cardboard and cows

Tuesday, March 08, 2005
whilst sitting in burger king at the weekend, it frustrated me how much paper waste was being chucked away. gone are the days when burger boxes were simply solid cfc's, nowadays everything is paper - cups, burger boxes, chip bags, serviettes, even the wasted-tree of a poster they put on your tray.

the amount of food waste in the bins must be really small in comparison to the amount of paper, yet there's no indication it gets recycled.


also, despite mcdonalds trying to reinvent it's image as an environmentally friendly 'restaurant', the image of replacing trees with cows in south america that i saw on newsround all those years ago has remained. i'm pretty sure not much has changed.

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free trade at crazy prices

Monday, March 07, 2005
world trade is something i've recently touched upon in lectures so i thought i'd share some of the things i've found out.

the world gives around $50bn a year in aid to help developing economies, but spends $300bn a year in subsidising it's own industries.

for example, america subsidises $4bn to 25,000 american cotton farmers, directly affecting 10-12 million african cotton producers and their families (amongst others).

eu tariffs that are meant to help african banana producers, force the latin american banana industry to pay 230€ per tonne (up from 75€ per tonne), compared to duty free african exports.

recently, both of these examples have been ruled illegal by the wto. nevertheless, balancing world trade is a job i'm glad i don't have.

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