A printer was quoted in a recent Printweek article as saying that “having FSC makes us acceptable to customers, but they don’t necessarily specify it.”
Confusingly, if you’re using an FSC certified printer but not using FSC stock then you’re doing nothing to help the environment.
FSC certification is about the fibre tracking process only and is NOT about the environmental standards maintained within the factory. If you’re after a printer that maintains high environmental standards, look for ISO14001 and, better still, EMAS. For more info take a look at www.lovelyasatree.com/choose_print.htm
Phew, about time! At last I should be able to stop whinging about carrier bags soon. Gordon Brown has promised that supermarkets will be expected to impose a levy of at least 5p a bag. OK, so 5p isn’t much, but it will at least make people stop and think before they take a bag from now on.
Did you know that around 13 billion plastic bags are given free to UK shoppers every year?
The bags can take from 400 – 1,000 years to break down, and like all forms of plastic they do not biodegrade. Instead they photodegrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits that contaminate soil, waterways and oceans, entering the food chain when ingested by animals.
(Thanks to the Guardian for these statistics)
The average design studio doesn’t use many batteries, or so I thought until yesterday. One of our wireless Apple keyboards stopped working because its 4 AA batteries have run out. Apple say they are supposed to last for 9 months, we’ve got about 10 wireless keyboards in the studio, so that’s 60 AA batteries a year that we need. Wow.
As everyone knows, batteries are full of polluting heavy metals and we should all be using rechargeables, but recharging batteries is a right pain – you’ve got to find where the last person put the recharger for a start. But these USB Cell batteries are a joy to use – stick them in a USB slot and the LED will go out when they’re recharged. And you can re-use them hundreds of times, saving loads of money in the long run.
Maybe next time Apple redesign the keyboard they can build in a rechargable battery pack that plugs into the USB port to recharge?
My recycling bin can’t fit anymore in it. Crumbs-the excess of Christmas! Even for those who do try to be a bit conscious of the waste accumulated over one day. Happy New Year to you all. Sophie
The problem is although I know there is a disgusting glut of paper at this time of year I am really missing Christmas cards. We have a lovely cheery postman and even he looks a bit glum passing on a pile of post that consists of invoices but no glittery hand written festive envelopes. I love receiving interesting post- what designer (or human being for that matter) doesn’t? But my post is getting more and more boring so please let’s not rule out the humble Christmas card yet.
This absence of yuletide isn’t because we are becoming less popular. My email post box is jam packed full of ‘eco’ digital Christmas cards from people wanting to be responsible and thinking- “crumbs I can’t send those people at thomas.matthews a paper card – they will disown me”. Well we would if it was printed on virgin paper/tin and foil blocked/covered in PVC. But actually we love getting creative and clever cards which we keep for prosperity in our ‘nice /clever stuff from other people’ drawer. And we always make our own. Last year they were made from all the cut off bits of paper we had in our plan chest and this year it has been squeezed onto the plate from the reprint of our ‘ten ways’ booklet which is printed on the waste make ready paper collected by our printer. They even turn themselves into a Christmas decoration so you can put them to use every year and when you do recycle them you can do it with a happy heart. So don’t feel bad about sending us a lovely hand made/ interestingly recycled / clever idea card. We promise to keep it and recycle it responsibly.
Sophie
A new study from Fujitsu Siemens Computers IT product services has revealed that the average UK worker prints off 22 pages every working day, amounting to an equivalent paper mountain over 8,000 miles high annually. They also found that even though printing and copying can represent as much as 5% of its total revenue, the majority of companies don’t seem to have any plan to take responsibility for their printer environment.
Read full article here http://www.insight.bt.com/news/Dont-Print-Me/
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it all before, but seeing as we’ve got
a Three Trees blog and, what’s more, it’s Christmas, it’s the ideal
opportunity for me to have a whinge about all those cards and all
those reams of wrapping paper.
Everybody’s talking about the environment and yet how many recycled
cards can you find in high street shops? Very few it seems to me, and
it’s the same story for wrapping paper. There’s only one thing worse
than using virgin fibre to make paper that’s then smothered in
metallic ink and foils, used for about a week, covered in sellotape
and then chucked in the bin, and that’s using it to make toilet
paper, wiping your backside on it and then flushing it down the loo.
One major card retailer had a very small number of recycled cards in
an ‘Eco’ range. They looked lovely but were covered in foil block, making
them a ‘Not Very Eco’ range. But why label them as a niche ‘Eco’
range anyway? If retailers are serious about environmental issues
then they should be looking at environmental issues across all their
products. I’m not against sending cards, it’s an really nice
opportunity to get in touch with people, but a small amount of
thought would go a long way.
I could rant on for hours, but luckily for you, I’m hungry so I’m off for lunch.
Caroline