WITH COP26 in the offing, it seems that many organisations and retailers are scrambling to burnish their “green” credentials.
Take Glasgow’s move to a three-weekly “general waste” bin collection to increase the city’s recycling percentage. Enacted, but alas with no supporting education programme. What do those numbers inside the recycling triangle actually mean with regard to this new strategy? I am non the wiser. And as for a follow-up survey to troubleshoot the experience, is there one?
So, and I’m sure I’m not alone, I’m recycling like mad but I am left with a bin full of three-week-old, bagged, suppurating cat litter with a weight which is increasingly challenging to move ... but it’s for the planet, yes?
READ MORE: Union boss hits out at 'irony of hosting COP26 in Scotland's filthiest city'
I’d hate to think it was an opportunistic, money-saving exercise disguised as something else.
The planned massive tree plant is undoubtedly a welcome strategy for this “dear, green place”, but how about some supporting legislation to ensure that housing developers in Scotland must include a significant percentage of tree landscaped space in each and every new development, everywhere?
And transport, we all know transport is key in any climate strategy, but alas the days of my backside fitting on a bike seat, electric or otherwise, are long since past. Again, I’m sure I’m not alone, I want to participate but it has to be practical to be possible.
Something like legislation which puts recycling information up front and centre – giving it equal prominence with nutritional information displayed on food products – would help, I believe.
And talking about food products, how about our biggest food retailer? Early in the pandemic they resorted to deliveries in poly bags, a strategy they eventually abandoned (in search of “green” authentication) for a mystifying poly trayliner system which seemed to be the poly bags reshaped but significantly more difficult to lift.
Now, to show how really seriously committed they are to saving the planet, they have moved to ... absolutely nothing! Leaving each customer to troubleshoot their own solution while proudly boasting about their “green” credentials online.
The problem is that many, many of their own-brand products come with the “not yet recyclable” logo. Products which have come into my home over the last year have included packing for potatoes, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower etc, rice, lentils, quinoa, cheese, nuts, pasta ... the list goes on, all basic staples all in non-recyclable packaging. All destined for that “general waste” bin, regardless of my or Glasgow’s best intentions.
So while the retailer pats itself on the back, and abandons its delivery customers with no practical green alternative, in actuality, a move that would really make a huge difference – changing the packaging used by its producers – is left unaddressed both by them and governments. But, hey, leaving it to the customer is easy!
I am as committed to doing my bit for climate change as anyone and I want the outcome of COP26 to be a lasting legacy for Glasgow and Scotland in the desperate fight against climate change, but some of these tinkering-on-the-edges strategies feel at this point like an abdication of responsibility and superficial quick fixes for COP26. Indeed, at this point, they feel more like a COPout!
I Easton
via email
PETER Thomson (Letters, June 7) thinks Alba a home for failed politicians. I don’t consider us as that at all. Rather I see Alba as an exponent of independence that exists to encourage indy by “persuading” the SNP de facto leaders of the campaign to “extract the digit” and do it.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
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