Why You Should Use Reusable Shopping Bags

Why You Should Use Reusable Shopping Bags The next time the clerk at your favorite grocery store asks whether you prefer â€Å"paper or plastic† for your purchases, consider giving the truly eco-friendly response and saying, â€Å"neither.† Plastic bags end up as litter that fouls the landscape and kill thousands of marine animals every year that mistake the floating bags for food. Plastic bags that get buried in landfills may take up to 1,000 years to break down, and in the process, they separate into smaller and smaller toxic particles that contaminate soil and water. Furthermore, the production of plastic bags consume millions of gallons of oil that could be used for fuel and heating. Is Paper Better Than Plastic? Paper bags, which many people consider a better alternative to plastic bags, carry their own set of environmental problems. For example, according to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, which adds up to a lot of trees, plus a lot of water and chemicals to process the paper. Reusable Bags Are a Better Option But if you decline both paper and plastic bags, then how do you get your groceries home? The answer, according to many environmentalists, is high-quality reusable shopping bags made of materials that don’t harm the environment during production and don’t need to be discarded after each use. You can find a good selection of high-quality reusable bags online, or at most grocery stores, department stores, and food co-operatives. Experts estimate that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed and discarded annually worldwide- more than a million per minute. Here are a few facts about plastic bags to help demonstrate the value of reusable bags to consumers and the environment: Plastic bags are not biodegradable. They actually go through a process called photodegradation- breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic particles that contaminate both soil and water, and end up entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. Of those, approximately 100 billion are plastic shopping bags, which cost retailers about $4 billion annually.According to various estimates, Taiwan consumes 20 billion plastic bags annually (900 per person), Japan consumes 300 billion bags each year (300 per person), and Australia consumes 6.9 billion plastic bags annually (326 per person).Hundreds of thousands of whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and other marine mammals die every year after eating discarded plastic bags they mistake for food.Discarded plastic bags have become so common in Africa they have spawned a cottage industry. People there collec t the bags and use them to weave hats, bags, and other goods. According to the BBC, one such group routinely collects 30,000 bags every month. Plastic bags as litter have even become commonplace in Antarctica and other remote areas. According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone from being rare in the late 1980s and early 1990s to being almost everywhere in Antarctica. Some governments have recognized the severity of the problem and are taking action to help combat it. Strategic Taxes Can Cut Plastic Bag Use In 2001, for example, Ireland was using 1.2 billion plastic bags annually, about 316 per person. In 2002, the Irish government imposed a plastic bag consumption tax (called a PlasTax), which has reduced consumption by 90 percent. The tax of $.15 per bag is paid by consumers when they check out at the store. Besides cutting back on litter, Ireland’s tax has saved approximately 18 million liters of oil. Several other governments around the world are now considering a similar tax on plastic bags. Governments Use the Law to Limit Plastic Bags More recently, Japan passed a law that empowers the government to issue warnings to merchants that overuse plastic bags and don’t do enough to â€Å"reduce, reuse, or recycle.† In Japanese culture, it is common for stores to wrap each item in its own bag, which the Japanese consider a matter of both good hygiene and respect or politeness. Companies Making Tough Choices Meanwhile, some eco-friendly companies- such as Toronto’s Mountain Equipment Co-op- are voluntarily exploring ethical alternatives to plastic bags, turning to biodegradable bags made from corn. The corn-based bags cost several times more than plastic bags, but are produced using much less energy and will break down in landfills or composters in four to 12 weeks. Edited by Frederic Beaudry

The Italian Phonetic Alphabet - How to Spell

The Italian Phonetic Alphabet - How to Spell Bravissimo! You finally learned how to use the phone in Italy. Like many other Italians you pass on the street who have a cellphone attached to his ear, you can now discuss the most banal moments of the day. You quickly discover, though, that there are times when, no matter how clearly you pronounce Italian words, the person on the other end of the line cannot understand you. It could be static, it could be because youre skiing in the Dolomites or traveling by hydrofoil to the island of Stromboli and reception is poor. But you need to make yourself understood, otherwise youll miss out on those tickets to opening night at La Scala. Fortunately, theres the alfabeto fonetico- the Italian phonetic alphabet. Ancona, Bologna, CataniaMention the phonetic alphabet to a native-English speaker, and the first phrase that comes to mind is: Alpha Bravo Charlie. It stands for ABC, and is used in the military to avoid miscommunication. Its also frequently used by anyone speaking on the phone (to a customer service represenative, for instance) to spell out words (or portions of those words) to confirm the correct spelling. If its necessary to sound out the spelling of a word in Italian, by convention the following cities (typically provincial capital cities)- or alternate terms- are most commonly used to refer to each letter of the alphabet. The list of cities is not fixed, though, and even native-Italian speakers sometimes disagree about which cities to refer to. Therefore instead of Catania, one could also use Como, Capri or any other well known location. The only rule is to avoid a letter/town combination that could be mistaken for a different pair. Italian Phonetic AlphabetA come AnconaB come Bologna (or Bari or Brescia)C come Catania (or Como)D come DomodossolaE come Empoli (or Enna)F come FirenzeG come GenovaH come Hotel (acca)I come ImolaJ (gei or i lunga) come jolly (the joker in Italian card games) (or Jugoslavia)K (kappa) come KursaalL come LivornoM come MilanoN come NapoliO come OtrantoP come Palermo (or Padova or Pisa)Q come QuadernoR come RomaS come Savona (Sassari or Siena)T come Torino (Taranto)U come UdineV come Venezia (Verona)W (vi/vu doppio) come Washington (Wagner)X (ics) come Xanto (xilofono)Y come ipsilon (York or yacht)Z come Zara (Zurigo or zeta)

They Say, I Say Homework Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

They Say, I Say Homework - Assignment Example A critical and intellectual thinker deduces consequences and makes useful information from what is available. A critical thinker engaging in debates and conversations cannot be confused by what others are saying, but will instead lead to a cooperative reasoning and strengthen the argument (Graff & Birkenstein 3). It involves coming into terms with the views presented. Even though one is at peace with what is presented, fresh ideas or evidence are necessary. The new ideas makes one a valuable contributor in the conversation (Graff & Birkenstein 7). A Combination of both agree and disagree makes the participants in an argument go beyond just responding for the sake of doing it. They do so with detailed evidence and reasons (Graff & Birkenstein 9). By saying â€Å"entering a conversation†, the authors refer to joining an ongoing conversation. They explain one does it by first listening and internalizing the ongoing discussion before making a contribution. What one needs to pay close attention to are the views of the other participants. What they say forms the basis of any views to be made (Graff & Birkenstein 3). The conversation they are talking about is academic writing, for example, argumentative essay

Customer Relationship Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Customer Relationship Management - Essay Example Customer relationship management also serves to evaluate the consumer as a means of providing them with the products which would be most suited to their demographic or psychographic profile (Coravue Inc., 2007). Generally this is accomplished by reviewing browsing habits stored in mass databases or reviewing comments left by customers on company websites. In the bricks-and-mortar sales environment, evaluating customer habits can sometimes be as easy as reviewing a credit card statement or sales history over a period of days or weeks. However, who really cares about customer relationship management' PepsiCo should, as there is little evidence that the company maintains a focus on CRM other than through brand-building exercises which appear to give the impression that PepsiCo products are more commodities than tools for building customer satisfaction and loyalty. Evidence suggests that PepsiCo, despite their extended, global reach and wide variety of subsidiaries and brand varieties, requires significant adjustment to existing CRM policies. This paper assesses the overall importance of customer relationship management whilst applying CRM literature to the current marketing environment at PepsiCo. Recommendations for improvements in CRM focus at the firm will also be proposed. Technological develo... elopments are generally the key to successful CRM programmes, allowing for business communications regarding CRM focus to be distributed as well as maintaining an adequate database of consumer-related information. The Internet, additionally, allows organisations to use real-time customer interaction, through a series of integrated communications messages, to support the brand's image (Turner, 2008). From the technological perspective, customer relationship management is about having the software support necessary to extend the brand/company experience into new areas of streamlined payment systems or interactive, entertaining product websites. PepsiCo is quite competent in its interactive marketing focus, developing a wide variety of contest websites, interactive product design websites (allowing consumers to interact in a virtual design environment), and countless others. For instance, the company utilised a promotional incentive by printing various codes on the tops of its Pepsi brand products, allowing customers to visit the corresponding website to win various prizes (Harwood, 2006). In this particular campaign, PepsiCo received 15 million entries, which suggests that the campaign was a tremendous success. It would be a likely assessment that much of the registration information regarding consumers was stored in a database in the event of requiring information for other promotional offers or incentives. Some might argue that promotional literature and interactive contest websites would not be included in CRM, however in terms of the successes of the Pepsi-Cola brand, these types of promotional activities are creating connection with consumer lifestyle and with the company itself. One need only visit a legitimate PepsiCo product website to witness an enormous

CAM and the Medical Community :: Medicine Medical Health Essays

CAM and the Medical Community Alternative, complementary, and integrative healing are all part of a well debated but poorly researched area of medicine. Doctors of the conventional American and European medical communities have been long prone to dismiss unconventional healing methods such as acupuncture, herbal supplements, and massage therapy as ineffective, or outright crackpot methods of treating illness. The view of the medical community, however, seems to have little impact of the growing popularity of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) among patients. An increasing number of people in the United States and Europe have been turning to these treatments in addition to or instead of traditional Western medicine. The sheer popularity of CAM has forced the medical community to better examine the acceptance of CAM in medicine. CAM encompasses a wide range of healing methods from acupuncture to massage therapy to herbal remedies such as St. Johnà ­s Wort and Echinacea. Many of these remedies have been around for centuries. In the case of Acupuncture, there have been regulations on acupuncture in China and Japan for years. However, since many of these procedures have not been proven à ¬scientificallyà ®, western medicine had largely rejected the remedies as being effective forms of treatment. One professor of medicine at the Rabin Medical Center likened CAM to beliefs in magic and superstition that medicine relied on before modern scientific advances. "The deep model of Alternative medicine is anthropocentric magic. The explanations of the practitioners of alternate medicine are giving patients a set of magical rules to control the physical world, rules that have the human as the fulcrum."(1). In this article, he argues that alternative medicine is fraudulent, impossible to prove in clinical trials, and t herefore, unacceptable even on the fringes of modern medicine. Arguments to the contrary have grown increasingly louder as acupuncture, holistic therapies, and herbal remedies grow popular in the western markets. Most of these remedies and treatments have been around for centuries, so there must arguably be some healing properties to these treatments. People turn to CAM treatments when western medicine fails them. CAM provides people with more options and gives them hope for remedy. One argument for the acceptance of CAM is the Psychological impact it has on its patients. Herbal treatments and acupuncture give people hope for alleviation of their symptoms. One example of this can be seen at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. They provide their cancer patients acupuncture, massage therapy, yoga, and other CAM services in addition to their chemotherapy treatments. CAM and the Medical Community :: Medicine Medical Health Essays CAM and the Medical Community Alternative, complementary, and integrative healing are all part of a well debated but poorly researched area of medicine. Doctors of the conventional American and European medical communities have been long prone to dismiss unconventional healing methods such as acupuncture, herbal supplements, and massage therapy as ineffective, or outright crackpot methods of treating illness. The view of the medical community, however, seems to have little impact of the growing popularity of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) among patients. An increasing number of people in the United States and Europe have been turning to these treatments in addition to or instead of traditional Western medicine. The sheer popularity of CAM has forced the medical community to better examine the acceptance of CAM in medicine. CAM encompasses a wide range of healing methods from acupuncture to massage therapy to herbal remedies such as St. Johnà ­s Wort and Echinacea. Many of these remedies have been around for centuries. In the case of Acupuncture, there have been regulations on acupuncture in China and Japan for years. However, since many of these procedures have not been proven à ¬scientificallyà ®, western medicine had largely rejected the remedies as being effective forms of treatment. One professor of medicine at the Rabin Medical Center likened CAM to beliefs in magic and superstition that medicine relied on before modern scientific advances. "The deep model of Alternative medicine is anthropocentric magic. The explanations of the practitioners of alternate medicine are giving patients a set of magical rules to control the physical world, rules that have the human as the fulcrum."(1). In this article, he argues that alternative medicine is fraudulent, impossible to prove in clinical trials, and t herefore, unacceptable even on the fringes of modern medicine. Arguments to the contrary have grown increasingly louder as acupuncture, holistic therapies, and herbal remedies grow popular in the western markets. Most of these remedies and treatments have been around for centuries, so there must arguably be some healing properties to these treatments. People turn to CAM treatments when western medicine fails them. CAM provides people with more options and gives them hope for remedy. One argument for the acceptance of CAM is the Psychological impact it has on its patients. Herbal treatments and acupuncture give people hope for alleviation of their symptoms. One example of this can be seen at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. They provide their cancer patients acupuncture, massage therapy, yoga, and other CAM services in addition to their chemotherapy treatments.

Starbucks CSAs and FSAs

Their lifestyle, fashion nd actress activity would be preference for people who are really fanatic with their culture. Besides that, their military equipment and technology always make other nation worried and respect to this country. Lastly, coffee addicted among American people and society. Starbucks firm specific (FSAs) advantages are location of their coffee house. Most of Starbucks coffee house are located in strategic area like urban area. This location has high traffic that can be easily reach and access by customer.Then, Starbucks offer high quality of facility and convenience to their customer. The mbience in the coffee house can make people relax and enjoy having a meeting and doing their work. Furthermore, the brand name of Starbucks itself is their FSA. When enter in the coffee house, we feel like in American style and perception that people that drink Starbucks coffee are wealth people. The chain's success of Starbucks for those advantages is because of the strong cultur e of drink coffee for American and Italian people.This culture gives an opportunity for Starbucks to increase their chain success. Then, convenience that they offer to their customer. Starbucks usually would e destination point for doing a meeting and doing homework. The ambience inside the coffee house really comfortable and encourage people to visit their shop. Besides that, location of the Starbucks coffee house really strategic that place in high traffic area. This area can be easily reach and access by customer. As a result, Starbucks increase their chain success in the U.S. market. Question 2 How internationally mobile is the Starbucks concept? Any barrier to entry? Starbucks Corporation is an American global coffee company and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world. The first Starbucks opened in Seattle, Washington, on March 30, 1971 by three partners that met while students at the University of San Francisco: English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker.The three were inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment by coffee roasting entrepreneur Alfred Peet after he taught them his style of roasting beans. Originally the company was to be called Pequod, after a whaling ship from Moby-Dick, but this name was rejected by some of the co-founders. The company was instead named after the chief mate on the Pequod, Starbuck. From 1971-1976, the first Starbucks was at 2000 Western Avenue. It then moved to 1912 Pike Place Market; it then was sell.During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans from Peet's, then began buying directly from growers. The first Starbucks location outside North America opened in Tokyo, Japan, in 1996. Starbucks entered the U. K. market in 1998 with the $83 million acquisition of the then 65-outlet, UK-based Seattle Coffee Company, re-branding all the stores as Starbucks. In September 2002, Starbuc ks opened its first store in Latin America, at Mexico City. In 1999, Starbucks experimented with eateries in the San Francisco Bay area through a restaurant chain called Circadia.These restaurants were soon â€Å"outed† as Starbucks establishments and converted to Starbucks cafes. In October 2002, Starbucks established a coffee trading company in Lausanne, Switzerland to handle purchases of green coffee. All other coffee-related business continued to be managed from Seattle. In April 2003, Starbucks completed the purchase of Seattle's Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia from AFC Enterprises for $72m. The deal only gained 150 stores for Starbucks, but according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the wholesale business was more significant.In September 2006, rival Diedrich Coffee announced that it would sell most of its company-owned retail stores to Starbucks. This sale includes the company-owned locations of the Oregon-based Coffee People chain. Starbucks converted the Diedric h Coffee and Coffee People locations to Starbucks, although the Portland airport Coffee People locations were excluded from the sale. In August 2003, Starbucks opened its first store in South America in Lima, Peru. In 2007, the company pened its first store in Russia, ten years after first registering a trademark there.In March 2008 they purchased the manufacturer of the Clover Brewing System. They began testing the â€Å"fresh-pressed† coffee system at several Starbucks locations in Seattle, California, New York and Boston. In early 2008, Starbucks started a community website, My Starbucks Idea, designed to collect suggestions and feedback from customers. Other users comment and vote on suggestions. Journalist Jack Schofield noted that â€Å"My Starbucks seems to be all sweetness and light at the moment, which I dont think is possible without quite a lot of censorship†. The website is powered by the Salesforce software.In May 2008, a loyalty program was introduced for registered users of the Starbucks Card (previously simply a gift card) offering perks such as free Wi-Fi Internet access, no charge for soy milk ; flavored syrups, and free refills on brewed drip coffee or tea. A store in Seattle known for its use of the corporation's new ideas reopened in the fall 2010 with a modified interior design in which the espresso machines were placed in the middle of the store. On November 14, 2012, Starbucks announced it will purchase Teavana for $620 million ollars in cash and the deal was formally closed on December 31, 2012.Question 3 Franchising would seem a natural entry mode for Starbucks, but the chain sometimes arrangement where one party (the franchiser) grants another party (the franchisee) the right to use its trademark or trade-name as well as certain business systems and processes, to produce and market a good or service according to certain specifications. The advantage of franchising that Starbucks would receive is easy to control. Starbuc ks can reduce their difficulty to control their coffee house at around the world by franchising method. Then, can standardize their product or service to all franchise.This will help to maintain and standardize their high quality of product and service that will increase customer loyalty. Besides that, rapid expansion for Starbucks company to increase their market. In todays marketplace, the window of opportunity for a new or unique business concept closes very quickly. Franchising permits multiple units to be opened simultaneously, gaining a foothold over would-be competitors. The disadvantage of franchising is the cost of maintaining and developing company owned units is very expensive and often difficult to obtain. There are also many potential problems associated with the franchising system.The franchisor will lose freedom of operation unless they establish a franchise system. The franchise agreement or contract will become a legal document binding the franchisor and the franchi see to specific business codes and conducts. The franchisor will also be faced with recruitment in signing of good franchisees. One of the most difficult situations a franchisor will also face is how to deal with disgruntled franchisees. Then, a problem associated with franchising is simply the communication which must exist between a franchisor and franchisee. Question 4 Do Illy and Starbucks compete or not?How likely are they to compete in the future? No, Illy and Starbucks not compete with each other. It is because both are in different business mode although both sell coffee. For Illycaffe, they enter the U. S market mainly through 82B. Most of their products are sell to hotel, cafes, restaurant and coffee house. They are focusing on b2b business that is different with Starbucks. So, for customer that really want to purchase and taste the true coffee from Illycaffe product they need to purchase it either from hotel, restaurant or cafes that cooperate with Illycaffe brand. For th e other side, Starbucks entered U. S. arket mainly through retail market and dominates the market. Starbucks product can be directly purchase by customer from their coffee house because of their focusing on B2C business. Starbucks sell their product directly to end user that is different from Illycaffe. As a result, both company are not directly compete in the market although sell almost same product. In the future, Starbucks and Illycaffe are going to compete about their product for example new innovation in coffee taste. Then, service offering would be the element that they compete in the future. Besides that, loyalty from the ustomer will differentiate between both companies.If you were Andrea Illy, what strategic plan would you develop? The strategic plan that should be considered must be perform internal and external analysis of the company. The company would be affected by political, economic, social and technological changes. The strategic plan should be concern about all of those factors. In order for the company to maintain their competitive edge, it has to remain the innovative skills and continue offering new differentiated products. Besides that, investing in its partners and its ethical values towards the environment would be a ood plan.Furthermore, Illycaffe also need to strengthen their distribution channel to access and reach all potential customers. Then, Illycaffe also should involved and compete in the retail market. This retail market has a large opportunity to expend their business and territory area. Understand and adapt their product with local culture and taste of their market needs. Then, making the export coffee more suitable for the market region to ensure their product can be accepted by local people. Lastly, increase their service offering and high quality of convenience to attract customer enter their coffee house.

Modern World Of The Islamic And Arabic World A Bit Of A...

Centuries of colonialism, Eurocentrism, and global policing has given the European world, particularly the Anglosphere, a bit of a hero-complex. There is an all too common way of thinking that, within the past couple of decades or so, European and American political, cultural, and military forces have just begun a cultural infiltration of the previously isolated and primitive Middle East. It is believed by many that western entities are modernizing the Middle East. The veracity, utility, and morality of such actions will not be discussed here. What will be discussed is that the inverse of that assumption is true: it is as a result of centuries of progress in the Islamic and Arabic world that modern global society as a whole exists today. It is common knowledge that it is the European Renaissance to which we owe our modern understanding of science, mathematics, and medicine, as well as the technology that makes our lives possible today. This â€Å"rebirth†, so to speak, was ins pired by a multitude a factors, but a key catalyst was the reintroduction and study of classical Greek texts. As such, there is a common cut-and-dry view of the history of knowledge as having sprung from Hellenic Greece, having laid dormant after the fall of Rome, and suddenly reemerging in Europe in the fourteenth century (Van Ness Meyers). There are many problems with this mode of thinking (the first being that western thought did not spontaneously arise in Greece, but may have originated in Ancient