Pocket Shopping Guides

Just wanted to point you in the direction of this Ideal Bite tip about pocket guides to help you make more informed shopping choices. Very handy for those of us who need something written down if there's going to be any hope of remembering it (me).

Freeganism

Jean over at CollegeOTR (who also dreamed up Waste Not!) recently posted on a movement called "freeganism," which is a lifestyle that "employ[s] alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources." (from here). It seems to me like an impossibility to live completely out of our economic system, but it's an interesting idea and I'm a fan of the dumpster diving/recycling of usable items/saving things part (you know that first hand if you're lucky enough to belong to the EON listserv). Anyway, the website is full of info, and some of it is useful (even if you're not interested in going to the most extreme end of the freeganism spectrum).

Trackable Bananas

(check out the animation featuring the above banana)

So the other day I was eating a banana (my mom's on an all veggies/fruit/beans diet so suddenly I'm faced with a bounty of healthy things to eat) and I was surprised to discover that I had the option of virtually visiting the farm on which it was produced. Each banana has a sticker with the number of its farm of origin, and you can go online to view a webpage full of info including the farm's organic certifications. There's also an option to view the farm on Google Earth (perhaps slightly creepy, but also kindof cool). My banana was from Hacienda Pérez Quiñonez, located the province of El Oro in Ecuador. (see link)

Anyway, I know that's way more than you probably ever wanted to know about my eating habits, but I thought it was really cool. Usually, finding out where your food comes from requires extensive investigation, and it was nice to be handed that information with the food for a change. At first I was a little skeptical (given the dirty history of big fruit companies and that I'm generally suspicious from reading No Logo) but then I realized that I was confusing United Fruit (now Chiquita) with Standard Fruit (now Dole). Maybe I'm wrong, but I think Standard Fruit has a less violent history than United Fruit's history (which includes a banana massacre). Anyway, this Wikipedia article was pretty informative and brought back hazy memories of the Foreign Policy class I took in high school, so that was fun.

Some things:
-Dole Organics Website
-Banana Wars (you can read portions on google books...)

"Green Noise"

hey, i took this picture! it's a plant that resides in one of the music buildings in the cfa. i'm sure it was kindof weird that the first and probably only time i've walked in there, i took pictures of their potted plants. oh well!

Oooooopsies, it's been a month! Rest assured, this blog will not fade (also known as I refuse to let it die, haha). Anyway, after a brief hiatus, we/I/you have returned.

Though I don't want to make it a habit to just repost stuff I've read elsewhere, I wanted to point you in the direction of this NYT article and this Dot Earth post. Both are about information overload and its effect on interest in enviromental issues. I've definitely felt the effects of too much information about environmental issues (particularly all that stuff about what I should do to have the least impact), and probably contributed to other peoples' disinterest by being too forceful or whatever with my messages. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting article that really resonated with my experiences.

Also, as I was looking for a graphic for this post (because really, a pretty picture makes the thing ten times better), I found this blog post about dealing with green noise. Here are the three Green Noise Reduction Principles put forth in the post:

Principle one: Do it as simply as possible. The idea: Green doesn’t necessarily have to be a new car; you can get pretty far with a new mindset.
Principle two: Some is better than none. The idea: Green is something that anyone can do by being proactive and becoming aware of their impact on the planet.
Principle three: More is better than less. The idea: Green can be incremental; if you’ve got one earth saving principle down why not add another. Baby steps add up.

As always, thoughts are welcome.

Waste Not! (formerly known as Westuff, formerly known as Dump-and-Run)

If you read the EON blog chances are you already know about Waste Not, but here's one version of the flyer for posterity:If you click on the image, you might actually be able to read it..! Anyway, spread the word if you haven't already, or leave a suggestion to improve the program if you have one.

Just in case you're interested, here's the website and here's the facebook group.

Water (Ab)Use

As a good little environmentalist I was brought up knowing that wasting water was a very bad thing. My mom even had a song she sang with the lyrics "you are wasting water, water, running down the drain." It was very catchy and has stuck with me through life. With this little tune in my head as I conscientiously turn off the tap while I brush my teeth, I was pretty certain I was using very little water in my daily life.

This video changed that for me and made me realize how wasteful we are with water as an American culture. The global water crisis is very real and needs urgent attention. I urge you to watch this clip and benefit from a little reality check.

Aurora's Kleenex-busting campaign

Sorry, bad title. But yay Aurora, who is working hard to rid our campus of Kimberly Clark products. In case you didn't know, the manufacturer of Kleenex tissues, "the Kimberly-Clark corporation, has been unwilling to improve its practices, continuing to rely on paper and pulp made from clearcut ancient forest including Canada’s Boreal forest." (that's from Kleercut.net) This is bad.
Here's the deal so far:

So far, Gina Yeomans and I wrote a proposal for Intro to Environmental Studies about divesting from K-C, submitted it to Weshop, and they are so cooperative - when we got back from break they were gone! We have alternative products, and we did before anyway. Next step : I am currently in touch with a Greenpeace rep, and she helped me find companies that make alternative products for replacing our public facilities and dormitories' paper products! I am meeting with purchasing and waste committee representatives (the facilities managers are on waste) about this. Today I gave them info on K-C's sustainable and unsustainable practices, policies, etc. There is a CNN Money article "Chain of Lies" about K-C misleading the public, etc. We have a contract with K-C, and I haven't heard back about when it expires.. but Jeff Miller upgraded our products, although still K-C, to those with the highest recycled fiber content. I also interviewed with some random online reporter/journalist for Inside Higher Ed about the work on campus. I keep getting random calls from people like that and students at other universities - Berkeley this week - for advice and alternative products.

I couldn't find the CNN article, but here is an Argus article about Aurora and Gina's work, here's a Greenpeace blog entry about it, and here's a blurb on the Kleercut website.

Also, here's a video of undercover Greenpeace reps sabotaging a Kleenex commercial. It's from last March (we posted about it but I really like embedding videos so I'm putting it here, too).


If you're interested in this issue, want to get involved, whatever, email weseon@gmail.com.

EDIT: here's the CNN article (from 2006, which is TWO YEARS AGO?! what.)

Re-Shirt.

Austria-based Re-Shirt sells used and cleaned t-shirts with a story behind them -- on their website, a photo of each tee is posted along with a great memory that the former owner had with it (ex: made out with my hot crush, big job promotion, got accepted to med school, etc). Re-Shirt provides a way for the new owner to carry on the memory and create their own with it, continuing to post their experiences on the site using the shirt's ID number and give it back when or if they choose to.

Essentially: Like vintage, but interactive! From an environmental standpoint, the company also does a great job by supporting reuse rather than buying new clothing.

From their site:

"'Re-Shirts clearly represent a whole new way of managing resources. With the comparatively low amount of energy needed to wash, print and deliver the Re-Shirts it is possible to keep existing cotton resources in circulation. The fact that the stories of the previous owners are of central importance for the Re-Shirts can also be seen as a “social upgrade”. Re-Shirts are a concrete example of how we can come to understand circular flow economy. A model that we should most certainly also consider for other resources and products.'

Facts and Figures about Conventional T-Shirt Production:

Cotton production and processing is organized globally : Each year more than 20 million tons of cotton are produced.
Extremely large amounts of water are used in the cotton production process. On average, 20,000 liters of water are needed to produce 1 kilogram of raw cotton.
The extreme amounts of water needed for growing cotton have resulted among other things in the drying up of the Aral Sea, one of the biggest environmental catastrophes of our time.
On top of that are the use of pesticides and the high energy consumption: approximately 10% of the pesticides produced world-wide are used in cotton growing.
Environmentally safe cotton growing is a viable alternative. Intelligent watering can reduce the amount of water needed by two thirds. That is of course only possible if the total production amounts do not continue to increase.
Approx. 30 megajoule (or 8.3 kWh) are needed to produce 1 kilogram of raw cotton fibers. In Germany alone, the average cotton consumption per person and year is 11 kilograms."

Link: Re-Shirt Story Store.
To donate: Re-Shirt Donations.

Climate Counts

Emilie sent me an email about this website called Climate Counts (yay Emilie!). It's basically a rating service that assesses "how serious companies are about stopping climate change."

Climate Counts use a 0-to-100 point scale and 22 criteria to determine if companies have:

• MEASURED their climate "footprint"
• REDUCED their impact on global warming
• SUPPORTED (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation
• Publicly DISCLOSED their climate actions clearly and comprehensively

Seems cool. They have info for 60 companies at this point. I was confused at first because this seems like a relatively small number--but once you take into account the fact that most of the companies listed are mega-corporations and that therefore lots of well-known products fall under them...it's a pretty decent list. Each company's info page features a list of "representative brands" (for example, Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola so it's listed there). I also found this interesting list of what media companies own (like General Electric owns Universal Pictures...?). Actually, now that I'm getting on a tangent, if you're interested in corporate issues i've been reading a book called No Logo by Naomi Klein for like, a year (I think I actually left it at home this semester because I really just don't have time to read it). But from what I've read I would recommend the book. Aaaanyway, back to Climate Counts: they have a nice pocket-sized shopping guide, if you're into that.

"Reducing your carbon footprint just got a whole lot tastier!"

Climate Change Chocolate wrapper (with tips)

Over winter break I spent a decent amount of time at Borders (it's my very not-guilty pleasure to peruse the art history section there and pretend I know what I'm looking at). Anyway, you know how they always have a bunch of crap at the front, designed to seduce really impulsive shoppers (basically, me)? Well, they really got me with Climate Change Chocolate. When you buy a chocolate bar, made by Bloomsberry & Co, terrapass purchases 133 lbs of carbon offsets (which is equivalent to an average person's CO2 output per day). At first I was like hey, okay, fine...but chocolate is imported, and that eats up a bunch of fossil fuels blah blah blah...except that the website says "the carbon emissions associated with the production and distribution of the chocolate bar has been balanced out." Hmm! Perhaps this is an example of a way we can maintain certain aspects of our lifestyle while still being eco-friendly. As much as I'm a huge proponent of eating locally, I realize that most people (including myself) would be more than a little reluctant to give up chocolate (btw, Climate Change Chocolate really is tasty). But then again, it doesn't seem like this product is a big seller (it was 50% off when I bought it, which makes me feel like Borders wanted to get rid of them). I'm pretty sure you can get it at Whole Foods, just FYI.

SIGG water bottles

Just a heads up that Broad Street sells SIGG water bottles. They have the design pictured in blue and red, a blue yin-yang design, and a camouflage bottle.

Siggs are touted as better for your health (due to leaching that happens with Nalgenes and other plastic bottles). According to the My Sigg website, "Due to SIGG's special, proprietary internal coating, these high-tech bottles are resistant to fruit juice acids, energy drinks, alcohol and virtually any consumable beverage. Because the liners are taste and scent neutral, you can enjoy any beverage you'd like – without any lingering smell or taste of the last beverage you drank. The composition of the liner also reduces the chances of bacteria build-up. And because the liner is virtually baked into the inner walls of the bottle, it will not flake or chip even if dented on the outside.
Recently, there has been a lot of press concerning Lexan plastic water bottles (Polycarbonate #7) leaching harmful chemicals into the container's ingredients[maybe they meant contents]. It's extremely important to note that SIGG bottles exceed FDA requirements and have been thoroughly tested to ensure 0.0% leaching – so they are 100% safe."

Anyway. I promise I'm not working for Sigg...I just really don't want to do my reading right now.

Double-sided printing!

Good news for being green at Wes!

Lab computers are now FINALLY (due to a loving collaboration between EON and ITS) set to print double sided by default for ALL lab printers. (Color printers will still be single sided printing only.)

THIS SAVES YOU MONEY! It costs you 7¢ to print one sheet with two sides, but 5¢ for each single sided page. Therefore, you save 3¢ for every two pages you print. For every 200 pages, you save $3. AND sooo many trees. Ohhh the savings!

There are directions next to EACH computer explaining how to turn the function off, in case you need to (which you don't).

Please print double sided whenever you can!

What’s Your Consumption Factor?

Interesting Op-Ed in the Times by Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) about the exorbitant—and woefully unsustainable—levels of consumption in the developed world, especially the United States.

Also, here's a good Times editorial about the environmental agendas of the presidential candidates. Thankfully, these issues have garnered much more attention than they ever did in 2000 or 2004, but will widespread environmental concern just be a passing fad like it seems to have been in the 70s? Maybe the realities of global warming will make this time around very different.

"Stuff-free" gifts

About a month ago, Grist posted "10 great ideas for 'stuff-free' holiday gifts." Maybe I should look into some of these, since I definitely haven't actually started my holiday shopping. Oops.