide-show school-lunch argument: drinking from the box saves a fair number of plastic straws (saving both a bit of money and energy); but is apparently teaching children bad manners according to opponents. If they’d really care about bad manners they’d insist on providing the children with drinking glasses, but that was apparently not part of the discussion brief. A storm in a milk carton in other words.
I can remember I once got a couple of bagels and some coffee for lunch and I got SIX bags for everything. Shops in Japan definitely overwrap.
I think the best thing to get rid of would be the cult of individual wrappings for everything. Tiny biscuits, all in individual plastic wrappers. I can understand if they’re gifts, but for anything else…?