Kinda like my own milkman

A couple weeks ago, while perusing my new favorite grocery store, Co-opportunity in Santa Monica, I was reminded that it's still possible to buy at least one beverage in a refillable container here in the U.S.
Yep, the picture doesn't lie: It's 2007 and milk can be bought in a glass bottle, folks. This is no revelation--I've definitely seen the bottles in natural food stores before. But for some reason I never considered taking the plunge-- I must have always assumed it would be too much trouble to remember to return the bottle. Isn't it funny how we remember the sub-plots of long-cancelled TV shows but fear we'd never be able to remember to take an empty a milk bottle to the store? Well, I can assure you that the process is quite simple. I bought the milk, paid an extra $1.10 for the bottle deposit, enjoyed its freshness--it really does taste better in glass!--rinsed the bottle and returned it tonight. I wasn't quite sure what to expect on this end, but was pleased to receive my $1 back (don't know what happened to the 10 cents...). No more throwaway cartons for me! They even have a pricier chocolate version, which I'm already fantasizing about. Added bonus: The milk company--Broguiere's--is in Montebello, which is just about as local as a dairy farm can get. Can't beat reusable AND local. Ooh, a quick google search reveals that their choc milk is divine and seasonal egg nog is a fav among foodies...has even been profiled by our man Huell Howser. More on Broguiere's.

Be Unpackaged

Isn't it affirming when you see an idea you've had (but weren't sure about the viability of) put into action? Over in Clerkenwell, England a woman recently started a company called Unpackaged--which sells food and other necessitities, well, without the packaging. The idea is simple: You show up at the weekly market with your own containers, and fill them up to your heart's content. What's really cool is that in addition to the usual bulk offerings like beans, rice, nuts, teas, and grains, they've also found a way to sell package-free household cleaners, liquid hand soap, and toilet paper. So there IS a way--I knew it! I also love the section of their website titled "Evil Packaging", which is worth quoting extensively:

"The Problem with Packaging--Waste: Unnecessary packaging is a waste of resources at every level: to produce, store and transport, remove and to dispose of. Pollution: The two main methods of disposing of this packaging – landfill and incineration – are major pollutants for humans and the environment and release greenhouse gases. What about recycling? While some packaging is recycled, most ends up in landfill sites and some packaging is just difficult and often impossible to recycle. Recycling is certainly part of the solution, but it will only work if we use less packaging in the first place and adopt more reusable ways of doing things- it is this ethos of reuse that Unpackaged is based on."

Sigh...Why do all the cool things seem to be going on in the UK? Anyone interested in getting the idea going here? Hmm? In the meantime, remember, we've got a viable unpackaged option too: the bulk bins of your local health stores/Whole Foods. Just remember to bring your own produce bags, or reuse the plastic ones over and over...

Unpackaged (via Treehugger)

Bolsas, bottles, and mangos

My trip to Mexico was by no means "eco-friendly". I took a variety of planes, buses, cars, vans, boats, and taxis to get to and around the rainforest and ruins of Chiapas. Travel is becoming increasingly recognized as a huge contributor to global warming, for obvious reasons. And I'm sure this is what people say about their Hummers, but damnit, traveling makes me happy like nothing else. Visiting other cultures invigorates me, rejuvenates me, and enriches my perspective on the world. Isn't that important? If I'm good the rest of the year, can I please keep my one international trip a year? Please?! As much as I've been skeptical about carbon offsetting--(I'm still not convinced it does much more than assuage guilt about our privileged lifestyles--please, someone convince me that it's worth it!)--I'm going to look into it to, well, assuage my guilt about my travel pollution. The other thing I have to come clean about is that for the first time since October, I drank out of plastic water bottles. Unfortunately, there was really no other choice. We had no means to boil our water and I'm not sure if it would have been wise to drink iodine-enriched water all week long. But a couple of the places I stayed had water available for tourists, so I was able to refill my bottles several times. OK, now on to the good news. While I was feeling travelers' guilt, I was simultaneously heartened to see some local practices that we could learn a thing or two from. Mexico gets it right in a lot of ways. For your consideration:

THEY USE COMPACT FLUORESCENT LIGHTBULBS

Lots of them. I would constantly look up and see them in hotels, bathrooms, and in the most random places, like this fruit stand near a popular waterfall. That's my traveling companera Lori eating a glorious Mexican mango. Why is CFL usage so widespread down south? Because they last longer and undoubtedly save much-needed dinero. It just makes sense!

THEY HANG-DRY THEIR CLOTHES

Clothes dryers are extremely rare in Mexico, as in other countries. In fact, even well off families hang-dry their clothes. It's so much fresher and adds some color to the backyard.

THEY RETURN BEER BOTTLES TO GET REFILLED

This is a huge one. The bottles don't get recycled, they actually get REFILLED (yes, after extensive sterilization). Refilling beverage containers used to be a common practice in our country too (more on this soon), and still exists in other countries out of economic necessity. People place a deposit on the bottles at purchase, and must return the bottle to not lose the deposit. This exists in some states in the U.S., but none that I've ever lived in...Gee, when I think of fall the beer bottles, over all the years...I would feel better about my own amount of imbibing knowing they had been reused again and again, wouldn't you?

THEY SEPARATE THEIR TRASH

I saw this all over--trash separated into "organic" and "inorganic" or paper and plastic. Presumably they compost the organic matter (food and paper), instead of sending it to a landfill. I'm going to look into this further to see what this program is all about. That's the remains of a mango going into the organic side of an airport trash bin. (BTW, that wasn't even my last mango before leaving the country. I actually cut one open right on my tray table before we landed in L.A. The flight attendants thought I was a crazy person).

THEY BRING THEIR OWN BAGS

Perhaps my strongest memory of visiting Mexico as a child is of women carrying their colorful bolsas at the markets. And while I did notice a plastic ubiquity encroaching on the country this time, I was relieved to see that reusable bags are still alive and well. Women visit the market every morning, and fill their bolsas with some of the freshest produce in the world. The platanitos, nopales, and yes, mangos definitely wouldn't deign to rub skin with plastic.

Are any of these practices a huge inconvenience on people's lives? Would any of them catapult us back to the dark ages? I don't think so.

Public flogging

After weeks of enduring lunch-time conversa- tions (lectures?) about the merits of reusable bags and evils of plastic bottles, my coworkers have called my BS. For a while now, I've been resolving to bring tupperware with me to lunch so that I can avoid whatever nasty disposable container I'm given. I even bought some nice, new containers this weekend for exactly this purpose. Yet I continue to forget to bring them, and yesterday was faced with the choice of wasting half of my delicious ramen, or accepting styrofoam. I went with the styrofoam and my friendly coworker Paul offered to capture the moment for the purpose of my blog. Maybe now that my shame has been exposed publicly, I will remember the freakin' tupperware!

Breaking plastic bag news

Ikea has made an incredibly forward-thinking move and has become the first major US retailer to start charging for plastic bags!! (Yes, I busted out with the double exclamation points--sadly, I can't remember the last time I've been so excited!) They just announced that beginning March 15th, you'll have to cough up 5 cents per bag to get those bulk tea candles and bargain wine glasses from storefront to car in plastic. Well, YOU won't have to, because bringing your own bags is soooo old news, right? Since debuting this program in Britain just last year, plastic bag reduction has been 95%, and they estimate that the 70 million bags used by U.S. customers will be cut in half in the first year. If you forget your bags, you'll be able to take home their "big blue bag" for a reduced rate of 59 cents. What a deal! The great thing is, it's only a matter of time before other retailers begin to follow suit. Visiting Ikea is never quite a pleasant experience, but I'm actually looking forward to my next trip to check out the operation. Read more about the announcement and what they're going to do with proceeds from the program on Treehugger.

And from the mega-multinational to the locally owned... a shop owner in England declared February "Plastic Bag Free Month", and stopped giving out disposable bags to her customers.


Here is a really hip reusable bag designed by fashion designer Anya Hindmarch that is debuting at London's Fashion Week. Looks like it's still only available in the UK, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Leo, Cameron, et al are donning them. Anybody know a fashion designer? I've got some ideas of my own...

Speaking of making reusable bags stylish, another UK designer, Sarah Mower, complains that plastic bags should be banned, if nothing else, for their fashion violations. "To be perfectly shallow about it, on aesthetics alone, plastic carriers are unconscionable, and fashion ought to be pointing that out." This is a great read, on the Telegraph. Seriously, why bother fussing over finding the perfect outfit if you're going to ruin it with a gaggle of plastic bags as you shlepp around town? Answer: Keep the outfit, bag the plastic bag.

Hmmm....This sure is a lot of anti-plastic bag momentum for one week. I smell a revolution, how about you?

The great cloth napkin manifesto

Since I've started this site, the most satisfying aspect has been to hear my friends get excited about one particular disposable problem, or to hear about things they were already doing to make their lives more reusable. My friend Megan has been a long-time user and champion of cloth napkins. And now, I have received her much-anticipated manifesto on the subject! I've been using a kitchen towel as my home dinner napkin, so now I'm totally inspired to go to a thrift store and attempt to make my own...Thanks, Megan! (That's her and said napkins at a little house gathering, and her buddy Tasha with her own napkin below).

MEGAN SAYS:
"I have a lot of habits that are bad for creation, but I have one that is good. I always use cloth napkins at home, and I almost never use paper towels. It makes me crazy that we use so many trees to make napkins, tissues and paper towels, when almost all of the uses for these items can be done easily with reusable cloth.

Cloth napkins are cool. First of all, they are like an accessory for your table, but not a dorky one, like placemats. There are hundreds of kinds of cloth napkins. I have some that I bought on sale at Anthropologie (striped corduroy, $1.25 each), some that I bought an estate sale in Washington DC (cotton, 25 cents each); and some fancy Irish linen ones (gift from my godmother). If you are really out to be a stellar re-user, you could buy some material at a thrift store and cut them up into napkins. That would be really cheap and very environmentally aggressive of you. So - cloth napkins - stylish, and easily obtainable. How can you resist?

Secondly, they are easy to care for, unlike, say, a biodiesel car. At my house, we use them for about a week (longer if we are lazy, shorter if we are eating a lot of messy food) and then throw them in with our regular wash. I keep some in reserve for when company comes over, but our everyday ones look, shall we say, loved. They have little faded stains and whatnot, but they are napkins. Not clothes.

To me, using cloth napkins is a no-brainer. It saves trees, it is (potentially) stylish and it is easy.


As for paper towels? I have one word. RAGS. This has to be the craziest thing corporate America has invented. Paper towel. Seriously. What is wrong with a torn up T-shirt to wipe your sink, or to clean your floor or toilet? How about a washcloth for a kid's face? Obviously, not the same piece of cloth for all those tasks. That would be gross. But you get the idea. If you have to clean up dog vomit, however, I think a paper towel is OK. I understand. That is nasty. The occasional paper towel can be a good thing. But the over-paper-towelfication of America is just stupid.

On the tissue front - I do actually have handkerchiefs, and I have used them when I have a runny nose. It's amazing - using cotton on your nose instead of crazy lotion-laden tissues (how do they do that, anyway?) is much gentler on your skin. The only thing is, if you have a really gross snotty nose you do need several handkerchiefs. Or you can be like me and hold out for a while and then cave and hit the Kleenex. But you are probably a better person than me and would never do that.

And do I really need to say anything about paper plates? I think not."

I heart the bulk bin

This weekend I got the chance to put my produce bags--AKA the best invention EVER--to use for non-produce items. Technically, they are made for grains too, so it's not like I'm going too far outside the box here. But it was quite satisfying to think about all the packaging I was saving by eliminating the middle man (the cereal box, plastic pasta wrapping) by bringing my own bag. Just like with produce, when I got home, I transferred them to a pre-existing plastic bag. I need to upgrade to those glass jar containers which I always thought were so old fashioned, but now I totally get. The bulk bin world is so exciting! I can't wait to return and fill my bags with more cereals, dried fruit, trail mix, beans upon beans...Get your produce bags (they're cheap!) and go bulk!

Let's go places together

Meet my new favorite reusable bag that now has a permanent place in my purse. This one's got game, folks. Witness its transformation from tiny and totally transportable to sturdy and stylish.


Comes in a pouch that's sewn to the inside of the bag, so you can't lose it. Amazing! Fits easily in any purse, so you'll never have to worry about getting caught without a reusable bag again. (The newest social faux pas, people!) Guys, you can stow it in your backpack, man-purse or just your car!




Friendly Bristol Farms worker is totally in awe of the transforma-tion he just witnessed and thinks we're only slightly weird. (Sorry for the blurry representation).




I could take this one anywhere, even to the finest boutiques, if I went to those kinds of places. Although this pictorial journey records a mere grocery store outing, this bag is actually ideal for non-food shopping, given its sleek look. Just unload your goods, stuff it back into its pouch, and return it to your purse/backpack/car.

Also comes in black, "moroccan blue", and "burnt orange"...ooh la la! from reusable bags.com, of course.

We haven't even gotten to the water bottle week...

But my friend Heather couldn't wait to banish disposable bottles from her life! She got this reusable one at Target for $5.99 and is quite pleased with it so far. She says, "It doesn't retain odor or taste and is dishwasher/microwave safe." She plans on using it at work and at the gym. Yay! Thanks for the inspiration, Heather!! You, too, can exist in cyberspace...send me pics of yourself with your new reusable bottle, mug, bag...fill in the blank. Get excited, folks.

Wake up and smell the...reusable mug! WEEK

Ah, coffee. One of our worldwide addictions we can still feel mostly ok about. Of course, we all know too much caffeine can be harmful, but one nice cup of joe a day is nothing to feel guilty about, right? As long as it's not in a paper cup...

I'd venture to say that until the mid-90's, most American coffee consumption was done in the home or office, brewed in ordinary coffee makers. You know, Folgers and stuff. Unlike Europeans and others, we didn't really have a culture of buying coffee and drinking it in public. Then came the juggernaut of Starbucks. Slowly but surely, town by town, Americans were exposed to a whole new caffeinated world: mochas! americanos! double non-fat lattes with hazelnut! So, an entirely new coffee culture was born, but with an American twist. While in many other cultures coffee drinking is a central social activity--where friends of all ages can be found sitting in cafes for hours--our American version is a decidedly individual, disposable affair. Coffee on-the-go has become the norm, as have $3.95 frappuccinos, for better or worse. And as my friend Ruth pointed out, even when you do drink your coffee on location, many places STILL give you a to-go cup!



Starbucks alone goes through an estimated 2 billion paper cups annually! On top of that, imagine how many cups all the Peets, Coffee Beans, and few surviving independent coffee shops use, even daily. That's a lot of trees. In 2004, Starbucks bought 27,400 tons of cup stock made from virgin trees (i.e. fresh trees deflowered just for that purpose). And, as we saw with paper bags, the problems with paper cups are three-fold. A: Trees are cut down, reducing a natural counterbalance to global warming; B: fossil fuels are used in production, thus emitting greenhouse gases and other pollution; C: The enormous amount of trash created from these single-use products ends up in our landfills.

Starbucks has taken steps to lessen their environmental impact, as they should. This year they started making their cups out of 10% post-consumer recycled fiber. According to their own estimates, this will save 78,000 trees and reduce landfill content by 2,740 tons, or about 5.5 million pounds. This is a good step, but it's hard to see the 10% as little more than symbolic. Even if they eventually make their cups out of 100% recycled materials, there will still be the problem of all those wonderfully recycled cups being tossed in the garbage after one use.

The solution is simple: Bring your own coffee mug. There is a financial incentive as well: At Starbucks you get a 10 cent discount when you bring your own, and many other companies and cafes only charge you for a small size when you have your own mug. Most coffee chains and many independent cafes are now selling their own plastic and stainless steel mugs. (Or you can find some really sturdy ones on reusablebags.com--I swear I don't get a commission from them, they just have really great products!).


I've been using a plastic mug, which has been fine, and I just ordered a stainless steel heavy-duty one, so I'll let you know how it compares. Get in the habit of keeping it with you, and just remember to rinse it out after use! So easy.

BYOB: Bring your own bag WEEK

Plastic bags are just bad news all around. And paper bags are even worse (but we'll get to that).

PLASTIC BAG FACTS:
Worldwide, we consume between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags annually.
Americans use and trash around 100 billion plastic bags a year, which are produced by an estimated 12 million barrels of oil.

Yes, plastic bags are made out of petroleum...that's right, oil! We all know the double-whammy problems with oil: Namely, the fact we are quickly running out of it, and that its usage emits CO2, which is a major cause of global warming. So, we can look at our unthinking use and disposal of plastic bags as just another manifestation of our addiction to oil. Get this: The manufacturing of just 14 plastic bags uses the same amount of oil as it takes to drive one mile!!! And with that come the same problems--global warming emissions and more dependency on the countries that control the dwindling amounts of oil left in the world (the exact countries we want to be extricating ourselves from).

That's just touching on the production of plastic bags. They also pollute our environment as trash, killing hundreds of thousands of sea animals who end up mistaking them for food. And, not only do they not biodegrade, they actually photodegrade into tinier toxic particles that get absorbed into soil and water. Bad, bad, bad...

PAPER BAG FACTS:
Have we forgotten that all paper products are made from trees? 15 million trees are cut down every year to supply our addiction to paper bags--around 10 billion a year. Again, there's a two-fold effect here: Trees help absorb greenhouse gases, but only if they are still alive! So by cutting so many trees down, we are simultaneously reducing our capacity to absorb CO2 and other greenhouse gases, then, of course, the elecricity used in the production of paper products emits more greenhouse gases!! On top of that, the production process of turning the tree pulp into paper (like all manufacturing) creates tons of toxic pollution that contaminates our air, land and water (which we end up breathing, eating, and drinking).

Not convinced yet? Yes, the manufacturing of practically every modern convenience is problematic in terms of resources used and pollution created in production. But what makes plastic and paper bags worse than say, a plastic telephone and a wooden table, is that we get so little usage out of them compared with all the problems involved in their production.



They are disposable products that are usually used no longer than 20 minutes from store to home. And, most importantly, a super-easy alternative exists....

TO DO:
1. BUY SEVERAL REUSABLE BAGS. My favorite site is www.reusablebags.com--lots of cheap and stylish choices--but there are many others out there, easily found. (Many grocery stores are also now selling their own reusable bags very inexpensively.) So far, my faves are the black acme totes because they are discreet and don't have that corny white tote-bag look. I've had mine for a week, and it's amazing how easy it's been to get in the habit of just keeping them with me, in case I need to stop by the store. If you already take your own bags every time you go to the store, there's always more you can do. My best find has been the produce bags on reusablebags.com. They're great, because those flimsy plastic produce bags have even fewer uses than the thicker ones given at checkout.

This week, I used the produce bags at the market and once I got home, transferred the produce into some plastic bags that I already had. I can just keep reusing the same plastic bags for refrigerator storage, and use the cloth produce bags for new produce, so I don't have to keep accumulating more plastic ones. Also, as the holidays are approaching, these bags make great gifts! I'm convinced that once people have them around, they will get in the habit of using them (especially after you inform them of the evils of paper and plastic bags). And to all the guys who have expressed to me that they will look, um, unmanly taking their cloth bags to the store, I guess all I have to say is...get over it. We are adults. Real men bring their own bags.


2. FOR SINGLE OR SMALL ITEMS, REFUSE A BAG. Ok, I understand that even after you get set up with your reusable bags, the time may come when you run into the store for a single item and find yourself without them. You're buying a salad at lunch or a bottle of shampoo on the way home...Do you really need a bag for one or two items? No! Part of our job is also training the baggers to not automatically give people a bag for 1 small item. We might have forgotten how to, but we ARE able to carry things that don't come with a handle, after all. Same goes for double bagging...if you find yourself without your reusable bags, don't let them double bag! Even at a supposedly socially-conscious store like Trader Joe's, they automatically double bag. I have worked in grocery stores and I know this habit came about because customers end up complaining because the bag broke and their eggs cracked. So the stores want to preempt any whiney customers. But it is unnecessary and is yet another reason to BYOB...because reusable bags are not going to break!

3. USE YOUR REUSABLE BAGS FOR NON-FOOD PURCHASES TOO. Ok, so this may seem extreme to some of you, but it's just the logical extension of using resuable bags for groceries. Start thinking about all the other places you are given plastic bags...well, in every other store, too. And given our level of consumption, we all end up with a ton of Best Buy, Target, Gap, etc. bags. Guess what? You can take your reusable bags to those places too. Yes, the cashiers will look at you like you're crazy...but who cares, we're starting a trend!

Last weekend, I did a little clothes shopping (at a totally un-socially conscious chain store that will go unnamed), and I put my purchases in my "shopping bag" (I do have a different one for non-grocery purchases, see pic at left), and I was good to go. It's funny, maybe this has happened to you: You're at a book store and you might have a purse or backpack with you anyway, and yet feel self-conscious about putting your purchase in your own bag...it is somehow more satisfying--perhaps the completion of the consumption process--to walk out with a fresh plastic bag advertising that, yes, you are a dutiful consumer. But I think it will be a lot more satisfying to to leave one plastic bag behind.


4. As for all those excess plastic and paper bags you have at home....REUSE, REUSE, REUSE...THEN RECYCLE. Some of us girls have a stash of beautiful, sturdy paper bags from department stores or boutiques. Yes, they are pretty...so reuse them until they fall apart. You can even take them back the next time you shop there...you'll be saving them money, which any locally-owned store will appreciate. Then recycle them. And next time, BYOB.

But you say: I use my plastic bags as trash liners, or to clean up dog poop. I'm sure you will occasionally forget to bring your reusable bag and have to get a plastic bag, and if you have a use for them, you will be in no short supply. But a quick search found this product. As they put it: "Stop mummifying your dog's poop in plastic bags that won't biodegrade...now there's truly no reason to use plastic". I'm sure there are many other products out there, maybe even available at Whole Foods. I need to investigate biodegradable trash bags, but I think we've learned enough for one day. Phew.

One last word on recycling bags: It's not the panacea we think it is. Read more here.

If you already BYOB, please post tips or experiences you've had. For those of you who start, let me know how it's going! Please post a comment!