How many problems stand out to you in this picture? Here are a few things myself and a few friends noted recently.
I should have assumed this, but I hadn’t realized that there are actually two schools of thought. Those that believe trees are a renewable resource and those that don’t. I stand among the people who feel that while trees grow faster than, for instance, the time it takes for coal to form, it doesn’t necessarily make it something that renews itself in a “reasonable” timeframe.
What makes something renewed anyway? Does a tree or forest reach a “renewed” state once it is the same size, supports the same ecosystem, or is big enough to cut down again? I fear to most businesses who stand to profit off of the resource, if it’s renewed, it means good enough to harvest again, and has little to do with that life it sustains or could sustain again.
Besides the gripe I have with the company who asked some poor designer to tell the public that paper (paper!) is a renewable, natural resource, I feel like it’s deceitful and sad to try and say there is any merit in paper plates over any other disposable plate at all. The reason we’re still convinced papers plates are special is because of the very unspecialness of them. They are so unimportant they’re actually amazing. We can throw them away by the thousands!
If a customer does manage to make the mental connection between millions of paper plates, tissues, lumber, magazines and deforestation, loss of habitat, destroyed local ecosystems and handicapped neighboring ecosystems, this company has done a great job of paying lip service to trees and implying to the public that we should be aware and thankful that they are thinking about the value of trees for us. This way, they can destroy those trees, make millions of plates, say it’s made from the tremendous amount of PAPER at our disposal and not actually be lying, nor completely looking us straight in the eyes when saying it. They can also more easily get away with stamping the words “Nature” and “Green” on the label, and not actually mean anything by it. (Clue #2 that this company is only capitalizing on the sellability of “Green” and “Nature” is the fact that the plates were bleached white, as most paper plates are.)
While there is a good time and place for disposable dinnerware, paper plates as an earth friendly purchase is a joke, and there is never a time to sell goods to the public using falsities that are based on problematic notions to begin with. We should aggressively question companies who try manipulate us into thinking anything disposable could be environmentally friendly, paper or not. And any company or individual who tells you the time it takes for a clear-cut forest to return to normal is “reasonable” should take Environmental Science 101 again.
(I’m reminded of the Utah Phillips story in which he begins a speech to a room full of young people by telling them, “You’re about to be told one more time that you’re America’s most valuable natural resource — Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?“)
Here’s an example of the logic in action.
What do you think?
