On Saturday I drove 72 kms. round-trip to my local Officeworks store in Lismore, NSW in the vain hope that they might have stopped stocking Reflex paper. I signed the pledge and the petition (with 11,000 others!) months ago and so far my boycott has meant that I have taken my business to others.

But operating a small business in a tiny village means I am reliant on some companies. And Officeworks until recently has been one of them.

Why is this boycott important?

Officeworks buys paper that is made from native forest timber. Simple as that! is well aware of the environmental costs of native forest logging – and that ready alternatives exist – but they continue to support this by stocking the Reflex range. They do this despite their own Corporate Social Responsibility policy, which states that Our goal is to fully integrate environmental responsibility into every facet of our operations by select[ing] better products for the environment.

Hmmm.

Greenwash? I wonder?

With the Wilderness Society, I believe that it is well past time for Officeworks to start taking their own policies seriously and to refuse to stock Reflex Paper until its producer, Australian Paper, no longer sources wood fibre from the logging of native forests.

So this matter was in my mind when I went into the store.

I was told by an embarrassed young man (who told me that he had to pay his mortgage and feed his dogs and therefore could not speak out against a policy he clearly did not agree with) that the stock of Reflex paper was new and that they were still stocking it.

So I asked to speak to the Duty Manager.

I think that Richard, who arrived after some time, had probably had enough of North Coast activists by the time I arrived.

But if he traced my stationery purchases over the past ten years, he’d see that not listening is not going to be good for business.

“Officeworks: Clean up your act” National Day of Action, 13 September 2011

Hopefully the day of action tomorrow (www.ethicalpaper.com.au) will help him see the error of his ways. Richard has no point of view. native forests from becoming copy paper.

To give Officeworks the extra motivation it needs to continue its role as a leader in paper retailing, the Wilderness Society, in partnership with environment groups across the country, are holding a National Day of Action to name and shame Reflex and Officeworks for their hand in forest destruction in Australia.

On the morning of 13 September, stores across the nation will be visited by troops of “janitors” telling Officeworks to clean up its act! Armed with vacuums, dustpans, sponges, and rubber gloves, volunteers will descend on Officeworks, scrubbing Reflex from their shelves. On the day, the TWS aim is to show Australian Paper and Officeworks that Australians will not stand for our precious forests being turned into office paper.

The “Company Man”

As I looked into Richard’s face, his cold eyes and unsmiling, trembling lips and listened to his hard ‘company’ line, I was reminded of a comic character, Twimble, “The Company Man”  in a movie of my young adulthood: How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1961):

Twimble: I play it the company way;
Wherever the company puts me
There I stay.
Finch: But what is your point of view?
Twimble: I have no point of view.
Finch: Supposing the company thinks . . .
Twimble: I think so too.
Finch: Now, what would you say . . .?
Twimble: I wouldn’t say.
Finch: Your face is a company face.
Twimble: It smiles at executives
Then goes back in place. …
Finch: So you play it the company way?
Twimble: All company policy is by me OK.
…
Whoever the company fires,
I will still be here.
Finch: You will still be here.
Both: Year after year after fiscal,
Never take a risk-al year!

Shame, Richard. You can do better than that: But what is your point of view? I have no point of view.

Officeworks has already shown us they are willing to take action in this important issue when it comes to paper from overseas. Now is the time for Officeworks to keep this high standard they have set for themselves and suspend the sale of Reflex paper while it is made from the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum Habitat.

Day of Action!

If you believe that in this International Year of the Forests that it is simply unacceptable to woodchip and sell our native forests as Reflex paper, please join us.

To RSVP and for more action details please contact TWS Community Campaigner, Triér Murphy, on 0433010390 or by email Trier.Murphy@wilderness.org.au

For more information

http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/officeworks-clean-up-your-act

Do you need to buy office copy paper and do you also care about Australia’s forests?

Don’t buy any Reflex copy paper and don’t buy any copy paper from Officeworks.

Buy these copy paper brands (recommended by the Wilderness Society):

• Evolve
• Vision
• Fuji Xerox Recycled

And try, as a supplier, EcoOffice (great Australian-owned company who does care about Australia’s native forests).

I was visiting a city friend recently.

We have no oven in our shed in the bush, so the sight of someone preparing to bake was deeply satisfying.

“What are you baking?” I asked Bill, as he patted the lumpy, brown blobs. Knowing he was a vegetarian, I was prepared for lentil burgers.

“Chocolate chip cookies,” he replied, hand-shaping the blobs on the baking sheet.

“Those aren’t chocolate chip cookies”

“Those aren’t chocolate chip cookies, Bill,” I offered. “Where I come from, we never make them that way.”

‘I’ve done my research and this is how they were originally made,’ he retorted, slamming the oven door.

I explained what a cookie was. He said he knew all about cookies.

“Bill,” I implored, “if we were talking about chapattis, you’d be interested in my opinion. It’d be ethnic food and you’d be fascinated if I explained the tricks of making them ‘properly’, authentically. I am sure of that. You’d be so respectful of me as a migrant, with my distinctive culture and cuisine. It’s because they’re American and I’m Canadian that you figure they are not important to me.”

He kept his back to me, intent on his dishwashing.

North Americans are not really ‘migrants’ in this country

Retreating to my room, I remembered what I’d known for decades. North Americans are not really ‘migrants’ in this country. I was about to celebrate 40 years of living in Australia. That very week. Forty years!

I could imagine what Bill was thinking: chocolate chip cookies are just part of a global market conspiracy. They are not any one culture’s food. They are certainly not anyone’s ‘cuisine’. A ‘generic’ thing that you make. Or make from a packet. Or buy in a shop.

I remembered learning to bake Toll House cookies as a child, in home economics. I sort of didn’t have a mother (least not one who could cook), so I had to learn to cook at school.They were ‘invented’ in the 1930s by an American cook and the idea took off like a rocket.

Hamilton Junior High School

I learned how to prepare them properly, in the home ec. lab at school, wearing the starched apron I’d made in sewing class. That was in the 1950s at Hamilton Junior High School.

For soft drop copies, all ingredients had to be at room temperature; cream the butter and sugar. Add the sifted dry ingredients. Drop from a spoon using another spoon to guide the dough onto the cookie sheet. Cook only till chewy.

Never crisp

Never crisp.

Before the cookie fiasco, Bill and I were discussing my research into cultural diversity.

Blessedly, the cooking goddess delivered me from any further relationship with the mounds.

Bill rushed out to his yoga class and forgot to turn off the oven.

The charred black mounds went into the compost.

And I took a trip into the city for some Mrs. Fields.

After we finish the roof and get the floors down, and build a toilet and get a shower happening… then I will have a kitchen and an oven.

It’s been 3 1/2 years since we had those luxuries.

And the first thing to come out of that oven will be my old favourites.

Here’s the original Toll House recipe: http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=18476

What They Should Look Like

Living with Tessie

Then I had a couple of months living with Tessie. What a change that was! A brilliant and bubbly Phillipina women who worked in the insurance industry as a senior manager. She was searching for an apartment and had a gaggle of female friends who worked in the real estate industry. Tessie was, herself, a qualified realtor.

So our conversations over dinner and glasses of wine always turned to the design of apartments. She and her friends knew everything about what was on offer in Vancouver and the weaknesses of different developers’ designs. Tessie said that lack of interior storage was a widespread problem.

It might seem like a small thing..

How right she was! It might seem like a small thing but people moving to inner city apartments from houses in the suburbs always have problems with storage! Seasonal items (like fans and blankets, space heaters, blankets and quilts) take up a lot of space. (I know because I’ve spent the day sorting just those items in our new storage room as winter tightens its grip on our mountain locale.)

Bulky items

Residents also need places to store bicycles, exercise equipment, toys, ski equipment, golf clubs and all the paraphernalia that goes with a home office. That new printer may be compact but it still needs somewhere to sit. And that paper needs to be stored somewhere. Those tax files you need to keep for at least five years… I could go on.

And the modern Vancouver kitchen has lots of gadgets that need to be packed away: bread makers, blenders, grills, toaster ovens. Not all of them can stay on the counter top.

So the humble storage question was asked in our POE study and responded to with strong comments by apartment residents. Tessie was right. Her friends knew what they were talking about. In-suite storage certainly WAS a problem.

Window privacy

Floor-to-ceiling windows are all the rage in Vancouver apartments. But what about the things that have to be  stored under the BED? Ikea makes those nifty boxes for just that purpose. But do we want the whole neighbourhood to see what’s stored there?

Bedroom Privacy?

After a long search, Tessie found a new apartment with adequate storage and the other amenities she sought. And I had to move again.  And this time it was to the location of my dreams: Southwest False Creek. But that’s another story.

For more information

For detailed information about the False Creek North post-occupancy study, just go to another part of this website: http://kitchentablesustainability.com/housing-density-and-sustainability-what-works-and-what-doesnt-work/