New conclusions about how to be green?

If you read the title "Everything You Know About Going Green Is Wrong", would it make you hesitate a bit before clicking?   It caused this reader to pause for a moment.  Why, you ask?  Because I like to think that I'm making good, responsible, environmental-friendly choices!  Do I really want to read something that's about to turn that all upside down?  Not really, but I braved it anyway.  And to my surprise, it wasn't a commentary on how everything we're currently doing is wrong, it's more about how we're focusing on actions that have a small effect, not the actions with the largest effect.  


One of the insights from the blog:  "As a nation, the products we buy, and the plastic and paper those products are packaged in, account for 44% of our greenhouse gas emissions -- dwarfing all other sources of pollution. It's all about stuff. Good stuff, bad stuff, fuel-efficient stuff, organic stuff: The problem is too much stuff."


This insight succinctly highlights why PPI focuses its work where it does.  PPI's goals are to help local governments across the nation take action by getting producers to share in the responsibility of waste management, rather than producing products and expecting governments to find a way to dispose of all the products and packaging.
Read the entire blog entry "Everything You Know About Going Green Is Wrong" here: 
http://www.ill-conditioned.com/2010/08/everything-you-know-about-going-green.html


Pic: stock.XCHNG

Defending EPR in Ontario

While laying out why Ontario should keep its Hazardous Household Waste Program, David Suzuki says "Call it Extended Producer Responsibility, call it Eco Fees, call it what you'd like, but the bottom line is that hazardous substance manufacturers understand one thing best:  if it costs them to pollute they're going to pollute less -- often a lot less.
That's the fundamental principle underlying Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies such as the government of Ontario's Household Hazardous Waste Program -- a program the official opposition has inexplicably threatened to tear down if it gets the opportunity."  His comments were published in The Ottwawa Citizen.  Read his entire argument here:  http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/dump+this+program/3361012/story.html#ixzz0vnP20VxX