Here at Knowledge Towers, our latest edition of Ethical Consumer (the only magazine we subscribe to) has come harrumphing through the letterbox, complaining about the lack of vegetarian shoes on the rack before rifling through our fridge for Unilever products. It's a bit of a hardline publication, encouraging you to buy ethical products whilst repeatedly pointing out that really, buying anything at all is pretty unethical. Anyway, it has a feature on how little companies are doing about climate change, including nominating their most pointlessly wasteful product of the year - an electric toothbrush loaded with power-sapping gadgets that costs £180 and works as well as a £4 manual brush. While we're on the subject, you don't need to brush your tongue either.
The lack of action on climate change was highlighted by our trip to Salisbury, where recycling is now allowed in the city centre because the black boxes 'clutter the pavements' - unlike the black bags, which are a thing of wonder of course. Then to top off that and the juice-guzzling toothbrush, I found out the following:
4.4 million apples are thrown away in the U.K. every day.
Every DAY. That would be too many for an all-time figure, but every day? Jesus. Nearly 5 million apples are flown or driven into supermarkets, only to be thrown in the bin. I feel like a tiny green bag of recycling in a gargantuan, teeming ocean of landfill. My Sunday just got a lot more depressing. Did these people never watch Sesame Street? If you wasted water, or electricity, or food, you would be a wasteroo. And if I remember correctly, that was something that you shouldn't want to do.
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