Consequences of Non-Using Green Products

-By R. WILFRED JOSE

Department of Management Studies

Non-Using Green Products

Beyond the assumption that the term “green” indicates environmentally preferable attributes, the term is quite vague and subject to multiple interpretations depending on any number of factors.

It includes local, national, and international business practices.

Environmental FactorsConsumptionWastingRecycling SavesLandfills & IncineratorsToxinsGeneral EnvironmentClimate Change

1. Consumption

In the past 50 years, Humans have consumed more resources than in all previous history.

Twelve to Twenty Four trees must cut down to make More than 1 Ton of papers.

Materials consumption in the United States is on average more than 50% higher than consumptions in the European Union.

In 2008 alone, people around the world purchased 68 million Vehicles, 85 million refrigerators, 297 million Computers, and 1,2 billion cell phones.

Each country effectively occupies about 20% more developed land.

Our Human footprints has exceeded the Earth’s biocapacity.

2. Wasting

For more materials are being moved or transformed to meet society’s needs than most people.

In particular, “Hidden” wastes such mining overburdens , earth moving, and erosion, account for as much as 75% the total materials that industrial economies use.

For every ton of discarded products and materials destroyed by incinerators and landfills, about 71 tons of manufacturing, mining , oil and gas exploration, agricultural, coal compustion, and other discards are produced.

3. Recycling Saves

Recycling, reuse and remanufacturing account for 3.1 million jobs. One out of the every three green jobs.

Recycling saves 3 to 5 times the energy that the waste incinerator power plants generate.

When we burn trash, this is akin to spending 3 to 5 times units of energy to make.

4. Landfills & Incinerators

Landfill methane emissions account for at least 5.2% of all greenhouse gas emission on a 20-years time horizon.

This is more than double the 100-years time frame.

Waste incinerators emit more carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour than coal, nature gas, or oil-fired power plants.

5. Toxins

Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety.

One half of every metric ton of fertilizer applied to fields never even makes it into plant tissue, but instead ends up evaporating or being washed into local waterways.

6. General Environment

Up to half of amphibian species could be wiped out in coming years through habitat loss and climate change.

Over about 20years, most agricultural soils will have lost about 50% of their organic carbon because of the reliance of industrial agricultural on inorganic fertilizers, rather than organic composts and manures, as a source of crop nutrients, and the extensive use of tillage.

7. Climate Change

The Arctic is warming almost twice as fast as the world average, and most increases occurred in the past 20 years.

More than twice much of carbon is stored in the Earth’s soils as is stored in living vegetation or the atmosphere.

Conclusion

A continuing rise in the rate of waste production is no longer acceptable. In many places people live surrounded by garbage and landfills. It is essential that governments and corporations face up to waste, using what we know about reduction, recycling and reuse, but also developing new technologies that eliminate waste.