These days we talk about nothing else. The blockade in the Suez Canal.
I was 10 years old when I saw the canal and was shocked by the man-made artificial 'wound'.
They 'calmed me down' by explaining to me that it was an important engineering work to save fuel for ships which instead of circumnavigating Africa to get to Europe, cut thousands of km.
The answer did not satisfy my disappointment. But only in adulthood did I understand why I didn't like what they told me and for this reason I decided that it was my civic and human duty to believe, create and promote a circular economy.
Have you ever read Rose George's book called "Ninety Percent of Everything - Inside the Invisible Industry That Brings You the Clothes You Wear, the Gas in Your Car, and the Food on Your Plate"
This English journalist's experience aboard a cargo ship, such as the one stuck in the strait, has brought to light a truth that has never been addressed in the various international environmental agreements.
90% of the goods you find on the market travel on cargo ships that move slowly thanks to gigantic engines that pollute in an unimaginable way.
Try to think that 1 of these ships, to bring goods from China to Italy, pollutes like 4 million cars.
Many large European companies use these ships to ship their raw material to Asia, to process it and then come back and put it on the market.
And do you know why?
Certainly because labor is cheap in Asia, but above all because the fuel used by container ships, called oil "bunker or impure blood of globalization" is the product that remains after refining petrol, naphtha and diesel. It is the most polluting petroleum product due to the presence of metals, ashes and sulphur, which it releases into the environment when it burns.
The huge freighters use it because it costs a trifle and allows you to ensure world trade at lower costs and justify moving goods from one continent to another, just to make it work.
Thousands of these ships circulate in the seas of the planet.
Try to think that it would be enough to reduce naval traffic by 0.35% to obtain the same result as the global conversion to the electric car in terms of planet pollution.
And YOU, what can you do to boycott this sick raw material management system and help our planet in a concrete way?
Buy from local, sustainable companies that have made an ethical and circular trade their life mission.
If you are about to go out and buy what you need to celebrate this Easter, REFLECT! Before buying the cheapest product that perhaps to be such, he traveled around the world.
We are the consumers and if we stop buying imported products that have traveled hundreds of thousands of kilometers on a ship or an airplane, we can stop this havoc.
We consumers are the ones who move supply and demand.
If you DON'T look for and DON'T buy a product that comes from the other side of the world, no company will continue to offer it to you.
Happy conscious Easter!
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