U.S. forests suffer from beauty products packaging
U.S. forests suffer from beauty products packaging
mongabay.com
February 14, 2007
Every year millions of acres of forests in the southern United States are cut to fuel the pulp and paper industry. Nearly 25 percent of this demand comes from paper packaging, which usually ends up in landfills after a brief life as a disposable product. To support this industry, millions of acres of natural forest have been converted into fast-growing pine plantations — in fact, the U.S. Forest Service estimates that nearly twenty percent of Southern forests are now pine plantations. Nationwide the United States lost an average of 831 square miles (531,771 acres) of old-growth forest per year according to official figures, the seventh highest loss in the world.
 Courtesy of the Dogwood Alliance |
A new campaign by the Dogwood Alliance, a U.S.-based grassroots organization, seeks to reduce the impact of the paper packaging industry by asking beauty products giants Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Revlon to reduce their excessive paper packaging. The campaign, coordinated with Valentine’s Day, urges these firms to “love forests” by reducing the amount of paper in packaging, increasing post-consumer recycled fiber used in packaging, and ensuring that their paper products are not coming from endangered forests.
“The message is simple – forests shouldn’t be chopped down, chipped up, made into packaging and tossed in the landfill,” proclaims the Dogwood Alliance web site. “There are simple solutions that can transform the packaging industry.”
The Dogwood Alliance is asking consumers to convey the message to Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Revlon by emailing company representatives: send an email.
This article uses quotes and information from Dogwood Alliance press materials.