norquest

Girls just wanna have fun in Business JoeUser Forums

Scotland is fortunate to have media that have taken cognizance of the harm that plastic bags do to the environment. The Edinburgh Evening News has taken up this issue and launched a 6 week campaign through the city's major supermarkets to encourage more shoppers to buy stronger re-usable bags costing a few pence each. The campaign is being spearheaded by the environmental group Waste and Resource Action Programme, with Edinburgh chosen as one of two UK cities to pilot the scheme. If it is succes

Pleasing our customers is what we live for in Business JoeUser Forums

This morning my daughter Kaajal got a mail from a customer in Akron, Ohio, which said this “I am absolutely delighted! Please let us put a testimonial on your web site. You have been wonderful to work with, and the product is terrific. I'm still amazed that in this new world of ours we have managed to find our product in India and buy it with the same ease as driving to the nearest town. Thanks so much, Ellen” You made our day, Ellen. Thank you! This is what we live for – to please our customers

American city councils ponder plastic waste problem in Business JoeUser Forums

City councils everywhere today have to address the question of what to do with discarded plastic bags. Collecting them and transporting them to landfills is costing money. Lots of it. So much, in fact, that California calculated the cost at 17 cents per bag. So, they proposed a tax of 17 cents per plastic bag. There is much opposition because

Amitabh Bachan speaks out against paper bags in Business JoeUser Forums

Amitabh Bachan, one of India’s most popular movie stars, hosts KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati), and it is watched by an audience of many millions. Yesterday evening I was thrilled to hear him start the show by asking folks to think about what happens to all the plastic bags they throw away. As a people we are notoriously unconcerned about civic issues (l

Jharkhand bans plastic bags. But only at some places. in Business JoeUser Forums

The Indian state of Jharkhand announced a ban on the use of plastic bags within a two km radius of religious and tourist place. "Plastic bags are harming animals and are a problem at religious places. They have been banned under the Environment Law 1986," says the notification. Isn't that happening everywhere, not just at religious and tourist places? Why not ban them everywhere? But it’s a good move anyway. I admire our country for the number of good and progressive laws we have on our statute

The government of India needs to reconsider this insane rule in Business JoeUser Forums

Back in the 70s there used to be a joke based on some songs by Bob Dylan and other such topical balladeers. The punch line was the moment the US government discovered that marijuana caused cancer they’d legalize it. Governments and all large systems, including corporate systems, behave in completely irrational ways much of the time. The recent experience in Mumbai established beyond any doubt that plastic bags are huge burden for urban systems to cope with. California’s city government calculate

Biodegradable plastic bags for real in Business JoeUser Forums

These words have been bandied about so much that recyclable, ecofriendly, biodegradable and other such reassuring terms have lost meaning. I earlier wrote a blog about one of the worst instances of this obfuscation. http://badlani.com/blog/weblog.php?id=30 The Indian Express, a hugely infl

Maharashtra bans plastic bags in Business JoeUser Forums

Great! They learned something from the recent flooding. It’s creditable to see a government in our country move this quickly. But the lobbying has started and follows the usual route. Short sighted reps of the plastics industry have started making noises that more than 1,00,000 workers will lose their jobs. Utter tripe of course, but our governments have a habit of rolling back many of their decisions when these kinds of pressures are brought to bear on them. Our overly moralistic politicians ha

Preity’s no bimbette in Business JoeUser Forums

Contradicting the clichéd assumption that babes lack brains, Bollywood superstar Priety Zinta is clearly a thinking woman. ‘‘I want to urge people not to litter and turn our city into a big dump before we all die of diseases and toxic poisoning,’’ she fumes. The first thing on Zinta’s agenda is to ask the authorities to ban plastic bags in Maharashtra. ‘‘We have to stop usi

Promotions? Bags make the most sense in Business JoeUser Forums

I just read an article by Cindy Carrera where she explains the basics of how organizations can use imprinted promotional articles to their advantage. She categorizes their uses into Advertising Specialties, Business Gifts, Premiums, and Recognition Awards. “The trick to a good promotion is to attach your company details to something useful. Now, there is "privat

Plastax is a brilliant idea says Shane from Ireland in Business JoeUser Forums

Shane Doyle from Ireland wrote in about my blog on Ireland’s plastic bags. Here’s what he said: "I'm from Ireland myself and the whole plastic bag tax has been a roaring success. You have to ask for a bag now if you want one, the days of automatically being handed a bag are long gone. And it really works, people can be seen going to the shops with their own "gr

This isn’t my opinion, look at the results in Business JoeUser Forums

Helen Logan reports in the Evening Gazette that Ireland used 1.2 billion plastic bags before 2002, when a 15 cent tax was imposed on their usage. Did it hurt business? Was the Irish governme

The world is going crazy, but there’s hope… in Business JoeUser Forums

Doug Gordan wrote about how he bought some gum and the store clerk put his tiny purchase into a paper bag and then put the paper bag into a plastic bag. As he left the store, he took the pack out of the bag and threw the bag out in a corner trash can, giving the bag a total out-of-store lifespan of about two minutes. Considering, he says, that so many New Yorkers a

Bags or decks, natural products are best in Business JoeUser Forums

The San Francisco Chronicle had a story today comparing wooden decks with composite decks made from recycled plastic waste. Bottom line, they say, go with wood, because composites also have a limited life span and are eventually not biodegradable. So finally they will contribute to the environmental burden our planet has to bear. But the fact that companies lik

G8 falls into ecology versus economy trap in Business JoeUser Forums

The assumption that what is good for the environment is bad for economic growth has once again resulted in facile results on environmental issues at G8 2005. The fact remains that we have an environ

The rise and fall of a brand in Business JoeUser Forums

What do you need to create a successful brand? A huge advertising budget? It helps, of course, to have oodles of money to back up your story, but I don’t think it’s the key ingredient at all. If you’ve got enough passion, advertising budgets don’t matter. If you’re in love with your consumer and your product, a kind of magic happens that allows you to achieve b

There’s hope for Ahmedabad yet! in Business JoeUser Forums

This morning a nice young lady came by to discuss what she’d read on my blogs, to talk about how she and the organisation she works with – The Center for Environment Education – could get Ahmedabad conscious of the harm plastic bags are doing. I was thrilled. I’d given up on my own home town (shame on me!) and she reminded me that there’s no need to. That thinking

Plastic bag junk causes Mumbai city to lose billions of doll in Business JoeUser Forums

Yesterday Mumbai city was inundated by floods. The megacity, India’s business hub was paralyzed. The cost: Billions of dollars and a miserable day for residents who couldn’t make it to

Aberdeen considers reusable bags in Business JoeUser Forums

Reusable cotton shopping bags are to be distributed free to shoppers on a trial basis to encourage people to reduce the number of plastic bags they use, under the the 'Fantastic it's not plastic!' initiative. Cotton

Talk to kids. They have the magic! in Business JoeUser Forums

That’s how I got into the business of reusable cloth bags. My daughter Kaajal came home from school one day and banished them from our home. Little girls know they have that magic. They can make wonders happen. The

Kids have bags of great ideas on how to send plastic packing in Business JoeUser Forums

Here’s a wonderful story from www.smh.com.au/ A class of 11- and 12-year-olds in Australia is leading a push to make the Royal National Park towns free of plastic bags, the first time a school has instigated such a ban. <img src="http://www.20six.co.uk/pub/norquest/Kids_have_bags_of_great_ideas_on_how_to_sen

India: Great laws, poor enforcement in Business JoeUser Forums

Our laws are some of the most progressive in the world, but enforcement is zilch. We have strict laws against production, storage, use, sale and distribution of polythene bags. Himachal Pradesh, a state that earns much of its revenues because of its scenic beauty, was the first to implement it. In theory. In theory you can be fined upto a lakh of Rupees (US$

The polluter needs to pay in Business JoeUser Forums

The Australians are leading the world in a voluntary switch away from plastic bags, but the results are clearly not enough. According to figures from this year's Clean Up Australia campaign, retail sectors other than supermarkets have only reduced their plastic bag use by between 10 and 15 per cent over the past couple of years, and the number of plastic bags in th

Are men dumber, or just less secure? in Business JoeUser Forums

Clean Up Australia says men are the weaker sex when it comes to saying "no" to plastic bags. A national Newspoll conducted by the environmental organisation shows 50 per cent of women are likely to refuse a plastic bag, but just one-in-three men say 'no'. A third of men surveyed say they prefer to use plastic bags over reusable bags, compared to just one-in-fiv

Cradle to cradle design in Business JoeUser Forums

http://www.mbdc.com has a totally inspiring concept on their website. This is what it says. “MBDC is articulating and putting into practice a new design paradigm; wha