Another great day on the road, the people of Southeastern North Carolina are in love with their region…


We started the day doing some amazing interviews at local fast food restaurants including Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC all owned by parent company Yum! Brand Foods in Louisville, KY, one of the largest purchasers of paper packaging originating from endangered Southern forests like this area.

The interviews were fantastic, the overwhelming message was that Yum! should seek more environmentally friendly options and produce less waste. You can view the videos here.

After talking to folks about fast food packaging, we headed over to Riegelwood, NC to take a gander at the IP packaging mill there that is sourcing from the Green Swamp. IP has ditched and drained this amazing swamp into submission to create packaging that is used once and thrown away. Through billowing clouds of smoke, I set my thoughts to all the potential that disappeared with the massive amount of cutting done in this area – flood control, species lost like the venus fly trap and pitcher plant, habitat lost like pocosins and upland long leaf pine savannahs, and the impact on local people and culture who have lived in these swamps for generations.

We then headed over to Lake Waccamaw State Park to check out this impressive Carolina Bay and talk to the rangers about all of the things that make this site so special including a number of species of fish and mussels that are found nowhere else on the planet. After a short walk on the shoreline, we met our friend Steve from the Friends of the Green Swamp who took us out on the water in his boat and took us to one of the greatest fish fries on Earth at John McNeil’s pier. The food was amazing, the people were so friendly and John was full of some of the best stories I have ever heard giving us a great slice of what life was like on the lake over the last few generations. We then meandered back across the lake in the moonlit night and called it a day.

What an amazing day and what incredible people. We look forward to helping reduce the impact of paper packaging on this special place. See you tomorrow!

From the Swamp…

Scot