I came across this the other day in a draft NGO report:
"Parenting is never easy and views change on the best approach. Our sustainable parenting programme might have raised eyebrows 50 years ago but today it fulfils a clear need and is a key part of our drive to inspire communities to live more sustainably. Baking bread, gardening and composting, making paper and providing help with real nappies and potty training, are all part of our very successful parenting sessions."
Commendable, and great to see, I thought; really good that this is being done – with one proviso. What, I asked myself, is "making paper" doing in this list? I like the idea of my grandchildren's grandchildren's baking their own bread, gardening, composting, etc, but if they have to make their own paper, then it's a bleak future indeed.
Whilst, practical paper making is an excellent means of enabling (young) people to learn about the environmental impacts of the paper industry, and how these can be avoided or mitigated, it's a mistake, surely, to see it as any more than an engaging and effective heuristic. So let's see it as the means it is, rather than as an end – except for the rough and ready efforts taken home to proud (grand)parents once in a schooling.
Respond