Canadian Tire Garbage

E-mailed to Canadian Tire, through website:

I find it extremely disappointing to see Canadian Tire's attitude to recycling displayed at my local store (1975 DUNDAS ST. E., London). There are blue recycle boxes at the end of every checkout, but these are clearly used for garbage, not recycling. What makes it worse is seeing staff replace the garbage bags with NEW plastic shopping bags.

If Canadian Tire chooses not to make any effort towards reducing waste, please don't insult those of us who do care about the environment by using recycling boxes for your garbage!

Fw: Greenwashing at Copps Buildall

 

From: caroline

Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 2:37 PM

To: LAN

Subject: Greenwashing at Copps Buildall

I thought people might be interested in some correspondence I've been having with Copps Buildall, regarding the "Think Green" signage they're using in their stores.  I've put the messages in order, starting from the top.

 

(e-mails between Copps and Caroline Lightowler included in message.)

Misleading Signage - My Reply

From: caroline

Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 2:26 PM
To: Cheryl Neale
Cc: Randy Becker
Subject: Re: Misleading signage

To:
Cheryl Neale
Marketing Manager
Copp's Buildall

I had a feeling that this would be the response. I would be prepared to believe 'think green' meant spring, if it were not for the following:

1) By far, the largest 'Think Green' wording in the flyer is conveniently located right next to the 'Every Kilowatt Counts' symbol, and on a page covered in products like CFL bulbs, recycled decking, and rainbarrels.
2) The placement of your 'Think Green' signs does not appear to have much relation to spring. ("Think green! Single lever handle tub and shower faucet - $79.99")
3) I don't believe you're naïve enough to think people will equate the 'Think Green' phrase with spring instead of being environmentally-responsible. The phrase is commonly used in the media, and is obviously not primarily spring-related.

This is a straightforward case of Greenwashing.

Caroline Lightowler

Misleading signage - Response from Copps

----- Original Message -----

From: Cheryl Neale

To: mailto:carolinelightowler@hotmail.com
Cc: Randy Becker
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 9:12 AM
Subject: Misleading signage

Dear Caroline,

Thank you for your recent email regarding our "Think Green" Spring promotion. In reference to our heading, it was actually to convey a "spring" message as everything outside is finally turning green. You will see in our flyer that any reference to products being green is not mentioned at all. However, if you only saw the signs in the store I can understand how this would be misleading. Copp's Buildall has made an effort to be "green" - we offer our customers cloth bags that can be re-used for their purchases, we reduce our lighting in each of our stores throughout the high demand summer season and we try to promote items that will have a benefit to our environment (recycled paint, etc.)
I sincerely hope that you will change your mind about shopping at our stores and we in turn will try not to mislead our valued customers with these types of heading and signage.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Cheryl Neale
Marketing Manager
Copp's Buildall
ph: 519.679.9000
email: cheryln@coppsbuildall.com

Misleading signs

To:  Copps Buildall

 

 

I was appalled when I visited your store on Dundas St. in London, today, to see the signs posted all over certain products saying 'think green!'

 

Attempting to promote products as enviromentally friends, when they have no positive impact on the enviroment at all is highly unethical.  Your flier uses the phrase 'think green!' to promote recycling products and CFL bulbs, which makes sense, but using it to promote sales on barbecues and faucets (not low-flow) is clearly intended to be misleading.

 

Perhaps you could put more time into being 'green' rather than simply greenwashing.

 

"The term 'greenwashing' is generally used when significantly more money or time has been spent advertising being green (that is, operating with consideration for the environment), rather than spending resources on environmentally sound practices. This is often portrayed by changing the name or label of a product, to give the feeling of nature, for example putting an image of a forest on a bottle of harmful chemicals."

 

I am unlikely to be visiting your store again, and will find somewhere else for supplies for my summer building projects.

 

Caroline Lightowler

Garbage

It always annoys me how so many Londoners complain about the fact that the city has introduced a 4-bag limit on garbage. Our garbage and recycling pickup is on an 8-day cycle, with pickups on Monday one week, then Tuesday the next week, etc. When pickup is on a Friday, the next pickup is on the following Monday, so there's an 11-day gap. Our last pickup was a Friday, but we've also had two statutory holidays in between, which means we've had a 13-day gap. Even so, we've only got 2 bags to go to the curb, and one of them is full of diapers!

If a household of two adults and a baby can stay within the limit so easily, how come so many people have a problem with it?

Reduce
Re-use
Recycle (including compost!)

Earth Hour - March 29th, 2008

On March 31, 2007, Sydney Australia helped raise awareness of our planet's energy consumption by encouraging people to shut off their lights for one hour. This year, it's going global. I've signed up and committed to turning out the lights and any other power sources we can for an hour.

To read more info and to sign up, follow the link ... http://www.earthhour.org/user/GLFq

Earth Hour - Canadian Tire

Sent Earth Hour info to Canadian Tire, through website.

Earth Hour - Staples

Sent Earth Hour message to Staples, through website.

Earth Hour - Wal-Mart

Used the Wal-Mart website to submit questions to the three London, Ontario stores, asking if they will be lowering their lighting for Earth Hour.

---

Many cities across Canada (including London) have committed to turning off as many lights as possible during Earth Hour (29th March, 8 - 9 pm), in order to reduce energy consumption and raise awareness about our use of fossil fuels. Please could you tell me whether Wal-Mart has committed to this? Will you be lowering your lighting during Earth Hour? For more information, see the City of London website at http://www.london.ca/d.aspx?s=/Environment/earthhour.htm

Please make every effort to commit to this reduction of energy usage.

Thank you,
Caroline Lightowler

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Got the automatic responses from the website, saying that I will receive a response soon. I'll post whatever response I get.