Angela gave a presentation at a conference in Toronto a few week ago, which was great, except that she left her day planner there by accident. Unfortunately, the hotel seems to have a ridiculous policy that anything found by the night staff goes in the garbage. So, even though her day planner was full of business cards and ways of contacting her, they tossed it.

Anyway, so while Angela deals with not knowing what she is doing for the next six months, and deals with the fallout of missing appointments with all sorts of people, we decided to go out and shop for a new day planner. While we were looking, I noticed this curious item. It's a "green" day planner - made from 75% recycled leather! So, that means they still had to kill an animal to make it, but now that animal can make four times as many day planners! I'm sure that brought plenty of satisfaction to the little critter as it faced its imminent demise.

Have companies taken green labelling too far? Or is this green? What is green? If I kill a lizard and make a day planner, isn't that green? Lizards are a renewable resource, aren't they? Is that the criteria for being green?

I guess the issue I have is that it seems wrong to kill an animal to make a product and then turn around and claim that purchasing the product makes a positive impact on the environment. I need to know more of the story. If some unfortunate person was attacked by an alligator, and the alligator had to be put down, then it makes sense to use the skin to make a day planner, I guess, and in that case the day planner is pretty green. However, if you want to make a day planner, so you go out and hunt an alligator (or even if you raise one on a farm), that doesn't seem very green to me, in some sense. On the other hand, if you decide to make a day planner out of synthetic materials which are mined and processed in polluting refineries, then that doesn't seem very green either.

I guess I really want my day planners to be made out of animals that were already dead...?

Technical details: This photo was taken with my Sony Ericsson K790a at ISO 100, f/2.8 for 1/30th of a second.

Comments

Well, I guess it is "greener" than a day planner that is made from 100% new
leather. Whether it actually is "a positive impact on life and the environment"
is a whole other story.

Wow, poor Angela.  That sucks losing your day planner... If I ever lose mine
(knock wood) I'll be totally bereft of vital data!