SubscribeTRADITIONAL JUG: Plastic crates are reusable after being returned and washed.I'm sure these jugs are awesome, but this sloppy "analysis". Maybe recycling cardboard and shrink wrap causes less environmental impact than washing and transporting crates - but it isn't zero.
NEW DESIGN: After single use, cardboard and shrink wrap are recycled.
IMPACT: No water is needed for washing, and no labor is needed to load and return the crates.
the ecological benefits are fairly clear - the new design is cheaper to ship and fill...Wal-Mart is likely more concerned with the economic benefits. Which bothers me not at all.
if Wal-Mart continues to add stores at its current growth rate, its new stores alone will use significantly more energy than any of its energy saving measures will save....Wal-Mart needs a vast amount of space in order to build a store, and often this space comes in the form of open greenspace, acres and acres of which are paved over and covered by Wal-Mart’s single-story warehouse-like stores and accompanying massive parking lots. Built away from town centers, they often require services such as new sewer lines, plus more roads and increased driving to reach them. They use massive amounts of electricity, often running 24-hours a day, the increased light causing night-glare and disrupting surrounding plant and animal life....So, we still have a bit of an environmental problem with the WalMart business model.
there is evidence that all of the hard work Wal-Mart has done on environmental efficien-cies will be wiped out by the one thing most dear to the retailer: its customers. As Wal-Mart continues to expand, its in-store energy saving measures will be offset by the increase in the number of supercenters consuming electricity. Pushing suppliers on environmental performance, carrying efficient light bulbs, and selling organic foods will be offset by the continued increase in shopping-related vehicle miles and the resulting vehicle emissions and air quality degradation...
Wal-Mart now asks vendors to rate themselves on a "packaging scorecard" that measures such factors as the ratio of package size to product, whether the package uses recycled material and whether the package can be recycled or otherwise reused. The company is looking at a variety of packaging innovations...And when they don't meet the price requirements or packaging demands, they'll find someone who does:
Horizon, which controls 55 percent of the organic dairy market, meets Wal-Mart's low price in part by providing appalling conditions for its cows. The Cornucopia Institute's Mark Kastel, first reached for this article as he was standing on Horizon's 4,000-cow Idaho feedlot, says the cows were "standing in 90-degree heat. No shade, no water. These animals are living very short lives."...then there's economically forced consolidation and further loss of small-scale, sustainable farms. And if American dairy farmers don't make that shift, heck, they can always go to India.
...The Horizon/Wal-Mart alliance is potentially ominous for family-scale dairy farmers, because, as Kastel points out, "there's a shortage today, but a year from now," as producers rush to meet the demands of big retailers like Wal-Mart, "you could have a surplus." A milk surplus could erode the organic premium and drive many small organic dairy farmers into bankruptcy, just as it has wiped out many of their conventional neighbors. Organic farmers, especially in the Northeast, are already in a precarious situation because of high fuel, grain and transportation costs.
Travis Forgues, a second-generation farmer in Alburg, Vermont, the state's farthest-northwest town, milks eighty grass-fed cows. A 33-year-old father of three young children, he speaks for many small farmers when he says, "If we didn't have the organic market, my dad and I would have been out of here long ago." On the danger of a surplus fueled by demand from Wal-Mart and other big-box stores, Forgues says, "Anyone who's not worried about what's going to happen is crazy."
The sign said:HHGTTG FTW!
Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.
'It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.'
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posted by onlyconnect at 12:58 PM on June 30, 2008