Monday, 25 Sep 2006

Box Populi

Wal-Mart will push suppliers to reduce packaging by 5 percent

In its latest effort to woo enviros (and, of course, save some dough), Wal-Mart has unveiled a five-year plan that it believes will reduce packaging on the products it sells by 5 percent. Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting on Friday, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced that his company will push its 60,000 suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging they use, and starting in 2008, it will grade the suppliers on their success. The plan is expected to save Wal-Mart $3.4 billion, as smaller packages are cheaper to transport and take up less shelf space, and could save almost $11 billion throughout the retailer's supply chain. "A 2 percent reduction in a package's size is worth millions and millions of dollars," said Matt Kistler, Wal-Mart's vice president of product and packaging innovation. Now that's the sort of shrinkage a guy can feel good about.


If your environmental ethics extend to their logical -- make that biological -- end, you might be facing the same dilemma as today's letter-writer, who asks advice maven Umbra Fisk why recycled toilet paper is so much rougher than the virgin kind. Umbra plunges in to an explanation of the qualities of recycled paper -- and pooh-poohs the notion that eco-TP is a bum deal.

Circuit Breaker

Senators clash over proposal to split green-friendly 9th Circuit Court

For years, Republicans have loathed the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation's largest federal appeals court and most left-leaning. Its long record of upholding environmental laws is but one of its sins in the eyes of conservatives. Now, for the umpteenth time, they're trying to split it up. Not for political reasons, though! No, no, it's just a consuming preoccupation with sensible, effective governance; Republicans say the court's gotten too big to produce quality rulings. Some Democrats, led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), accuse Republican lawmakers of deliberately starving the 9th of judges in order to make it less effective; they say the GOP's plan would create more problems than it solves and is little more than an attempt to legislate away unfavorable rulings. The overwhelming majority of the judges on the 9th oppose the split, as do 60 other federal judges who last week sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing their views.


Orrin H. Pilkey calls the failed levee system in New Orleans "our greatest engineering disaster ever." And he would know: Pilkey has spent the last 25 years studying and writing books on coastal development and the damage done by beachfront living. As InterActivist this week, Pilkey chats with Grist about keeping a close eye on the Army Corps of Engineers, witnessing the effects of a hurricane firsthand, being named a "persona non grata" by a beach town in South Carolina, and more. Send Pilkey a question by noon PDT on Wednesday; we'll publish his responses to selected questions on Friday.

When Teshekpuk Comes to Shove

Sensitive Alaska wetlands spared from drilling plan -- for now

In good news for conservationists, the Department of Interior has announced willingness to exclude the sensitive Teshekpuk Lake wetlands from a region of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that it wants to open to oil and natural-gas drilling. The move has little to do with concern for ecosystem health and much to do with getting the drilling plan past the U.S. District Court of Alaska that blocked the lease sale earlier this month; the court said the feds hadn't adequately assessed the environmental impact of the proposed drilling. DOI is asking the court to allow a sale of nearly 8 million acres to go forward next week, while 373,000 acres near the lake -- which the feds believe may harbor 2 billion barrels of oil -- undergo further environmental review. The Teshekpuk Lake area is a major stopping point for migratory birds and caribou. The Bush administration now must wait for the court's decision on this latest plan.