Despite increasing signals that the Earth is inching dangerously close to an ecological %u201Ctipping point%u201D, the amount of refuse we produce continues to grow %u2013 and one of the biggest problems is packaging.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), packaging the world over accounts for roughly one-third of commercial and municipal waste. In 2007, the UK sent roughly 10 million tons of packaging waste to landfill; the previous year, the US equivalent was around 80 million tons.
Meanwhile, unprecedented consumer demand from industrialising countries is increasing the strain on the natural resources that are used for packaging. A direct result has been that trade in illegal timber products is on the rise. Gaining access to forests via corrupt means, logging in protected areas and wood extraction in excess of agreed limits persist in many regions of the world.
%u201CHow fast are we turning nature into garbage? That%u2019s what we%u2019re saying when we measure our environmental footprint,%u201D said Lasse Gustavsson, secretary general for the World Wildlife Fund, Sweden, at a recent press conference on sustainable forestry in Orebro. %u201CBiodiversity is declining at a similar rate to which humans%u2019 footprint is growing.%u201D
Urge the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop increasing the strain on the natural resources that are used for packaging.
