Cosmetic Greenness

On Saturday I went to do my normal weekend shopping at the co-op in the Wallsend Forum when I came across North Tyneside making the effort to be green and, as usual, getting it all wrong.
Firstly I have to applaud North Tyneside Council for getting the "Big Spring Clean" going and giving responsibility to the communities of North Tyneside to keep thing neat and tidy. A a Green I whole heartedly approve of this and hope to join in with the communities on their clean up days information about which you can find on their website at www.northtyneside.gov.uk under "Big Spring Clean" I assume because it doesn't actually say so.
So what was wrong with it? As an incentive I was given a very nice hessian shopping bag which I will be putting to good use once I have managed to ease the fibers out a bit. I then took a look inside this rather nice bag and found a pen and a "Rainbow Spring" toy both of which I will be making use of. But how green are they? Let's consider the pen. The barrel and pocket clip are both made of what appears to be a paper composite which is excellent as it will be easy to recycle, or even put onto the compost heap [maybe?] but the pen also is made of plastic and metal components that make it almost impossible to recycle so it will have to either be burnt or go to landfill with all the environmental consequences of these forms of disposal - and they gave away a large number of pens on Saturday.
And what about the toy? They used to be called Slinky's when I was a lad and be made of metal. This one was called a Rainbow Spring and is multicoloured and made of plastic. By the very nature of a slinky they break so there are going to be a lot of brightly coloured plastic [probably PVC ] scattered across the environs of North Tensed. Further more these springs are not of a local manufacture but have been transported half way across the world from Taiwan to brighten up out day. Somehow I don't thing they were transported in a wind powered ship to get here.
When I am the Mayor of North Tyneside I will expect the local civil servants working with me to think in joined up thoughts and make sure that a supposedly Green campaign such as the Big Spring Clean is properly thought through and if locally produced Rainbow Springs are to expensive or we cant get a fully recyclable pen then we don't give them out. The bag [which doesn't have a makers name and address on it] would have been sufficient.
This is one small incident of cosmetic greenness that occurs every day, not only in North Tyneside but throughout the country. Politicians at Westminster, Brussels, and locally think that they can say the magic word "Green" and that is that. But to be truly Green you cannot just wear a cosmetic, it has to be in your soul. And you must be prepared to make changes in your life, big and small, because if you don't it is not us who will suffer, probably not our children but our grandchildren and into their future is where the problems will occur. So, do you think only about yourself and keep the status quo or do you be generous and give your grandchildren a chance by voting GREEN.