I have to ask it. Why, oh why, do some food outlets insist on giving me disposable plates, cutlery and cups whether I am parking myself or not? The worst offenders in my mind are those companies that tout biodegradable, sustainable and disposable eating apparatus and then give it everyone. Even if I planned on staying, it makes me want to leave and never return.

These greenwashers are the most offensive since they often use their choice of disposable cutlery to market themselves as environmentally friendly. It doesn’t matter whether the fork is made from corn, bamboo, wood, or old socks, if I am staying at a restaurant, the best choice for cutlery is something they can wash instead of compost.

If they really understood the issues, they would ask the old ‘for here or to go?’ question and then give me the appropriate choice. What is the problem? Can they not afford the capital outlay for a few quality long lasting forks and knives? Can they not afford the labour for washing them up? Is this planet so disposable that these businesses get positive word of mouth for their destructive practices?

Once you get your $6.00 cup of coffee in a paper cup, take a look at your choice leather chairs, comfortable two seaters and quaint tables for two. Grab a free newspaper, settle down in that luxurious chair, and enjoy your coffee in that paper cup. Careful not to burn yourself if you don’t add the extra paper sleeve, made from recycled paper no doubt.

Alternatively, next time you go to buy a coffee or a quick bite to eat and you plan to stay, speak up when you receive disposable anything. Ask them if they are trying to get rid of you?

To quote Gloria Galloway of the Globe & Mail on June 28^th, “Anger at soaring gas prices has supplanted fear about global warming as the No. 1 issue Canadians say is facing their country.” This statement is based on polling that could very well be tilted to find whatever outcome is desired, but I think it’s fair to say this sentiment is definitely present across the country to at least some extent. I know I can’t be alone in noting the glaring contradiction going on here. To any pedestrian walking around in virtually any large North American city, it’s pretty obvious that what’s coming out of the majority of tailpipes is not exactly fresh air. In fact, it is downright toxic. Sure, I love being a passenger, sometimes getting a ride in a car can be so much more convenient and pleasant than public transit, plus where would we be without road trips and sunny days with music blasting from car stereos? That being said, I have made it through twenty-five years without so much as a learner’s permit and I’m ok. People have many different reasons for “needing” a car and in many cases they are quite valid. I don’t think not driving altogether is a viable option for everyone at this point but I do think it’s time to start exploring our dependence on driving and interrogating the underlying causes of it rather than just imposing surface solutions that don’t address the root factors.

We all know driving is a big contributor of carbon emissions; it comes just after power plants on the list of major culprits. So why on Earth would we claim to be concerned about global warming then as soon as fuel costs go up, as they rightly should considering the amount of detriment our addiction to them is causing, we immediately displace the environment as our top concern? The irony is palpable. Fuel emissions are causing global warming! Rather than logically assessing the long-term impact of our behaviour now, it is easier to safeguard one’s own money and convenience, continuing right along engaging in “business as usual.” The sad truth is that change for most people is only worth it if it’s easy and doesn’t mean any drastic changes to a comfortable lifestyle. On top of that, our modern infrastructure has literally been constructed around the car, Bill McKibben has a lot more to say on this matter. There are some deep questions that arise from this environment vs. cost of fuel paradox; humans have always liked to have their cake and eat it too, and in this case, drive their cars and have a pristine world to do it in. This is just not the world we are living in. I would suggest looking into car sharing programs like ZipCar or the Co-op Auto Network if you’re in the Vancouver area if you’ve been thinking of permanently kicking your car habit to the curb.

Take a look at the following posts from our archives if this subject gets you hot to trot:

Ethical Consumer Wishes You a Happy Bike Month!!

BC’s Climate Action Dividend, how far will it take you?

Mad Max and the price of a barrel of oil

With all the supplies we need and our ever growing desire to look after the planet, it can be difficult to wade through all the babble to find the products that work. To help you sift through what’s out there, here is a quick review of what we have found for 2008.

1. MEC Bookbag Daypack - According to the reviews on the MEC website, there are kids who have been using the same backpack for six years. That is not only value for your money but is also good for the environment since you won’t have to replace it anytime soon. Although this bag was made in Vietnam, MEC is known for its fair labour practices and it spot checks the manufacturers. My favourite design detail is the laptop holster which is raised, so when the backpack is tossed to the ground the laptop doesn’t get bounced off the concrete.
2. Eco-jot Notebooks - These are beautiful notebooks made from 100% post consumer waste which makes them the friendliest tree paper notebooks around. They are designed and made in Canada. So if you have to write it down, try eco-jot. I keep a small eco-jot notepad in my purse for those times when I just can’t find a scrap of paper to write on.
3. Frogfile’s Better Binder - This binder is made from 100% post-consumer recycled chipboard. It comes in a variety of sizes starting at 1/2 inch. We haven’t bought this product yet, but I think the kids will have fun decorating it. In the future, Frogfile intends to sell binder sleeves so if the metal insert is still good, you should be able to buy a new binder sleeve. Love that idea!
4. Juice Pouch Pencil Cases - If you have been feeling guilty about all those juice boxes you send with lunch and would like to appease that guilt, then think about purchasing a pencil case made out of non recyclable juice boxes. I can’t imagine the juice company thinks twice about having their product becoming adverts toted around by elementary school students. Better than the landfill.
5. Zebra-eco writing instruments - These pens and pencils are made with no less than 70% post consumer recycled content with 100% post consumer packaging. The website will let you know the content of recycled materials in each product.

If you have come across other great finds, leave a comment and let us know about them.

There is nothing like fresh air, but that’s not what you get when you buy plug-ins, sprays, and other air “fresheners.” Instead you are more likely to get chemically manufactured smells, itchy eyes, nausea, rash and over a longer period of time breathing problems and possibly internal organ damage. That’s because most commercial air fresheners contain formaldehyde, VOCs and other toxic chemicals. See Scented laundry detergent, room fresheners and toxins for more information on the ugly side of room fresheners.

Instead of trying to cover up your house smells with chemicals, try some of the following, most of which will remove or reduce the scents that offend.

The first thing you can do is clean regularly, which of course, is easier said than done. I certainly don’t do it, with all the other more important things I’d rather be doing such as writing about it instead.

An old favourite, put baking soda in an open container in the fridge or other closed area. This will absorb odors. When to change it? The baking soda company would like you to think that you should change it every 3 months. I would say you should change it when it’s not working anymore. Alternatively, cleaning your fridge with baking soda and vinegar and putting lids on the food will keep most odors at bay, unless you love stinky cheese and tripe.

For cooking odors try boiling vinegar and water while you do the dishes. Or if you like spices, try boiling water with cinnamon, cloves or rosemary. For the fruity types, try boiling slices lemon or grapefruit or orange. This will help clean your pots as well so do this before you wash them.

For unwanted bathroom smells, your first line of defense should be a ceiling fan and an open window. If not, try incense or a scented (soy-based or bees wax) candle. If you can, keep your towels somewhere else so that they don’t get damp in the steam and then start to go moldy.

For regular household odors, put bowls of vinegar around the house and let it do its work, or soak some cotton in vanilla and leave it in a dish around the house.

Odors emanating from your carpets can be dealt with by cleaning the carpet with vinegar and baking soda. If you are attempting to eliminate cat odors be sure to stay away from ammonia based products, as they tend to smell like urine and are an invitation to return. Here kitty kitty kitty…

Finally, my favourite way to air out our house is to open two windows on opposites side of the house and use a fan in one of them to draw air out.

If you have other ideas, I would love to hear them.

Way to go Premier Danny Williams. Boy, you tapped into a major find there with that off-shore oil field. I read that it contains between 400 and 700 million barrels. Let’s put this situation into perspective.

Starting in 2017 and for about 25 years, your province will be pumping out about 700 million barrels of oil in total. That’s enough oil to last the entire population of the planet for about 9 days if we use 2005 figures put out by the CIA. (And why would they lie?) By 2017, it might be enough for a whole week worth of oil.

For $20 billion and no more than 9 days of oil, you are willing to change Newfoundland and Labrador from this

Beautiful Newfoundland

to this?

Oil Spill

What are you going to do with the $20 billion? I would suggest putting a large chunk of it away to clean up the mess that the oil companies leave behind because they certainly aren’t going to stick around to clean up. How about putting some of it into sustainable industries, such as renewable energy that could take your province to sustainable economic prosperity (lasting more than 25 years), and preserve the beauty of your province?

I understand that you want to jump on the oil bandwagon and who wouldn’t with oil consumption on the rise, production on the decline and the price of a barrel set to go up and up and up. Just like hot air.

If you think about it, you will go down in history as someone who contributed to the oil age, even if for only one week. How far into history will that take you? Here’s what the oil age looks like in the bigger picture.

And your contribution is really more than one week. It is also 3,000 jobs over 25 years and generations of environmental devastation. Good on ya.

Can you hear that drip? That’s oil.

A few weeks ago, I saw a horror film that will make your blood run cold; the scariest thing about it was that it was not fiction, this horror film was real. French filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin weaves together first-person accounts, confidential documents and stories from around the world to construct The World According to Monsanto, a must-see for a number of reasons, its making more than timely. This chilling documentary could be considered the severe, unofficial sequel to The Corporation, not only because it deals with the recombinant bovine growth hormone rGBH, manufactured by Monsanto, but because it demonstrates just how out-of-control, profit hungry and callous the “modern” corporation can be at the expense of others’ health and well-being and the Earth’s natural systems. The pure havoc deregulation has wreaked on the planet is evident; decisions made in the respective Bush-Thatcher administrations years ago are still haunting us and could worsen if today’s world leaders, and us, the citizens, continue to refuse reading the clear warning signs across the globe. Allowing companies like Monsanto and their ilk to remain faceless and unaccountable is a dangerous game in today’s world where to some money seems more valuable than life itself. The stakes are high – contaminating the world’s food supply with GMOs and choking our environment with toxins is a perilous road to travel and one that cannot be undone. This is one doc you don’t want to miss. It will make you think twice the next time you do your grocery shopping.

Check out the website and trailer here: http://www.nfb.ca/webextension/monsanto/

I often do my kids’ back to school shopping at the last minute, when school has already begun. This year will probably be no different. The list of ‘needs’ seems to shrink once school actually starts. I can find no motivation to spoil a perfectly good summer with thoughts of early mornings, homework struggles, lunch dilemmas, and cold weather. If you are more organized than I am, have run out ideas to entertain the kids, or have kids who can’t wait to get back to school (Not my kids), here are some ideas for back to school shopping.

If your kids eat sandwiches, you might be thinking of a new way to pack them other than those sandwich bags that stick to your open-toed shoe as you walk in the school yard, peanut butter oozing through your toes. Here is an alternative.

Reusable Sandwich Wrap
This eco-friendly sandwich wrap doubles as a place mat! Simply place your sandwich or other food in the center of the wrap and fold it up. Then, close the hook and loop fasteners. Food will be kept fresh for hours. Wipe clean and hang to dry. Comes in classic red gingham, camo sharks and cartoon fish designs. At $7.50, it is a good price. There are about 200 school days each year, when we have to pack a lunch and if you are buying brand name sandwich bags, it probably costs you at least $8.00 per year.

While tin boxes seem to be back in style recently, a better idea would be this neoprene Lunch Tote. Made of neoprene wetsuit material, this award-winning tote opens into a place mat (for a clean place to eat) and insulates food and drink separately - hot or cold - for up to 4 hours. It is machine washable and stain resistant.

Last but not least, one of the best changes I have seen in recent years at my daughter’s school is that they are allowed to bring water into class with them. I think that is healthy. And to keep it healthy, why not use a Laken Water Bottle. With bright solids and quirky patterns, these lightweight aluminum bottles are some of the best around. Their walls are the thickest, making them more dent-resistant, and the insides are coated 100% - even under the threads. What I like so much is the cute design. Check them bottles out. These cost about $22.00 each which is a lot less expensive than a year’s worth of juice boxes, and healthier too.

I must thank Louise Campbell from Lavish & Lime for these fantastic ideas. I need people like Louise in my life to bring me back to the reality that, alas, summer will end. Trust me, I would never have thought of these ideas on my own until school had already begun and I was scrambling for solutions.

If I have to think about sending my kids back to school, I might as well make better choices for my kids and their future. And with choices like these, I may just have to get me one too.

I keep hearing this term and so have been trying to demystify it for myself. It really is a large topic, enough for at least one book, but here I will try to explain as much as I have come to understand the term and how Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) affect our daily lives.

According to Environment Canada VOCs are “organic compounds containing one or more carbon atoms that have high vapour pressures and therefore evaporate readily to the atmosphere.” In other words, it is the new car smell, which is a compound slowly becoming a gas as it is released into the air.

There are two types of VOCs, natural such as manure (as we politely called it on the farm) and man made such as those you smell as that lovely coat of paint dries on your child’s bedroom wall. When you can’t smell it anymore, it doesn’t mean it is gone from the environment, it is just that we all become accustomed to it and that it moves on into the atmosphere and our water.

Some VOCs, when they react in the sunlight form ozone, which as we know protects us from the sun’s radiation, if we have a good layer of it in the upper atmosphere. In the lower atmosphere, however, these same VOCs pollute the water, create smog and are inhaled by earthlings. Some VOCs are acceptable at certain levels while others are toxic and shouldn’t exist.

For example, trees and butterflies give off VOCs, but as long as neither trees nor butterflies take over the earth, we should be safe. Now there’s a horror flick for you. Air fresheners and some detergents on the other hand have been found to contain undeclared and potently toxic VOCs which one would think contribute to the current number of children with asthma and other related health issues. Hmm?

According to Environment Canada, transportation is the main concern for VOCs in Canada at 42%, when you don’t take upstream oil and gas and the oil sands development into consideration. After transportation, solvent use is the next largest concern at 28%. Solvents include both consumer and commercial products.

Consumer products are also of great concern and include personal care products, cleaning products, air fresheners, and the list goes on.

So what is the Canadian Government doing?

The Ministry of the Environment is creating regulations to establish concentration limits for VOCs for “certain consumer products.” The proposed regulations would reduced VOC emissions by 33% per year over 25 years according to the article in the Canada Gazette for the products affected by the regulations. The article goes on to state that the benefits of these reductions would include

• human health—reduced incidence of premature death, hospital admissions, doctor visits, emergency room visits, lost work and school days, etc.;
• agriculture and forestry—improved yields; and
• environment—reduced damage to the ecosystems.

The sectors that will be affected by the regulations include personal care; soap and cleaning compounds; consumer and institutional adhesives; and other somewhat allusive sectors such all Other Miscellaneous Chemicals.

When will all of this be implemented? The goal is to implement it by 2010.

I don’t think I’ll wait. I would rather leave the VOCs to the trees and butterflies and I’ll use more natural products to make me and my house smell clean and fresh. I might just open my windows or hang my clothes to dry outside. Or I’ll try some more of the old fashioned cleaning products, such as baking soda, lemon or vinegar.

You don’t have to see one to know it’s there. One good breath will tell you that you are passing a nail salon. Better yet, hold your breath. Do you have any idea what that stuff is?

Nails salons have increased dramatically in number over the past few years and can be seen on every corner, it seems. Mostly women but sometimes men go to have their hands and feet exfoliated, massaged, buffed and polished. But, nail salons are extremely potent work places for the (mostly) women who work there.

Some of the most harmful ingredients in nail products include methyl methacrylate and ethyl methacrylate, formaldehyde, toluene, acetone, and phthalates. These chemicals may cause headaches, confusion, lack of attention span, skin rash, coughing and the list goes on. These are just the short-term symptoms. Not enough study has been done to give workers and consumers a clear picture of all the long-term affects these chemicals have on our health, although some research (PDF) has suggested that women of child-bearing years are putting themselves and their unborn children at great risk.

The very worst offenders are the nails that women have applied to their natural nail: acrylic nails. Although Health Canada advises us to not use methyl methacrylate (MMA), it is up to the consumer. Your clue that you are buying a potent cocktail of chemicals is the price of the nails. MMA is cheaper than it’s somewhat less potent sister, ethyl methacrylate.

Health Canada advises Canadians not to use cosmetic nail preparations containing MMA

If you really want those long nails and the only way to get them is to have them applied, then consider gels or wraps. Also, look for a nail salon that has downdraft tables, so the air is pulled down and away from you and the nail aesthetician such as they have at City Looks Salon and Spa in Winnipeg.

Even if you are not having nails applied, there are still many potent chemicals in many of the products, both polishes and removers. There are alternatives, however, such as water-based polish and natural nail polish remover. Try one of them, the next time you paint your nails. If you want to get a manicure or a pedicure, why not take some of these products with you and introduce them to your favourite nail salon.

Or be beach brave and go au natural.

There is so much to take into consideration each time I make a purchase. Is it local? Green? Socially just? Renewable? Non-toxic? Biodegradable? All of the above? In fact with this list, it seems a daunting task. And then some say that global warming isn’t real so we don’t need to make any of these considerations. Let’s just forget the temperature for a moment and consider breathable air, drinkable water, sustainable energy, arable land, livable wages, and so on…for years to come.

Maybe we can find inspiration in the First Nations idea that we must consider the next seven generations’ interests when making decisions. It is about more than global warming and our purchasing decisions make a difference.

Food seems to be the easiest out of everything I purchase and we buy a lot of food, with kids sprouting up all over the place. The majority of the food we buy is local, green (and orange and yellow…), non-toxic and so forth. For about four or five months every year, the farmers come to me every Sunday with the cream of the crop and make my food shopping very easy. During the winter, it becomes more challenging but there are grocery delivery companies that can focus on local diets if you are dedicated to eating locally all year.

What if I want to buy some coffee? I have seen ‘local’ coffee, but we all know that this is not exactly true. The coffee is shipped here and then roasted locally before it is sold. I am no coffee drinker, but I have good friends who aren’t about to give up their morning cup of Joe. So if local isn’t an option, then what? I hear that coffee is for the birds so I’m thinking social justice and animal welfare would be my main concerns if I were buying coffee.

Then there is the soap, shampoo and all the other 8 to 10 personal care products that we use on average everyday. Purchasing non-toxic products is most important to me if I am slathering this stuff on my body daily. I have found some good local businesses that make toxin free products that work well and that I can afford. Not all of the ingredients are local but my family is healthier for using these products as is the land and water, so I’ll go with non-toxic for these products.

What about flooring? Something we don’t buy everyday. There’s cork, bamboo, hardwood – local or exotic – carpet, linoleum and the list goes on. I would want to pick a product that I could afford, would last a long time, was as natural as possible, and wouldn’t sit in a landfill for thousands of years leaching chemicals into the ground when I was done with it. So, taking the time to do research and talking to different companies before making a decision would be wise.

In the end, each purchasing decision we make is going to be different. What we are buying, our individual values, and our budget will each play a role in our final decision. No matter what you are buying, ask questions and get the information you need to make decisions that you and your great, great, great, great, great grandchildren can live with.