Woolworths’ “dirty little secret” – staff boycott the company’s own Select brand

Since the ABC and Channel 10 News aired reports about Woolworths supermarkets’ green-washing campaign surrounding the Select toilet paper and tissues, Today Tonight has also stepped up its game and has investigated the issue.

Today Tonight (Seven Network) went to a town in South Australia where the local Woolworths store has boycotted the company’s own Select toilet paper, tissues and paper towel.

The store, in a town called Millicent, has banned the Select paper products saying that if locally produced products aren’t good enough, then nothing is.

This all seems to stem from there being a manufacturing plant in the town, which employs local workers.

What the report doesn’t adequately cover is that manufacturing plants in Australia have to conform to certain environmental practices, where as those in foreign, developing nations, such as APP in Indonesia and China, ignore logging laws and instead massacre forests in old growth, high-conservation areas.

The investigative reporter makes a good point – that if Woolworths continues to source its products from cheaper, questionable sources from overseas, that over 100,000 hectares of pine and gum tree plantations that employ Australian workers, will be wiped out.

All of this will happen while Woolworths continues to fund the carbon-emitting practices of APP, simply by sourcing its toilet paper and tissue from Indonesia and China.

Toilet paper is maybe the most-used item on everyone’s shopping list – so the fact that enormous quantities of it are being sourced from environmentally un-friendly, unsustainable and illegal sources, should be of concern to us all.

The video I got of the report is well-worth a look. I’ve posted it on YouTube and it’s embedded below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLSCR-wI5e8

It’s common knowledge that Select is a huge money-maker for Woolworths. But Michael Luscombe really needs to realise that these dodgy business practices are not acceptable and are un-Australian.

The Greens comment on Woolworths

I was just linking my previous blog back to the Sydney Morning Herald website, when I found that this story is also on the website.

Woolworths under fire over 'green' paper

In this story too, Greens MP, John Kaye, said they will take make a complaint to the ACCC - great news!

The article wasn't in the paper today (if you see it in the paper, let me know and I'll post it up here - sustainable55 at hotmail . com)

Thanks again to John Kaye, for all of his help in this issue. It's really great to know that there are politicians who will take on the big businesses and stand up for consumers.

New Dodgy Labelling: Woolworths puts illegally logged tissue back on the shelves

Woolworths has reached new lows. Not only has it put its illegally logged tissues and paper towel back on the shelves, it has covered up their fake logo “Sustainable Forest Fibre”. To get around the problem they had of the misleading labelling, they’ve now just put grey stickers over the “sustainable forest fibre” part.

Here’s a couple of pictures



Woolworths is still selling exactly the same UN-sustainable, illegally logged product from APP to the public.

It was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald today too.

While they have technically gotten around the false and misleading labelling issue, they are still treating us like idiots.

The company said they would get the World Wildlife Fund to look into the source of the products – but the WWF hasn’t said anything at all about it. Woolworths has just popped it back on the shelves, obviously hoping no one would notice, or that we all would have forgotten.

Woolworths, we don’t want this product!

Labor pledges a crackdown on illegal timber imports – what on earth will Woolworths and Safeway do?

Today The Australian newspaper has a story on page 5 about the Labor party pledging to crackdown on illegal timber imports into Australia if they win the election.

Forestry and Conservation Minister for the Liberal Government, Eric Abetz, admits that “10 per cent of Australia’s timber imports were sourced illegally”.

HOWEVER, he goes on to say that “to ban illegal imports would actually mean banning most timber imports” – meaning most of the stuff that comes into Australia now is actually illegally logged! Of course this must include the illegally logged products that Woolworths imports from APP.

What I want to know if the Labor party is elected, will proposed crackdown apply to timber-derived products that come into the country too, like paper and paper pulp. If it does, then maybe this is what will finally force Woolworths to stop using illegally logged pulp products imported from Asia in their own Select brand toilet paper, tissues and paper towel.

What Woolworths (Safeway) is doing is ethically wrong! We need to keep telling them that they can’t do this in Australia! Go here to tell them what you think, or email me (sustainable55 at hotmail . com) and tell me what you think about it. Let me know what you think of the blog too.

Here is the article from today’s paper.