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Learning Outcomes

1.9 and 2.5

Learning Intentions

I will learn about consumer responsibilities

I will reflect on the impact of my shopping.

I will learn about the impact businesses have on the environment through the production of clothes.

How might you use this stimulus material in class?

This video provides a great introduction to Fast Fashion - defining the problem and outlining the role of social and financial organisations in the industry.

Support resources: the question quadrant provides open and closed questions to support student discussion.

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2.3 and 2.4

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Richard Grogan solicitor. Short employment rights videos on specific topics on tik tok and instagram

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Richard Grogan solicitor. Short employment rights videos on specific topics on tik tok and instagram

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Learning Outcome : 1.9 & 2.4

The impacts of fast fashion on employees in sweatshops. Health and safety. Globalisation is mentioned.

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The True Cost Official Trailer 1 (2015) - Documentary HD

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Learning Outcome 2.3 & 2.4

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An Post closes gender pay gap to zero but men still receive higher bonuses

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Sign up for alerts from The Irish Times Just click on "Allow Notifications" on the message appearing on your browser to activate them. We will send you a quick reminder in the future, in case you change your mind.

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https://theconversation.com/enormous-amounts-of-food-are-wasted-during-manufacturing-heres-where-it-occurs-102310

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The volume of edible food that is wasted is staggering. In 2017, the UN estimated that almost a third of all food that is produced is discarded. Edible food makes up approximately 1.3 gigatonnes of this (one gigatonne is a billion tonnes). For comparison, one tonne of wasted food is about the equivalent of 127 large plastic bin bags. This not only represents a phenomenal loss in terms of food that could feed people, but also a loss in resources such as water, labour power, soil nutrients, transportation energy and so forth.

Recent analysis shows that about one third of the edible food that is wasted globally comes before the farm gate and about one fifth comes from people's plates and refrigerators. This means that just under half of all edible food that becomes waste does so during manufacturing, distribution and retail.

Food manufacturers tolerate about 5% waste within their food processes under normal production. And in the UK alone, there are more than 8,000 food producers operating at 9,500 production sites.

Food manufacturing waste

One main reason food is wasted within the manufacturing process is due to what some researchers refer to as inefficiencies. But we need to consider where these inefficiencies lie, and if they are avoidable.

For example, on an assembly line producing ready meals, there may be several machines operating to produce different parts of the meal. If something happens to one of the machines, rather than stop the whole system while the machine is reset, the food keeps coming but is redirected into waste. It is more efficient both in terms of both money and food resources to lose this food than it is to stop the production for a few minutes. So what is technically inefficient may also be a food and labour efficiency.

In addition, there is always food loss associated with machinery start-up. Volumes described on the label are calibrated based on normal speed of production, and it takes a few minutes for the machinery to meet this speed. As a result, the first few pallets of packaged food are also not able to be sold because the volume in each package is less than the calibrated standard. This is why stopping the production line when faults occur is actually more wasteful: restarting produces more unsellable edible food than redirection does.

And if, for example, a manufacturer produces something associated with a food allergy, like breakfast cereal with nuts, and they want to switch the line to produce a cereal without nuts, the production line must be run for a significant time with the new product before it is actually nut free.

New product development also creates a lot of potential food waste because the production processes must be calibrated and training carried out to ensure that when high volumes are produced the taste and quality matches what was developed at a smaller scale in the testing kitchen. Machinery must also be run for some time to ensure volumes are correct, packaging is printing properly and so forth.

Dealing with surplus food

Due to increasing public concern about the scale of this waste, surplus redistribution is becoming more common. But it is a comparatively new activity and so still somewhat experimental. There are many issues to work out.

It is true that new tax policy, regulation and industry standards might encourage food manufacturers to help feed people with this surplus food, rather than waste it or send to anaerobic digestion. Despite this, focusing on regulations and policies is not enough to ensure that this food can reach mouths.

This is because movement of surplus requires a lot of coordination between a whole range of people and organisations. Surplus food, for example, cannot be accepted by a food redistributor if there are not enough people in the warehouse to unload the food from the delivery truck. Machinery is needed to move and in some cases repackage the food so that contents match labelling. When volumes are particularly large, spaces are needed to store and break down pallets into amounts that a community cafe, food pantry, or children's holiday or breakfast club can store and use while the food is still good.

Surplus food distribution has a number of other challenges not faced in a commercial system. A food manufacturer can throw money at a problem if there is a financial benefit. But those operating in the surplus system are generally reliant on unpredictable resources and face problems that do not necessarily have a financial return on the investment. They often also rely on volunteers to fill their labour needs. Food arriving in the surplus system from food manufacturers is very unpredictable both in terms of type and quantity. Food redistributors must therefore work out how best to redistribute the food under time pressure.

This is not to say the problem is impossible. Those engaged with moving surplus along for social good rather than financial gain are working out new ways to use technology to communicate food availability. Some are experimenting with blockchain technology to encourage voluntary participation and others to facilitate donations from individuals and corporations. Meanwhile, organisations like the FareShare, The Bread and Butter Thing, His Church, City Harvest London, The Felix Project, The Real Junk Food Project, Community Shop and others are experimenting with different models for collecting and distributing this food.

We are currently in a situation where there are hungry people in places where food is abundant. But we haven't yet worked out how best to organise the surplus food distribution system or under what circumstances each method works best.

Consumers have a role to play in this. We need food producers to remain committed and engaged in finding ways to redistribute their surplus and consumer pressure is influential. Food redistributors are often not the first place where people think to volunteer, but regular and committed volunteers are needed as are financial donations. Food is not waste until its wasted - and we all can contribute to moving it along.

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Enormous amounts of food are wasted during manufacturing - here's where it occurs

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The volume of edible food that is wasted is staggering. In 2017, the UN estimated that almost a third of all food that is produced is discarded. Edible food makes up approximately 1.3 gigatonnes of this (one gigatonne is a billion tonnes).

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Learning Intentions:
- I will learn about the rights and responsibilities of an employer and an employee from legal, social, environmental & ethical perspectives.
- I will be able to identify and describe the features, benefits, rewards and careers within employment.

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2.5 Investigate the positive and negative impacts on a community of an organisation from an economic, social and environmental perspective

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The truth about wind turbines - how bad are they?

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Learning Outcomes
• 2.3 & 2.4
Learning Intentions
• I will learn about workers' rights
•I will reflect on the impact of my consumer behaviour.
•I will learn about the impact businesses have on workers' lives.

How might you use this stimulus material in class?
•This video will give students an insight into the working conditions faced by workers overseas.
•Support resources: Worksheet with questions to focus students and aid discussion.

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1.9, 1.10, and 3.1.

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The 10 richest men in the world have seen their global wealth double to $1.5tn (£1.01tn) since the start of the global pandemic following a surge in share and property prices that has widened the gap between rich and poor, according to a report from Oxfam.

Urging governments to impose a one-off 99% wealth tax on Covid-19 windfall gains, the charity said World Bank figures showed163 million more people had been driven below the poverty line while the super-rich were benefiting from the stimulus provided by governments around the world to mitigate the impact of the virus.

Oxfam projects that by 2030, 3.3 billion people will be living on less than $5.50 per day.

The charity said the incomes of 99% of the world's population had reduced from March 2020 to October 2021, when Elon Musk, the founder of the electric car company Tesla, and the other nine richest billionaires had been collectively growing wealthier by $1.3bn a day.

Musk, according to figures taken from Forbes magazine's billionaires list, saw his wealth increase 10-fold to $294bn in the first 20 months of the pandemic, catapulting him above Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, to be the world's richest person.

During a period when technology stocks were soaring on Wall Street, Bezos's net wealth rose 67% to $203bn, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg's wealth doubled to $118bn, while the wealth of the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, increased by 31% to $137bn.

The charity urged governments to levy taxes on capital and wealth in a report - Inequality Kills - intended to coincide with the now-postponed gathering of the global elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Oxfam said a one-off 99% windfall tax on the Covid wealth gains of the 10 richest men could pay for enough jabs to vaccinate the entire world and provide the resources to tackle climate change, provide universal healthcare and social protection, and address gender-based violence in 80 countries. Even after a 99% levy, the top 10 billionaires would be $8bn better off between them than they were before the pandemic, the charity said.

Danny Sriskandarajah, the Oxfam GB chief executive said: "The explosion in billionaires' fortunes at a time when poverty is increasing lays bare the fundamental flaws in our economies. Even during a global crisis our unfair economic systems manage to deliver eye-watering windfalls for the wealthiest but fail to protect the poorest. It is an avoidable tragedy that every day people die because they lack essentials such as food and healthcare.

"Today's generation of leaders can start to right these wrongs by implementing progressive taxes on capital and wealth and deploying that revenue to save lives and invest in our future. They should make sure that Covid-19's long-term legacy is quality universal healthcare and social protection for all. Governments have an historic opportunity to back bold economic plans based on greater equality that change the deadly course we are on."

Share prices fell sharply in the early weeks of the pandemic but were then boosted by the stimulus provided by central banks and finance ministries around the world. Cuts in interest rates to record low levels and massive increases in the supply of money through the bond-buying process known as quantitative easing sent stock markets soaring, with technology companies such as Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook boosted by an increase in working from home and online shopping during the pandemic.

While people on more modest incomes have also seen their assets rise in value during the pandemic, Oxfam said the 10 richest men own six times as much wealth as the bottom 40% (3.1 billion people). It would take the 10 billionaires 414 years to spend their combined wealth at a rate of a million dollars each per day, the charity added.

Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

The threat posed by inequality was highlighted last week by David Malpass, the president of the World Bank, when he announced his organisation's latest forecasts for the global economy.

"Developing countries are facing severe long-term problems related to lower vaccination rates, global macro policies and the debt burden," he said.

"There's a growing canyon between their growth rates and those in advanced economies. This inequality is even more dramatic in per capita and median income terms, with people in the developing world left behind and poverty rates rising. We're seeing troubling reversals in poverty, nutrition and health"

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World's 10 richest men see their wealth double during Covid pandemic

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The 10 richest men in the world have seen their global wealth double to $1.5tn (£1.01tn) since the start of the global pandemic following a surge in share and property prices that has widened the gap between rich and poor, according to a report from Oxfam.

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Electric cars hit record sales as Norway on the way to become 1st nation to end fuel cars | WION

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https://www.independent.ie/editorial/StoryPlus/how-ireland-is-leading-the-way-to-a-clean-energy-future/

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The consumer becomes the "prosumer"

Already, we're adopting new ways to generate and consume energy, including the way we drive our cars and heat our homes. The power of supply is now in our hands.

In the home, we can harness the power of the sun with the introduction of solar panels to provide electricity and to heat our water. Solar Photovoltaic (PV) panels are fast becoming a common sight on Irish rooftops, providing clean energy from the sun. Well-installed systems can produce up to 60pc of hot water demand per household over 12 months or 50pc of a household's annual electricity.

Consumers are now becoming "prosumers," which means they're simultaneously consuming and producing a product. In this case, that product is energy. By producing our own energy, we're also saving money on our utilities.

A typical three-bed, semi-detached house would save approximately €220 per year on electricity bills by investing €1,800 on a solar panel system. Heat pump technology, which is more than 30pc cheaper to run than a gas or oil boiler, is another energy-efficient way that Irish homeowners are adapting to heat their homes.

Heat pumps are powered by electricity and work by extracting heat from the air or ground outside the house and transfer it indoors at warmer temperature. Homes have to be well insulated and relatively airtight for heat pumps to work effectively.

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How Ireland is leading the way to a clean energy future

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Already, we're adopting new ways to generate and consume energy, including the way we drive our cars and heat our homes. The power of supply is now in our hands. In the home, we can harness the power of the sun with the introduction of solar panels to provide electricity and to heat our water.

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https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2021/0518/1222434-cement-plant-limerick/

Learning Outcomes

1.9 Debate the ethical and sustainability issues that arise from their consumption of goods andservices and evaluate how they can contribute to sustainable development through consumerbehaviour

2.5 Investigate the positive and negative impacts on a community of an organisation from aneconomic, social and environmental perspective

Learning intentions

Students will examine the extent to which an organisation can impact on the economy, people and environment in which it is based.

Students will evaluate their consumer choices, understanding how their choices impact positively and negatively on their community and the wider world.

Class use;

Class do further research on the above topic and work in groups to establish the cause of this development and the impact it might have on the community as well as looking at what can be done to stop these developments in the future.

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€10m plan for Limerick cement plant given go ahead

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The Environmental Protection Agency has given the green light for a €10m plan for the Irish Cement plant at Mungret, Co Limerick to go ahead.

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Learning Outcomes 1.7 1.9 1.10 2.8 2.7

I will learn about the marketing mix of a successful company focusing mainly on product and promotion in this instance.
- I will learn about the responsibilities of companies when producing products and the importance of producing in a sustainable manner.
- I will learn about the impact of my choices as a consumer from an environmental perspective.

Class Use:
Could be used when covering Marketing chapter as part of packaging in product, Impact of consumers choices or The Bigger Picture

Could set students homework to research companies who have made positive changes to their packaging

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How Is The Head & Shoulders Eco-Bottle Made?

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learning outcomes 1.9 2.5 3.1 3.2

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Watch all your favourite TV shows Live or On Demand on your PC, smartphone or tablet for free.

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Waste around Christmas time. Also show a picture of a selection box/Easter egg and look at waste of packaging here.

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It's easy to forget about packaging during the festive season.

With the presents stacked high and the smell of turkey and Christmas pudding making its way through the house, it's unlikely many of us will turn our thoughts toward the packaging of all of these gifts, food, and pleasantries.

However, when you start looking at the facts and figures associated with Christmas packaging, it can be both surprising and eye opening.

This article therefore sets out a wide selection of Christmas packaging facts. These have been updated for 2021, and take into account the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on Christmas in 2020.

The facts, figures and statistics are also broken down into a number of distinct topics, whilst there are a number of tips on how you can minimise waste and increase recycling during the festivities too.

It is estimated that 10 million turkeys are consumed each Christmas.

This equates to 19,000 tonnes of turkey being cooked in the UK this festive season.

Breaking this down further around 6,711 tonnes of fresh turkey, and 12,472 tonnes of frozen turkey will be purchased / consumed.

This also means over 3,000 tonnes of turkey packaging will be used (with the plastic element of this alone being equivalent to the weight of 30 blue whales).

As well as this, UK consumers will also use more than 4,500 tonnes of tin foil when preparing and storing Turkey and other Christmas foods. This is the equivalent to the weight of 2,000 Rhinoceros!

7 in 10 people will readily admit to buying far more food than they need - and arguably the worst offender is the turkey. Around two thirds of people report that at least some it usually ends up in the bin.

Looking beyond just the Turkey, Unilever suggests that 4.2 million Christmas dinners were wasted in the UK (this figure relates to 2014, however).

Taking this 4.2 million figure, it would mean 263,000 turkeys, 7.5 million mince pies, 740,000 portions of Christmas pudding, 17.2 million Brussels sprouts (more on them later!), 11.9 million carrots and 11.3 million roast potatoes are thrown away.

What this means in practice is that the equivalent of a whole plateful of food per household will end up going to waste on Christmas Day (along with at least another plateful in days immediately after).

And don't forget the Turkey needs to be cooked. Gocompare.com Energy conducted research showing that cooking a turkey (which takes approximately five hours on average) will actually cost 1.5 times as much as a typical family's electricity bill - for an entire day!

As such, UK-wide turkey cooking will generate around 14,000 metric tonnes of CO2 - or enough to fuel an entire household for a year.

As well as the huge amounts of turkey, approximately 750 million individual Brussel Sprouts are sold in the run up to Christmas - the majority in disposable plastic bags.

In fact, 25% of the whole year's sprout sales are in the two weeks before Christmas.

The area required to grow them is the size of over 3000 football fields.

If you lined all of the sprouts the UK buys for the festive period, they would stretch from London to Sydney.

However, it is estimated that of all the sprouts sold, only half are eaten.

Other sources suggest this means that 17.2 million Brussels sprouts will go uneaten.

This could however be due to the fact that 70% of the UK population carry a gene that makes the brain detect sharp, bitter flavours (resulting in a dislike of them).

If you took all of the sprouts wasted at Christmas, it could power a home for 3 years.

Sticking with the Christmas Dinner, pigs in blankets are partly responsible for almost 150 tonnes of polystyrene packaging at Christmas that can't be recycled (double the weight of a Space Shuttle).

After the turkey, the UK will also eat 25 million Christmas puddings. The majority of which will be packaged in some form of plastic and cardboard packaging.

Besides this, Brits eat 175 million mince pies.

Putting this in perspective, 1 million mince pie cases equate to 1 tonne of aluminium material.

Not a fan of Christmas pud or mince pies? Well, Britons eat almost twice as much chocolate than our American counterparts over the festive period - much of which has excess packaging (see the food waste section further down).

A popular choice for seasonal party food is crisps. But did you know that all crisp packets made in the UK have a Saturday expiry date (this is due to manufacturing days if you were wondering)?

However, the Coronavirus restrictions in place during 2020 meant that spending on Christmas dinner actually fell by 5.3%.

And finally, a typical Christmas would also see 3,700 chefs working on the big day itself (along with 145,000 care workers, 82,000 nurses).

Across the world, approximately 1.6 billion tonnes of food goes to waste each year. This is around one-third of the total food produced (globally) by weight.

In the UK, a typical Christmas will see Brits throw away two million turkeys.

Five million Christmas puddings will also be discarded.

As mentioned above, 17 million Brussel sprouts will also be thrown away.

Some estimates suggest 74 million mince pies - of the total 175 million purchased - will also be chucked out.

And two million kilos of cheese will binned as well.

So we've covered Christmas food packaging facts (and the waste generated), but what about all the drink - including your favourite alcoholic tipples - consumed during the festivities?

This section provides a comprehensive list of Christmas drink / alcohol packaging facts.

However, although it is commonly believed that Santa only started wearing red because of the fizzy drink, it is actually a myth. In fact, there are many portrayals of St Nick wearing a scarlet coat before Cola was even invented.

Sticking with the drinks giant, research published a few years ago indicated that 94% of the world population recognises the red branding of Coca-Cola. Even more remarkably, the name of the brand is the second most understood word globally (just after the phrase "okay")!

Taking into account wine and other bottled drinks, 13,350 tonnes of glass is binned every year during December and January.

According to some estimates, this equates to 5 out of every 6 glass bottles being thrown away - even though they are widely collected and there being more than 50,000 bottle banks in the UK.

Every tonne of glass that is recycled saves approximately 246 kg of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

In fact, if all of discarded glass was recycled it could save 4,200 tonnes of CO2 - the same as taking 1,300 cars off the road every year.

Drink wine at the office Christmas party (COVID restrictions permitting) or to celebrate the day itself? Well, did you know that a wine bottle is the size it is (750ml) because it is the average capacity of a glassblower's lungs?

Consumers in the UK will use 227,000 miles of wrapping paper each year - over 83km2 of this will end up in our bins.

This in turn means that the average household will get through four rolls of wrapping paper each.

Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) estimate that the paper used each year is enough to wrap the island of Guernsey.

Alternatively, the amount of wrapping paper thrown away could reach to the moon - equivalent to 384,400 km.

However, this figure has dropped from that reported in 2016, when the amount of wrapping paper UK consumers are estimated to have used was enough to wrap around the world 22 times.

Regardless, Brits will bin - in total - what equates to 108 million rolls of wrapping paper each year.

Research by Greenpeace found that 1kg of wrapping paper is responsible for more that 3kg of CO2 emissions during its production process - largely due to the 1.3kg of coal needed to manufacture it.

Even worse, the vast majority of this paper could not be recycled, as a lot will contain plastic (either glitter or laminates)

On the theme of wrapping paper, the traditional Christmas colours (and so often used on gift wrap) are greens, reds, and golds. But did you know the human eye can distinguish more shades of green than any other colour?

What is often forgotten is that all of this wrapping paper creates a need for a lot of sticky tape as well - with some estimates putting this at around 40 million rolls!

This is the equivalent of a roll-and-a-half of sticky tape being used per household.

On average, each person in the UK will send / receive 17 Christmas cards.

However, other estimates say that an average of 24 Christmas cards (per person) will also be discarded once the festive period is over.

The Royal Mail estimates that it delivers 150 million cards during the Christmas period.

And other sources claim that one billion Christmas cards are sold in the UK each year.

It takes 1 tree to make 3,000 Christmas cards. Using the first estimate above, 1 tree is only enough for 176 people to send cards to their loved ones.

So if as many as 1 billion Christmas Cards will end up in bins, that is the equivalent of 33 million trees!

The total amount of Christmas cards sent, along with other card packaging used over Christmas, could cover Big Ben 260,000 times.

Christmas spending hit £78.5b in 2019, although spending specifically on gifts fell by 9.0% in 2020 (potentially due to Coronavirus restrictions and changed consumer behaviour).

An average UK adult will usually spend around £330 buying Christmas presents.

The average child in the UK will receive 16 gifts in total (the vast majority of which will include corrugated packaging).

This is despite UK consumers (around 39%) saying they'd be limiting themselves to shopping for between 5 and 10 people.

All of these toys and gifts generate a large amount of packaging themselves. But saying that, 80% of toy packaging is usually made from both paper and card - both of which are fully recyclable.

Other estimates suggest that only 1% of household packaging is toy packaging.

A lot of these toys will need batteries to work (much to many frantic parents' chagrin on Christmas morning). Factoring in these and other gifts, people in the UK will use 189 million batteries over Christmas (and throw away seven batteries over this period).

At least one of the gifts you order online will have used bubble wrap as a protective layer for shipping (inside the outer ecommerce box), but did you know its original purpose was to be used as textured wallpaper?

Got a new iPhone or iPad? You are not alone - approximately 6.8 million iOS and Android devices are activated on Christmas day.

Talking of iPhones / iPads, your Apple device packaging was specially designed in a dedicated secret room (used for packaging only) at Apple Headquarters in California.

Games consoles are popular presents, but themselves generate a lot of packaging. The PlayStation 4 selling 18.5 million units in just 7 weeks during 2014 (the PS5 is expected to do similar this year) would have generated 18.5 square kilometres of packaging.

Put another way, PlayStation boxes would generate enough cardboard to cover central London (and this is before considering Xbox, Nintendo etc.).

Not everyone can get a PlayStation though. In fact, each year the UK spends a total of £700 million on unwanted presents!

As such, approximately £42 million of unwanted Christmas presents are thrown out in landfill each year.

And finally, around half of British adults still expect to receive an advent calendar (which consists of cardboard / plastic which can potentially end up in landfill).

DHL report that their busiest day at their depots / service points is 13th December (suggesting this is when most people begin their online Christmas shopping).

Similarly, Amazon receives 47 orders per second on their busiest day in the run up to Christmas.

If online shopping fails, there is always Santa to fall back on. Although he has his work cut out - his sleigh needs to travel at 2,340,000 mph to successfully visit every home on Christmas eve.

Not to mention the fact that his sleigh would weigh approximately 354,430 tonnes due to the volume of presents (and their packaging)!

Clearly not everyone gets the presents they want on Christmas day, however, with 2,590 people filing their online tax returns on December 25 th in 2017.

Saying that, some will get an extra special present - 1,391 babies were born on Christmas Day in 2016 (in England and Wales).

And the shopping (and packaging generated) doesn't stop on 25th December. UK consumers will spend 17,000,000 hours shopping online in the Boxing Day sales.

We often discard rubbish without a second thought - not just at Christmas, but at any given time of the year. This means there are some informative (and arguably depressing) facts displaying exactly how much is thrown away.

An extra 30% of rubbish is produced and discarded throughout the festive period when compared with the rest of the year.

Biffa - a waste management company - also suggests that more than 100 million bags of rubbish are sent to landfill each Christmas.

Of this, it is estimated that three-and-a-half black bags full of festive packaging will be thrown out per household.

This additional waste equates to somewhere in the region of 3 million tonnes.

Part of the waste generated will be the 54 million platefuls of food discarded over the period (as highlighted previously).

The UK will also throw away approximately 500 tonnes of Christmas lights each year.

This is on top of the £42 million of unwanted Christmas presents are thrown out in landfill each year.

Brits will also bin what equates to 108 million rolls of wrapping paper.

400,000 tonnes of both paper and card / cardboard packaging weren't collected for recycling from UK households in 2014 - even though they could have been.

Our friends across the pond are no better - with Americans throwing away 25% more trash from Thanksgiving to New Year's than any other period throughout the year.

More specifically, 125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging (weighing as much as 5 Statue of Libertys) will be generated during the festive period in the UK.

In 2018, 114,000 tonnes of this plastic packaging (equivalent to the weight of 650,000 reindeers if you prefer) was thrown into landfill instead of being recycled.

Every UK council in the UK will accept paper for recycling, whilst 98% will accept card for recycling too.

However, many UK councils are now rejecting bins containing glitter altogether, deeming the entire load to be 'contaminated' (as glitter can clog up recycling machinery, and contaminate the recycled material which becomes unsellable).

If every single newspaper was recycled, it would save 250 million trees every year.

However, the average family throws away 6 trees of paper - if all of this was recycled it would require 70% less energy than making it from raw materials.

Just one tonne of recycled paper would save 17 trees, 18.7 square foot of landfill space, and a huge 4,000 kilowatts of electricity.

Hallmark, manufacturers of gift wrap and greetings cards, claim to use 100% recycled content for the cores of wrapping paper.

But damningly, the company suggests that while they have experimented with using recycled materials in their products, the results amongst consumers have been less than popular.

Up to 70% of our waste can be recycled or reused... read below for our top tips on how to recycle this Christmas.

Recycling bin filling up too quick? Save on space by dropping items at your local recycling centre on your way to work or dropping the kids off - follow Recycle Now to find your nearest recycling location.

Save more space by flattening cardboard boxes / containers.

Remove the bows and ribbons before recycling wrapping paper - flattening this into a nice neat pile will also save you additional space.

All food should be emptied from card, paper, glass and tins to eliminate the risk of the recycling being rejected, although, you don't need to be overly thorough.

Any card or paper with glitter on should not be recycled.

It has been widely reported that online retailers benefited most from the Coronavirus restrictions. In fact, overall online sales rose by 56% compared with 2019.

This meant that online spending was approximately £18,626m.

In November 2020 - in the face of a national lock down - the rise was even more acute, with online sales increasing by as much as 80% year on year (and resulting in cardboard shortages).

The share of retail sales made online also rose to 32.8%, compared to only 21.5% in Christmas 2019.

Food retailers (including Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys etc.) capitalised on Government curbs on pubs, restaurants, and cafes, and saw their overall sales increase by 3.0%.

Supermarkets reported that whilst footfall was down, spending per shopper was almost double what had been in 2019.

Cardboard was first made in 1856 and has been used for custom shipping boxes- since 1903. This means that for more than a century, tailored shipping boxes have been a part of everyday life.

Today, the average person in the UK will handle over 50 types of packaging every single day.

Shoppers will form impressions of a brand within seven seconds. Custom branded boxes and printed retail packaging with a positive brand image will help to drive sales of these products.

52% of online shoppers, however, are more likely to purchase products again from the same company if the ecommerce packaging is personalised.

What the above facts highlight is that, whilst it is absolutely essential for getting your Christmas presents and goodies to you in one-piece, great care must be taken to ensure that packaging does not end up in landfill.

At GWP, we aspire to be as actively involved with recycling and protecting the environment as possible, as reflected in our ISO 14001/ ISO 14000 environmental management accreditations. We are also FSC® certified.

GWP Group also takes a universal approach to sustainable packaging by reducing waste where possible by adhering to three main steps.

We actively seek new ways to reduce the extent of material that we use when designing and manufacturing our bespoke packaging and corrugated cardboard products.

We are constantly reviewing new applications for our range of reusable packaging products to reduce excess materials being produced.

And in terms of recycling, we aim to incorporate higher levels of recycled and renewable materials in all of our bespoke packaging designs whilst ensuring that our products are always as recyclable as possible.

Besides this, we take pride in our environmental management systems in relation to our business. We therefore aim to foster an integrated approach to protecting the environment with our products, whilst still ensuring optimum levels of performance.

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Christmas packaging facts: the definitive list (Updated for 2021)

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It's easy to forget about packaging during the festive season. With the presents stacked high and the smell of turkey and Christmas pudding making its way through the house, it's unlikely many of us will turn our thoughts toward the packaging of all of these gifts, food, and pleasantries.

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Learning Outcomes
1.7, 1.9, 2.5

Learning Intentions
I will learn about my responsibilities as a consumer.
I will learn about the issues that arise from my consumption of food and how it impacts different people and the environment.

How might you use this stimulus in class
Food is coffee consumed without thinking about the resources needed to produce it, who was involved in the production, packaging and selling.

This video provides a great introduction to this lesson and the following questions will form the basis of our discussion;

1. How do the foods we eat and choices we make impact the environment ?
2. Why do you think beef is so resource intensive?
3. Is there a way farmers can raise cattle that is better for the environment?
4. What would happen to our available resources if everyone on the planet cut their meat consumption in half?

Group Work with 2 discussion cards:
Groups of 4

Food choices: what steps could we take to ensure our diets are more sustainable?
Food waste: what can we do to manage food production and consumption better?

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Think Before You Eat - How Your Food Choices Can Save the Environment

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1. Personal Finance: develops students knowledge, understanding and values of sustainability.
2. Economy: 3.11 Government Economic Policy

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Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'

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Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'

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Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken.

It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions.

Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: "Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move.

"Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."

'Continuous improvement'

Apple declined to be interviewed for the programme, but said in a statement: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

"We work with suppliers to address shortfalls, and we see continuous and significant improvement, but we know our work is never done."

Apple said it was a very common practice for workers to nap during breaks, but it would investigate any evidence they were falling asleep while working.

It said it monitored the working hours of more than a million workers and that staff at Pegatron were averaging 55 hours a week.

The poor conditions in Chinese factories were highlighted in 2010 when 14 workers killed themselves at Apple's biggest supplier, Foxconn.

Following the suicides, Apple published a set of standards spelling out how factory workers should be treated. It also moved some of its production work to Pegatron's factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

But Panorama's undercover reporters found that these standards were routinely breached on the factory floor.

Overtime is supposed to be voluntary, but none of the reporters were offered any choice. In addition to the excessive hours, one reporter had to attend unpaid meetings before and after work. Another reporter was housed in a dormitory where 12 workers shared a cramped room.

Apple says the dormitory overcrowding has now been resolved and that it requires suppliers to retroactively pay workers if it finds they haven't been paid for work meetings.

Pegatron said it was carefully investigating Panorama's claims and would take all necessary action if any deficiencies were found at their facilities.

"Worker safety and well-being are our top priorities. We set very high standards, conduct rigorous training for managers and workers, and have external auditors regularly visiting our facilities to find areas for improvement," a statement said.

Dangerous conditions

Panorama also travelled further down Apple's supply chain to the Indonesian island of Bangka.

Apple says it is dedicated to the ethical sourcing of minerals, but the programme found evidence that tin from illegal mines could be entering its supply chain.

It found children digging tin ore out by hand in extremely dangerous conditions - miners can be buried alive when the walls of sand or mud collapse.

Twelve-year-old Rianto was working with his dad at the bottom of a 70-foot cliff of sand. He said: "I worry about landslides. The earth slipping from up there to the bottom. It could happen."

Panorama tracked down a gang who collect tin from the area where Rianto was working. One of them said they sold tin to a smelter on Apple's list of suppliers.

Johan Murod, who runs one of the smelters on Apple's list, said 70% of the tin that is exported comes from the small-scale mines.

"At the smelter there's everything from both large and small scale mines. It's all mixed. There's no way to know what is legal and what is illegal."

Apple says it is a complex situation on Bangka with tens of thousands of miners selling tin through many middle men.

"The simplest course of action would be for Apple to unilaterally refuse any tin from Indonesian mines. That would be easy for us to do and would certainly shield us from criticism.

"But that would also be the lazy and cowardly path, since it would do nothing to improve the situation. We have chosen to stay engaged and attempt to drive changes on the ground."

Watch Panorama: Apple's Broken Promises on BBC One on 18 December at 21:00 GMT or watch later on BBC iPlayer.

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Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'

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Poor treatment of workers in the Chinese factories which make Apple products is discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

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U.N. Group Blames Unequal Vaccine Access for Bigger Global Economic Gap - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

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Unequal access to coronavirus vaccines in developing countries is deepening a "great divergence" between rich and poor nations and slowing economic recovery from the pandemic, the United Nations organization that monitors labor market developments said on Wednesday.

Vaccination campaigns have proved critical in aiding recovery of working hours and economic productivity. But uneven access to vaccines has resulted in a two-speed recovery for rich and poor countries according to Guy Ryder, the director of the International Labor Organization.

"We are building back worse at least as looked at from the perspective of the developing world," Mr. Ryder told reporters in Geneva, adding that he will be delivering that message to leaders of the Group of 20 summit, who will meet in Rome this weekend.

Worldwide, about 76 percent of shots that have gone into arms have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Only 0.5 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries.

The I.L.O. estimated in a report released Wednesday that for every 14 workers who were fully vaccinated in the second quarter of the year, one full-time job was added to the global labor market. By early October, it said, 34.5 percent of the world's population had been fully vaccinated but at rates that varied from 59.8 percent of the population in high-income countries to 1.8 percent in low income countries.

As a result, labor market recovery has stalled in 2021 and the number of hours worked this year are now expected to be far lower than previously estimated, the I.L.O. said.

Fiscal stimulus packages provided another key aid to recovery. But 86 percent of the stimulus available through these initiatives was concentrated in high-income economies, the organization said.

The I.L.O. said that with more equitable distribution of vaccines it would take low-income countries little more than three months to catch up with the pace of working hour recovery in rich countries.

The organization's findings echo the alarm expressed repeatedly by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, who has slammed the unequal delivery of Covid-19 vaccines as a "catastrophic moral failure" and set a target of vaccinating 40 percent of every country by the end of the year.

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Unequal vaccine access is widening the global economic gap, a U.N. agency says.

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Unequal access to coronavirus vaccines in developing countries is deepening a "great divergence" between rich and poor nations and slowing economic recovery from the pandemic, the United Nations organization that monitors labor market developments said on Wednesday. Vaccination campaigns have proved critical in aiding recovery of working hours and economic productivity.

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FoodCloud: Transforming Surplus into Opportunity - YouTube

Watch above video on Foodcloud as introduction to topic/learning outcome

Learning Outcome: Debate the ethical and sustainability issues that arise from their consumption of goods and services and evaluate how they can contribute to sustainable development through consumer behaviour

In pairs identify organisations which potentially have a lot of food waste who should be made aware of this service?

In pairs discuss what measures could be introduced to help reduce food waste by firms

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FoodCloud: Transforming Surplus into Opportunity

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https://youtu.be/7SvQSKaYbwE

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1. I will learn about sustainable household consumption of energy.
2. I will learn about costs benefit analysis of government economic policy with regard to clean energy.

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Learning outcome: 2.4

Learning intentions:
Explain what is meant by industrial relations.
Describe the benefits of good industrial relations to the employer and the employee.
Analyse the laws in Ireland that regulate industrial relations.
Examine the role of institutions involved in solving industrial relations issues.

Stimulus material:

student read articles and link to content.
Mentions Richard Grogan - link to TikTok videos:
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/0813/1240715-wrc-hears-of-woman-dismissed-over-covid-childcare-issue/

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/0928/1249499-wrc-orders-apple-to-compensate-former-employee/

encourage student to find their own examples through research.

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Learning Outcomes 1.9 and 1.10

Learning how our internet shopping can impact the environment through excessive packaging and reflecting on whether we really need the product we are purchasing?

Stimulus Materials - include YouTube videos highlighting issues and newspaper articles for recent statistics and measures.

In Class then use votes to guess statistics, walking debates, videos and projects to gain a full understanding on the topic.

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Plastic packaging waste - problems and statistics

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Learning Outcomes

1.9

2.7

2.8

2.9

Learning intentions

I will learn about planning in a business.

I will identify what is meant by the terms SWOT analysis and SMART goals.

I will conduct research of my own and carry out a SWOT analysis.

Pair work:

Conduct a SWOT analysis on an organisation of your choice -

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Learning outcomes 3.1 and 3.2

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In Norway you can drive in the bus lane, park for free and get a 25% tax break when you buy an electric car.

We've been taking a look beneath the bonnet of the Scandinavian country's electric car successes.
Video journalist: Simon Browning

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Why is Norway the land of electric cars?

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In Norway you can drive in the bus lane, park for free and get a 25% tax break when you buy an electric car. We've been taking a look beneath the bonnet of the Scandinavian country's electric car successes. Video journalist: Simon Browning

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https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/drone-successfully-delivers-medicine-to-aran-islands-in-lifesaving-first-1.4019916

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Sign up for alerts from The Irish Times

Just click on "Allow Notifications" on the message appearing on your browser to activate them.

We will send you a quick reminder in the future, in case you change your mind.

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Drone successfully delivers medicine to Aran Islands in 'lifesaving first'

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Sign up for alerts from The Irish Times Just click on "Allow Notifications" on the message appearing on your browser to activate them. We will send you a quick reminder in the future, in case you change your mind.

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Workers (pdst.ie) - Lots of very good activities and content detailed in the above when teaching this topic.

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1. We will define Clean Energy.
2. We will explore clean energy and government economic policy goals across the EU through this video https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en
3. We will examine SDG7 through the issue of clean energy developement.

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Striving to be the first climate-neutral continent

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. To overcome these challenges, the European Green Deal will transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy, ensuring:

no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050

economic growth decoupled from resource use

no person and no place left behind

The European Green Deal is also our lifeline out of the COVID-19 pandemic. One third of the €1.8 trillion investments from the NextGenerationEU Recovery Plan, and the EU's seven-year budget will finance the European Green Deal.

The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals to make the EU's climate, energy, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. More information on Delivering the European Green Deal.

Commission sets out key steps for managing climate risks to protect people and prosperity

12 March 2024 - The Commission has published a Communication on managing climate risks in Europe that sets out how the EU and its countries can implement policies that save lives, cut costs, and protect prosperity. It comes as a direct response to the first-ever European Climate Risk Assessment by the European Environment Agency. It also addresses the concerns that many Europeans have following last's year record temperatures and extreme weather events. The Commission is calling for action from all levels of government, the private sector and civil society to improve governance and tools for climate risk owners, manage risks across sectors and set the right preconditions to finance climate resilience.

Read more

Key figures

The first climate-neutral continent

net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels

additional trees to be planted in the EU by 2030

Timeline

1. The Council and the European Parliament reach a provisional political agreement on stricter CO2 emission performance standards for new cars and vans

2. The European Commission joins the European Climate Pact and pledges to make its operations climate neutral by 2030

3. Show 80 more items

Documents

Factsheets on Delivering the European Green Deal

Factsheet

A clear and complete repository of the thematic areas that are shaping the European Green Deal

Communication and roadmap on the European Green Deal

Download

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. To overcome these challenges, the European Green Deal will transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy, ensuring:

no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050

economic growth decoupled from resource use

no person and no place left behind

The European Green Deal is also our lifeline out of the COVID-19 pandemic. One third of the €1.8 trillion investments from the NextGenerationEU Recovery Plan, and the EU's seven-year budget will finance the European Green Deal.

Commission sets out key steps for managing climate risks to protect people and prosperity

12 March 2024 - The Commission has published a Communication on managing climate risks in Europe that sets out how the EU and its countries can implement policies that save lives, cut costs, and protect prosperity. It comes as a direct response to the first-ever European Climate Risk Assessment by the European Environment Agency. It also addresses the concerns that many Europeans have following last's year record temperatures and extreme weather events. The Commission is calling for action from all levels of government, the private sector and civil society to improve governance and tools for climate risk owners, manage risks across sectors and set the right preconditions to finance climate resilience.

Read more

Factsheets on Delivering the European Green Deal

Factsheet

A clear and complete repository of the thematic areas that are shaping the European Green Deal

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Discover the European Commission's proposals to transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy while reaching climate neutrality by 2050.

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Learning Outcomes:
2.1  Identify different types of financial, cultural and social enterprise and appreciate the role of each plays in society.
1.9  Debate the ethical and sustainability issues that arise from their consumption of goods and services and evaluate how they can contribute to sustainable development through consumer behaviour
2.2 Describe the skills and characteristics of being enterprising and appreciate the role of an entrepreneur in an organisation, in society and to the economy

Learning Intentions
- I will learn about social enterprises
- I will reflect on the impact of my shopping
- I identify the characteristics and skills of an entrepreneur.

Stimulus Material
FoodCloud Video
Image of the Sustainable Development Goals
Worksheet - profile of entreprenuer

How to use the stimulus

Video illustrates a very good example of a social enterprise.
Use image of SDG and ask students to identify which SDG is being targeted.
Students record characteristics and skills noted from the video
Students reflect on their consumption of food and how much waste is recorded.
Brainstorming task - students come up with ideas of how to use up common food items that go into the waste/compost bin - e.g. bananas, bread.

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What is FoodCloud? Meet founders Iseult and Aoibheann

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ir3KGrqXA

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Vaccine access divides rich and poor nations | DW News

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Learning Outcomes
-2.4

Learning Intentions
-I will learn about rights and responsibilities of employers and employees.

How might you use this stimulus material in class?
-Watch the video clip which will allow students to identify the rights of employees including pay, working conditions, etc.
-Answer questions on worksheet based on the video clip.

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1. Students research and present their key findings of the potential impact of the Green Deal.

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Students will learn about the role of technology in business and the constant change from old to newer cleaner, affordable and sustainable examining social environmental costs and viewing this through the Irish lens.

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LO: 1.7 & 1.9
I will learn about the impact fast fashion is having on worker rights

I will gain a knowledge of the hours being worked and how wages are being kept low

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Opinion: fast fashion brings catwalk styles quickly and cheaply to the High Street, but it's a process which comes at a huge human and social cost
Fast fashion refers to fashionable clothes that are designed and manufactured as quickly as possible and sold to consumers at extremely low prices. New fast fashion garments arrive in stores weekly or even daily. They cost so little that many people can afford to fill their wardrobes with new outfits several times a year and then throw them out as soon as they go out of style.

Fast fashion or disposable fashion has become the norm in Europe. Initially adopted by Zara and Primark, the strategy has spread throughout the entire fashion industry. The message inherent in fast fashion brands is that the items are cheap so it's OK to purchase them for only one wear.

While fast fashion clothing may not cost the consumer much, it comes at a high price. The real cost of a €5 t-shirt lies in the low wages, dangerous working conditions and misery brought on by immense pressure from brands to churn out clothing for the lowest cost.

The rapid growth of globalisation since the 1980s has allowed large scale companies to shift the bulk of their production to the developing world. There, they can take advantage of lax regulations, as well as labour and factory costs, which are a fraction of those in Europe. Many fashion companies have stopped in-house production and instead have suppliers in developing countries manufacture for them.

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Trailer for The True Cost, Andrew Morgan's 2015 documentary that focuses on fast fashion and explores the life of low-wage workers in developing countries
Globalisation has hugely strengthened the negotiating hand of retailers and brand companies and opened up the number of countries and factories they can buy from. This has created a growing number of developing world factories competing for a place in their supply chain. Fashion brands and retailers have tremendous power in negotiations and can demand faster more flexible deliveries at lower cost. Under such pressures, the smaller factory owners typically pass on the costs and risks to the weakest links in the chain: the workers they employ.

Until the 1990s, most fashion labels produced two main collections a year. However, today retailers need to compete not only on price but on their ability to be responsive and "refresh" products. Consumer demand is driven by the instant coverage of fashion weeks and street style in fashion magazines and online. Brands such as Zara, H&M, New Look, ASOS and Topshop compete against each other for market share by introducing more lines per year at lower costs, culminating in a situation where fashion retailers now offer up to 50 collections a year.

It used to take six months to bring new designs to the store, but the fast fashion brands manage to bring interpretations of catwalk designs to stores today in a minimum of two to three weeks

Retailers monitor demand for products using instore point-of-sale data which allows them to identify successful new products. Even when demand indicates that further supply is required for the same product, many retailers cannot resist 'tweaking' the product specification; making style adjustments to match the fashion of the moment. The supplier factories must be hyper-sensitive to cope with last minute orders with shorter lead times and last minute changes.

These developing-world suppliers would never tell a retailer that an order is too difficult, so workers simply must finish it. Suppliers manage this uncertainty and demand for flexibility by forcing workers to work long hours up to 18 hours a day. Oxfam report that a seven day working week is often the norm during peak times. Overtime is usually compulsory and workers penalised if they refuse to work it. In December 2010, the Clean Clothes Campaign reported that Zara and H&M sourced from a Bangladeshi factory where a fire killed 25 workers and injured another hundred. Many of these workers were unable to escape as exits had been locked.

Bangladeshi female workers clocking in for work at a garment factory for work in Gazipur on the outskirts of Dhaka in February 2018. Photo: Mehedi Hasan/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Prices on the high street have fallen dramatically in the last decade. The fast fashion retailers are known for their aggressive pricing strategies, selling 30 to 50 percent below the old fashion mid-market. Garment factories located in developing countries respond to this price pressure by keeping wages as low as possible, often resulting in workers eking out an existence on starvation wages. NGOs have reported on Bangladeshi sewing machine operators working for 90-100 hours a week yet not having enough to live on for the month. Often workers will accept lower wages and poorer working conditions rather than lose their job.

Occasionally, workers demand higher wages sometimes precipitating violence between protestors and police. Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), a group of trade unions and labour rights activists, reported how workers were killed in Cambodia during clashes with paramilitary groups and police following factory protests.

Consumers enjoy the speeding up of fashion and it is difficult not to get sucked in by the lure of low cost when retailers offer €5 t-shirts. But when one considers the garment production process, it is impossible to comprehend how a €5 t-shirt could cover production and transportation costs, let alone allow for a living wage and produce a profit for the brand. In The True Cost, a garment worker in Bangladesh says "these clothes were made with our blood". She is not wrong.

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From RTÉ Radio One's Morning Ireland in 2013, Jim Clarken, Chief Executive of Oxfam Ireland, talks about how retailers must take responsibility for working conditions of suppliers
In 2012 and 2013, three devastating disasters in garment industry history made the international news, including the Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed 1,138 garment workers and injured 2,600 more. Around the world, people expressed horror at hearing of the unsafe working conditions and misery of those people making their clothes. Despite this, the industry has grown 21 percent in the last three years.

After the disaster, the Rana Plaza Arrangement was established to collect compensation from the fashion companies who had recent orders with the garment factories in the collapsed building. Clean Clothes Campaign report that reluctant fashion brands only paid into the fund after some vigorous campaigning. Despite promises from European fashion brands, improvements to factories are behind schedule and activists stress that chances of another disaster like Rana Plaza remain high. Although some fast fashion retailers acknowledge that garment workers need better wages, no company has committed to date to providing a living wage.

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A RTÉ Brainstorm video based on this article
Civil society organisations are working hard to bring about better working conditions in the fashion industry but, in order to make real change, consumers must get involved in the campaign for more ethically produced clothing. In the words of The True Cost, "we can do better than this."
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

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Opinion: fast fashion brings catwalk styles quickly and cheaply to the High Street, but it's a process which comes at a huge human and social cost Fast fashion refers to fashionable clothes that are designed and manufactured as quickly as possible and sold to consumers at extremely low prices.

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Learning outcomes:
1.9    2.5      3.1

Learning intentions:

I will learn how to be more sustainable with packaging.

I will be more aware of where I can reuse packaging.

I will become more familiar with the recycling symbols on packaging.

How might you use this stimulus material in class?

Use the video to give students idea's on how to reduce, reuse and recycle. It will also show them the impact our rubbish is having on the earth.

Have a debate on increasing costs of goods to improve sustainability.

Have a worksheet to accompany the video asking them questions on material mentioned in the video.

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10 promising ideas to reuse packaging | Circular economy examples Sustainability

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https://food.cloud/about

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FoodCloud is a social enterprise with a mission to transform surplus food into opportunities to make the world a kinder place.

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Learning Outcomes 2.4 & 2.6

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Learning outcomes 1.7, 2.7, 2.8 & 3.1.. Niall

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We believe plastic bottles are the right choice for our drinks - they're easy to recycle and have a lower carbon footprint than glass. Find out how we're going to collect and recycle every bottle we make.

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2.4 Distinguish between rights and responsibilities of employer and employee from legal, social, environmental and ethical perspective. 2.5 Investigate the positive and negative impacts on a community of an organisation from economic, social and environmental perspective

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2.4 Distinguish between rights and responsibilities of employer and employee from legal, social, environmental and ethical perspective. 2.5 Investigate the positive and negative impacts on a community of an organisation from economic, social and environmental perspective

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LO 1.10 + 2.4

Learning Intentions
- I will understand rights and responsibilities of an employer from an environmental perspective
- I will be able to explain the term globalisation
- I will be able to explain the impact of globalisation on consumer choice

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Gender Inequality in the workplace.
Learning Outcomes: 2.3.
Investigate gender inequality in the workplace.
Explore Discrimination in the workplace.
Students to understand employees and employers rights and responsibilities.

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https://foodwastecharter.ie/irelands-food-waste/

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IRELAND'S FOOD WASTE - Food Waste Charter

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For Ireland to reduce its food waste we need everyone to participate. Make a pledge to reduce food waste and sign Ireland's Food Waste Charter today.

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Learning Outcomes: 1.1, 1.9 and 2.4, 2.5

Learning Intentions:

-  I will reflect on my own needs and wants when making purchasing decisions

- I will explore how my purchasing decision impact society

-  I will reflect on the companies I use and how they are impacting society and the production of clothes.

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Fashion Lovers Experience Working In A Sweat Shop | Blood Sweat, And T-Shirts S1 EP1 | Only Human

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https://www.thejournal.ie/bread-food-waste-epa-5218096-Sep2020/

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Bread is Ireland's most wasted food with 41% of people admitting they throw it out

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We seemed to be less wasteful with food during lockdown.

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Learning Outcome:

1.9

2.4

Learning Intentions:

I will learn about consumer responsibilities and the impact of our consumer choices on producers.

I will learn about the impact an organisation like Fairtrade can have on the communities it works with.

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Playing Fair - The story of Fairtrade footballs

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Learning Intention 1.7, 1.9

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A mountain of discarded clothing including Christmas jumpers and ski boots cuts a strange sight in Chile's Atacama, the driest desert in the world, which is increasingly suffering from pollution created by fast fashion.

The social impact of rampant consumerism in the clothing industry, such as child labour in factories or derisory wages, is well-known, but the disastrous effect on the environment is less publicised.

Chile has long been a hub of secondhand and unsold clothing, made in China or Bangladesh and passing through Europe, Asia or the United States before arriving in Chile, where it is resold around Latin America.

Some 59,000 tonnes of clothing arrive each year at the Iquique port in the Alto Hospicio free zone in northern Chile.

Clothing merchants from the capital Santiago, 1,800km to the south, buy some, while much is smuggled out to other Latin American countries. But at least 39,000 tonnes that cannot be sold end up in rubbish dumps in the desert.

Clothing, either synthetic or treated with chemicals, can take 200 years to biodegrade and is as toxic as discarded tires or plastics

"This clothing arrives from all over the world," Alex Carreno, a former employee in the port's import area, told AFP.

"What is not sold to Santiago nor sent to other countries stays in the free zone" as no one pays the necessary tariffs to take it away.

"The problem is that the clothing is not biodegradable and has chemical products, so it is not accepted in the municipal landfills," said Franklin Zepeda, the founder of EcoFibra, a company that makes insulation panels using discarded clothing.

"I wanted to stop being the problem and start being the solution," he told AFP about the firm he created in 2018.
Water waste
According to a 2019 UN report, global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014, and the industry is "responsible for 20% of total water waste on a global level".

To make a single pair of jeans requires 7,500 litres of water.

The same report said that clothing and footwear manufacturing contributes 8% of global greenhouse gases, and that "every second, an amount of textiles equivalent to a garbage truck is buried or burnt".

Whether the clothing piles are left out in the open or buried underground, they pollute the environment, releasing pollutants into the air or underground water channels.

Clothing, either synthetic or treated with chemicals, can take 200 years to biodegrade and is as toxic as discarded tires or plastics.

Not all the clothing goes to waste: some of the poorest people from this region of 300,000 inhabitants pick through the dumps to find things they need or can sell in their local neighborhood.

Venezuelan migrants Sofia and Jenny, who crossed into Chile only a few days earlier on a 350km journey, search through a clothing pile as their babies crawl over it.

The women are looking for "things for the cold", given the desert's nighttime temperatures drop to levels unheard of in their tropical homeland.
Changing attitudes
Chile, the richest country in South America, is known for the voracious consumerism of its inhabitants.

Fast fashion advertising "has helped to convince us that clothing makes us more attractive, that it makes us stylish and even cures our anxiety," said Monica Zarini, who makes lamp shades, notebooks, containers and bags from recycled clothing.

Things are changing, though, according to Rosario Hevia, who opened a store to recycle children's clothes before founding in 2019 Ecocitex, a company that creates yarn from pieces of discarded textiles and clothing in a poor state. The process uses neither water nor chemicals.

"For many years we consumed, and no one seemed to care that more and more textile waste was being generated," she said.

"But now, people are starting to question themselves."

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Fast fashion leftovers dumped in Chilean desert

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A mountain of discarded clothing including Christmas jumpers and ski boots cuts a strange sight in Chile's Atacama, the driest desert in the world, which is increasingly suffering from pollution created by fast fashion.

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Learning Outcomes:
1.1
1.9

Learning Intentions:
- Outline unethical behavior from the video.
- Examine how this impacts people, the planet, and profit.
- Discuss the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility for Businesses in 2022
- Examine Nikes stance on unethical behavior and CSR in 2022. Link to website. Compare and Contrast.
- Student reflection on the changes Nike made and what changes consumers can make.

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Nike News - Corporate Responsibility News

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Your source for the latest NIKE, Inc. stories, news and company information.

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learning outcome 1.7

Learning intentions:
discussion about what fast fashion is
Effects of fast fashion on society
What do you feel when you see this image.
What should / could be done with this clothes desert.

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Learning Outcomes

2.4

2.5

2.8

Learning intentions

I will learn about business sustainability and the impact on the community and environment

Stimulus Material

https://lidlsteps.ie/

Student Work

Video – Identify 5 interesting points

Webquest  - students navigate the Lidl Steps website and find specific information.

Research Project - Select one area (card) and create a powerpoint

Review Lidl Steps Join the Journey   -What can you do?

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Know Your Rights: Rights and Protections for Temporary Workers

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1.4 and 2.4

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LO:
1.7; 1.9; 2.5

Learning Intentions:
- I will understand and appreciate the impact of single use plastic on the environment.
- I will learn about my responsibilities as a consumer in buying single use plastic.
- I will investigate and compile ways in which I can reduce my use of single use plastic.

Individual work - Ask family and friends about their use of single use plastic.

Pair Work - Create questions for a Forms survey for classmates to get a picture on single use plastic waste their school community.

Group work - Poster Awareness campaign around the school
highlighting single use plastic and how it impacts the environment

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What really happens to the plastic you throw away - Emma Bryce

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I will be able to identify the rights & responsibilities of employer and employee from legal, social, environmental and ethical perspective.

I will learn about the positive and negative impacts from an organisational, economical and social perspective