We are all Greta Thumberg when we talk with friends about the environment, sustainability, recycling, the future for young people and our children

We dwell on discussions on sustainable mobility, on the urgent need for an energy conversion, to protest against the producers of fossil fuels that pollute the environment, to praise the use of scooters and to reduce the footprint carbonic.

We are bitter haters on social networks and during sundowners, when it comes to the pollution of the seas by plastic, of dying fish and coral reefs that suffer from the 'increase in water temperature.

We lash out against deforestation in Brazil and Southeast Asia, openly blaming the wood industry, the proliferation of animal farms for slaughter and intensive agriculture to produce the fodder needed to support the international meat business.

We are indignant when we hear that children are employed in the extraction of precious minerals in Congo, necessary for modern industry, and we blame this or that nation who owns the ownership of the mines.

We proudly exhibit at the tables of the evening spritzes the last bottle, strictly made of aluminum, to stigmatize, beyond any doubt, that we have already done a lot for the environment and that everyone must know which side you are on.

We show the refusal of the bag in which to put the toothbrush bought in the shop, as a strong message to the shopkeeper of the attention we have on the waste problem, going out with the tube in your pocket, then we buy the toothpaste on the internet, with immediate delivery, which will arrive home before us.

But when the aperitifs with friends are over, the computers are turned off, the moments of daily socializing in which to deal with the need to belong to some group, it happens that you have to make choices, independently, that can affect your portfolio and that can have implications for the sustainability of the community.

And it is precisely on these occasions that we realize how we are sometimes false, how we have a soul like that of Pinocchio, how we speak through words of others and how we are inconsistent.

When these choices affect us directly, deeply and individually, the result between what we say and what we do is often very different.

There are so many examples to do that I don't really know where to start, so I just take one, which can represent the variegated world of this problem, and it is the emblem of doing the opposite of what is always claimed.

A customer asks for information on a recycled plastic floor for the outdoors, then praising the social function of the product as it reuses waste that otherwise would end up in the environment , praises its technical functionality, seeing that the product reaches qualitative and mechanical standards superior, in some cases, to a traditional concrete floor that has a much higher environmental impact.

He senses that it is an innovative, environmentally friendly product, highly suitable for reducing the carbon footprint, light so as to save on transport and pollution.

It is perfectly aware that the production of solid concrete devours natural resources, such as sand, water, compounds and the enormous amount of thermal energy and mechanics to produce cement.

You are informed about the current difficulty of recycling cementitious products and that most of them, at the end of their life, end up in landfills, with a very high environmental impact , while the solid plastic can be recycled in any case, always.

At this point, the scale leans totally in favor of the recycled product so, as a last step we talk about price, already therefore convinced that the eco-friendly blocks in recycled plastic, convinced by the good technical results of the product, by the official certifications it enjoys and by the undoubted low environmental impact.

We can already imagine with what emphasis he can tell friends about his personal choice to lay a driveway floor made with recycled materials, which is completely respectful of the principles of circular economy.

Closing the negotiation for the purchase, the price of the recycled material floor was aligned with the concrete one and, at this point, as if it were a shot of theater, a special effect of Hollywood films, the client states:

"but if a product made of plastic waste costs as much as one made of concrete, I buy the one made of concrete"

Oblivion ...

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Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.