The Fairfax greenwash

With the ShadowLands' office bird cage in dire need of lining, we recently purchased for ourselves a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald.

At the top of the page, we were surprised to see a little green stamp proclaiming, "Made with recycled paper". Like many items in this newspaper, it got us to wondering - how true is it?

And like many items in the newspaper, the answer turns out to be - not very.

This item from the SMH's Fairfax stable-mate, The Age gives us a clue, without telling quite the whole story.

Indeed, some of the pulp comes from forestry operations and - we'll have to take their word for it here - the thinning of pine plantations. Is this good for the environment? Many environmentalists would argue it's not, as pine plantations supersede natural forests that provide environment for natural populations of native animals. And surely, the cutting of these trees does not help in the overall carbon balance sheet.

The Age also notes that Australians recycle more than 75 per cent of their newspapers. But does all of this go back into newspaper production?

Turns out no. To find out exactly how much recycled paper goes into your daily newspaper, we had to turn to google cache.

Deep in amongst there somewhere, you will find that about 40 per cent of newsprint produced by one of Australia's few major manufacturers is from recycled newspaper. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that the Sydney Morning Herald would be much limper than it already is without large amounts of the hard stuff that comes from trees.

So to state, as the Herald does, that their newspaper is made from recycled paper is true, but also devious and misleading. It appears only about 40 per cent of their newspaper is made from recycled newspaper, and the rest from baby pine trees.

Is this bad? In terms of the environment, not at all. Forestry is a vital and sustainable industry. However, to state that their newspaper is made from recycled paper is like declaring that Australia consists of Catholics, or Bloody Mary's consist of tomato juice. It's true, but it's also dishonest.

And when that newspaper is used to lecture others about honesty and the environment, that's when it becomes plain old hypocrisy.