Carbon Neutral In The Bin

250,000 copies of a directory that will help you to be carbon neutral.

Carbon neutral paper production.

Carbon neutral printing, carbon neutral ink production, carbon neutral binding.

Carbon neutral shipping.

How lucky to live in Ireland, where 250,000 free copies of a carbon-neutral business directory will be handed out to homes and businesses across the island. But for the love of God, households and shopkeepers, don't toss it in the dustbin.

Within its 300 pages, sponsored in part by the very green Department of the Environment, will be found sources for solar panels, stoves that burn processed scrap wood, places to buy environmentally sound detergents and soaps....but please don't clutter up the landfills with the new directory; don't throw it away with the rest of the junk mail.

EU330,000 has been invested in producing a directory that will make it easier for more people to make grand gestures of green management. Oh,yes, by all means, burn that scrap wood, but don't mind the carbon you're dumping into the air. You're not using freshly harvested trees, so feel good about staying warm this winter. Use those expensive 'green' soaps, but don't think about the pollution that will go into cleaning up your waste water. But whatever you do, don't dispose of the directory carelessly. That money was not spent to increase the amount of garbage every household tosses out weekly.

Please stop. Producing 250,000 directories at 300 pages each is not a carbon neutral operation. Giving another organization money to invest in research projects to reduce carbon emissions does not clean up the air that is made dirty by the printing house, the ink factory, or the bindery. Calculating how much carbon this project puts into the air does not do away with the carbon spewed into the atmosphere by the delivery vans that will truck this green tome across the land.

If the Department of the Environment was serious about reducing pollution, it would put the guide on the Internet, which saves on paper and all the rest. It's only electricity production then that's putting carbon into the air, and photons won't take up space in landfills like the 200,000 copies that will be thrown away by people who find the whole carbon offset business to be a complete cod.

Can you not see that you're adding to the problem?