Brands behaving badly
Brands that don’t care enough, if at all
3M - a masterclass in greenwash packaging
Courtesy of N.C.Hawkins picture and story.
A freelance writer in the US, N.C. Hawkins, wrote an extremely insightful piece recently on the lengths that manufactures go to, to sell their products. Under the microscope was 3M and how their packaging is deliberately misleading. It’s designed to make us feel they care about the environment, helping decision making at the point of sale. There’s only one problem, they’re lying.
The brown cardboard looks recycled but it’s not. The synthetic plastic cartridge is exactly the same as their regular sellotape.
A big and small bright green leaf boldly stand out against the dull background, an assertion that it’s made with plant-based materials, apart from a tiny asterisk or caveat. On the reverse they inform in similarly tiny letters, made from 53% plant-based material.
Which also means that nearly 50% of this product is still synthetic plastic.
The recycling symbol, also on the reverse, ♻️, reinforces that the card is recycled. Instead, it’s actually an instruction to recycle the cardboard once you’ve opened the packaging.
Sold at a premium, 3M is selling a product, marketed as green, which clearly isn’t.
The EU has recently tabled a Green Claims Directive, a law targeted to stop greenwashing by regulating how companies substantiate and communicate their green claims. Whether the US, where this product is sold will follow, is yet to be seen.
Be happy
An uplifting stories to round off your week
Take the space elevator neal.fun
Courtesy of Gigazine
It’s not often that I see something which not only holds my attention but also makes me smile for the whole beautifully crafted experience.
The space elevator invites you to scroll upwards in your personal lift observing the changes which occur, natural and man-made as you ascend into the heavens.
You start in the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, which also happens to contain 99% of all the earth’s water vapour and the Nimbostratus clouds responsible for rainy days.
But you also discover that the Monarch butterfly, flies higher than pigeons and ospreys and is right up there with Bald Eagles and Alpine Choughs. Impressive until you see that a humble bumble bee has been seen at 6000 metres, higher than all of them.
It’s not just birds and bees. There are lots of objects passed as you rise into space passing Mount Everest on your ascent. You’re also asked to choose a space suit, when you pass through 12,000 metres, if you want to survive as you continue your ascent.
Having enjoyed my whimsical tour, I wondered whether space elevators are simply a figment of science fiction? Apparently not.
Japan and China are certainly taken them seriously. Both expect to launch their own real versions by 2050.
The attraction is the ability to send small payloads into space, astronauts, kit, supplies, and doing it more safely and 95% cheaper than rockets today can.
We don’t possess materials strong enough on earth to construct buildings to house a lift, so how can these countries talk about a launch in 25+ years time?
This is where physics comes to the rescue.
Imagine you’re taking a ride on a merry-go-round in a park. Aside from sitting there and hoping the ride will end quickly in my case, you’re also holding a length of rope with a weight attached to the end. As the ride gets faster, what happens to the rope? It stretches out horizontally, as long as you keep spinning, pulling your hand and arm outwards. That invisible tug is better known as centrifugal force.
If the fairground ride is replaced with earth and a very long cable, the same force can be applied because of the physics of a spinning planet.
The lift works when the centrifugal force is greater than the earth’s gravitational pull, which occurs around 36,000km above the surface. The heavy object on the end of the cable, presumably a space station, would be in a geostationary orbit and would appear to be motionless because it’s spinning at the same speed as the earth.
It is estimated that it would take 8 days to move cargo from the earth into space. The only reason we don’t yet have one is because of the cable. It needs to be very strong and light. The proposed carbon nanotubes and diamond nano-threads which could do the job, have only been manufactured in tiny lengths so far. Hence the wait.
A space elevator could be built today with existing known materials, but it would have to be on Mars or the Moon, where gravitational forces are weaker.
Disney’s quiet revolution - a lesson for us all
Photo by Renato Marzan on Unsplash
If you’ve ever been to one of the Disney experiences, you might have noticed that their parks are impressively clean, especially given the crowds which gather on any given day.
The reason dates back to Walt back in the 1950s, who was obsessed with park cleanliness. He got a team to study how long people will walk with rubbish in their hands. It turns out to be 30 feet, which then became the rule. A visitor will never travel more than this distance before they see a bin.
What’s also impressive is he didn’t resort to chastising his customers with signs about litter or a reminder that you could be fined. In fact, he didn’t get frustrated at all, he simply observed user behaviour and quietly crafted an experience to remove the problem.
It seems a similar approach has also been taken in dealing with the right wing Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. He seems intent on punishing Disney for speaking out against his don’t say gay law in schools, a new law banning classroom discussion about LGBTQ+ issues.
Disney appear to have outmanoeuvred DeSantis and his new district governing board. DeSantis is also under siege from other Republicans, who have criticised his unconservative attacks on the state’s biggest private employer, 75,000 at the last count.
While he hasn’t yet declared his candidacy, he trails the Donald significantly and is struggling for congressional endorsement and the backing of influential donors, who have recently withdrawn.
Sounds like Disney have found another way to quietly clear up the rubbish again.