Staff Box

Book tells evils of fast food
By Jessy Bradish

Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser (HarperCollins, 2002), gives the reader a repulsive, and real, overview of the fast food industry, from its conception as a novelty in the 1950s to its current integrated status in our nation. Feeding off of urban sprawl and increased car travel, “drive-thru” and “take-out” have become canonized words in today’s fast-paced society. “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” is what Schlosser aimed to unveil in this nearly 400-page book, from the fascist political beliefs of Ray Kroc (McDonald’s founding father), to workers rights issues facing fast-food employees and the slow mechanization of every aspect of a modern fast food kitchen, from the fries to the shakes to the burgers.

Schlosser ends the first chapter with a summation of the fast food industry’s mentality: there must always be gains. It must be faster, cheaper, easier, bigger. There should be more profit, lower wages, universal products and no corporate responsibility. The conservative beginnings of many fast food chains have spawned corporations that are against unions, minimum wage, taxation and freedom of speech among other things. As Schlosser shows time and again, these companies do not draw moral lines for themselves in the sand about who and where they will advertise — if it’s a demographic, they’re probably there before you are, as demonstrated by McDonald’s recent foray into satellite imaging as a way to predict urban sprawl when planning new restaurant locations.

One new development in corporate power involves our nation’s vastly under-funded educational systems. “The spiraling cost of textbooks has led thousands of American school districts to use corporate-sponsored reading materials. A 1998 study found that 80 percent were biased, providing students with incomplete or slanted information that favored the sponsor’s products and views,” Schlosser tells us — including Exxon’s statement that fossil fuels created few environmental problems, and the American Coal Foundation’s claim that “the Earth could benefit rather than be harmed from increased carbon dioxide.” In addition, the money that companies spend on these textbooks are write-offs on their taxes, which means the American people put the same amount of money into the system and end up with false information.

The government administrations that made this amoral corporatism possible have also rolled back laws prohibiting monopolies — some federally appointed overseers belong to the groups they were “policing.” And constant lawsuits over fixed meat prices are being filed against the fast food giants who are buying most of the meat in this country. In addition to the industry’s control over its farmers and food prices, they also currently have more power to force meatpackers to test the meat for dangerous bacteria such as E. coli, which has been revoked from the government through the deregulation of the food industry by the same administrations.

But the fast food corporations and disenfranchised workers are forgotten when Schlosser tears apart his last target — the meatpacking plants, where over 80 percent of our meat is being slaughtered these days. With most of the workers in these plants unable to speak English, and one-third unable to read or write in any language, the hygiene is notably substandard and the working conditions literally kill people. Working with sharp knives, shoulder to shoulder, the workers often cut themselves and each other in an attempt to keep up with the fast pace of the assembly line. Each worker performs one task hundreds of times each day and cumulative stress injuries are frequent, along with more serious accidents that require amputations and occasional fatalities.

The danger to workers in these unsanitary and unsafe slaughterhouses ties into America’s health: bacteria such as E. coli are transmitted from these factories to stores and restaurants nation-wide. With current techniques for making ground beef, one infected cow can contaminate 32,000 pounds of the disease. Strong cattle and restaurant lobbies fight government regulation on these issues and as of now, the government has no jurisdiction to recall fatally tainted meat.

Schlosser closes with some proactive ideas, my favorite being that restaurant businessmen “will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit.” There are a lot of reasons why we shouldn’t eat beef, I came to realize, or patronize the fast food industry, but no one can say it like he does. So next time you’re bored or trying to cut the red meat out of your meal, I would highly recommend it.

Recycled Paper at Oberlin? The choice is yours
By Rob Stenger

This past year at Oberlin, there has been an alarming development with respect to waste reduction and recycling efforts on campus. I am referring to the dramatic (though perhaps unnoticed by many) shift to virgin-fiber based paper used by campus printing and copier machines. This change in purchasing policy has been enacted due to the recent budgetary constraints of the Administration and the shrinkage of the endowment due to the downturn of the stock market. Costs have been cut in many sectors, and environmental stewardship in the form of recycled paper has been yet another victim.

While the Recyclers understand the financial difficulties imposed by the current economic situation of the College, the choice of recycled paper as a sacrifice is a poor one. We are sponsoring a question in the upcoming Senate referendum asking students to reverse this policy by funding the difference in cost between recycled and virgin paper, in hopes that the student body of Oberlin College will step up and bear the responsibility of a sustainable lifestyle that the Administration is unwilling/unable to do at this point in time. Towards that end, we would like to provide a brief discussion of why such an action should be taken and the positive effects of buying recycled paper.

The benefits of recycled paper are many, while the advantages of virgin-fiber based paper are solely financial and tenuous at best. Creating one ton of paper from virgin-fibers requires an average of 3.5 tons of trees, while the ratio for using recycled fibers is roughly one to one. Recycling paper thus reduces the amount of paper which enters the waste stream, but the amount of landfill space saved is less important than the reduction in acreage necessary to support the paper demands of consumers. This can lessen the pressure on paper manufacturers to convert natural forests to tree plantations, which, though “sustainable,” can reduce the biodiversity and damage the ecosystem of an area severely.

Recycled paper can also help to reduce the effects of global warming. By reducing the amount of landfill waste generated by consumers, recycled paper helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the form of methane, which are generated when waste decomposes. Paper makes up over a third of the U.S. waste stream, and one pound of methane produced by landfill decomposition is equivalent to 69 pounds of carbon dioxide, the main gas contributing to climate change.
Post-consumer waste content means that the material being used in recycling has already served its end-purpose and if not recycled would be landfilled. Purchasing paper with a high PCW content directly stimulates community and business recycling programs by increasing demand. This stimulated demand can help to create economies of scale which will lower the cost difference between recycled paper and virgin paper. The process of producing recycled paper is not inherently more expensive (and is less expensive by far when the discounted ecological costs of virgin paper production are taken into account), but needs increased consumer demand to make it more cost-effective. Most pre-consumer material such as wood chips is already reused by industry and so an increase in this type of recycled content does not increase the demand for recycling initiatives or divert waste from landfills.

One myth regarding recycled paper is that it does not perform as well as virgin papers. However, according to a comprehensive study by the Paper Task Force, “the age, capabilities and operation of papermaking equipment have a greater impact on the properties of the finished paper than its recycled or virgin content.” Recycled paper grades are of equal quality to virgin paper grades — thus, neither quality nor performance are issues in paper selection.

Last semester at Oberlin, Domtar brand paper, which contained 30 percent post-consumer waste (PCW) content, was phased out while Hammermill Copy Plus, which contains zero percent recycled fibers, was phased in. While a return to 30 percent PCW paper would be preferable to nothing, 100 percent PCW is ideal and fully feasible. In an ongoing research project, the Recyclers have selected Badger Envirographic 100 as a suitable candidate brand of paper to fill this role. It is qualified by the U.S. Government Printing Office for use in federal agency printing and copying machines, and has also been tested and approved by the Oberlin CIT for use in campus printers. Badger Envirographic contains 100 percent PCW. Furthermore, it is processed chlorine free (PCF), meaning that the paper fibers are not re-bleached with chlorine (a by-product of the chlorine bleaching process is dioxin, a potent carcinogen in the same class of chemicals as DDT).

The price difference between 1000 pages (a print quota) of virgin paper and 100 percent PCW recycled paper is $4.60. By funding this purchase, the students of the college have a chance to make a difference. Not only will a recycled paper fund allow an end to our funding of the ecological destruction and waste associated with virgin paper production, but it will also stimulate the growth of the recycled paper industry, both directly, through financial incentives and indirectly, through the influence Oberlin exerts as a progressive institution of higher learning in society and in academia.

For more information, contact the Recyclers:
recycle@oberlin.edu
www.oberlin.edu/recycle