GreenJean

We should have seen this coming - after months of carrying our own bags to the grocery store, farmer’s market and bookstore, our special IKEA plastic bag holding device is empty. It used to overflow regularly.

It’s good and I feel happy to have made a visible change in my consumption. But what will we do when we empty our garbage? Buying plastic bags seems silly and counter productive.

I remember when there were no plastic bags from the store, and we used brown paper bags for garbage. Damp garbage caused structural failure more than once. The point is irrelevant, because we don’t have any brown paper grocery bags, nor do we want to start bringing them home.

Time to search for a solution.

Something to think about during the purchasing frenzy that precedes Christmas …

I saw this bag across a concourse crowded with students and bypassed all manner of offerings (stuffies, toques and accessories) to get to the stand selling it.

This bag is the perfect size for a full scale notebook, a small purse and a few sundries (hankies, granola bars, daytimers). It was also available in a drab shade of grey and black, but the day was dreary and the pop of colour cheered me irrationally.  The bag is made of jute (burlap or Hessian), woven from a plant fibre that grows quickly and is recyclable and biodegrable. Equipped with handles and a shoulder strap - I couldn’t have asked for more.

Then Katie explained the bag’s origins. It was crafted by a woman who no longer is working as a prostitute in Calcutta. Payment from making these bags keeps her off the streets. Suddenly, a shopping whim took on another dimension.

Freesetbags.com can also provide custom orders for corporate giveaways.

I spent ten minutes in the paper aisle of the grocery store tonight, trying to figure out if Seventh Generation is a better choice than Cascades toilet paper. Analysis paralysis started to set in, so I bought both and brought them home to do the math and compare.

Both brands are made with 100% recycled fibres, bleached without chlorine, hypo-allergenic, unscented and uncoloured. Seventh Generation pulls ahead by stating that their product is made with ‘a minimum of 80% post consumer materials.’ Cascades only claims that ‘a high percentage of post-consumer material’ went into their product.

A quick look at the package shows that Seventh Generation is ‘Made in the USA’ and their head office is listed in Burlington, Vermont. Their 1-800 number is printed on the package, so I’ll call tomorrow and see just how far my TP has travelled. Cascades is located across the river from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Since I’m writing in Vancouver, being Canadian gets them extra points. Again the 1-800 number is clear and tomorrow some lucky telecentre operator can tell me where the TP originates.

So far they’re pretty evenly matched. Time to pull out the calculator and figure out the roll by roll value.

The size of a square (or sheets to use the packaging lingo):

Seventh Generation is a whopping 4.5 inches by 4 inches compared to Cascades 3.9 inches by 4 inches. (Sheryl Crow must use Seventh Generation if she thinks one square will do)

Sheets per roll:

I messed up!

The Seventh Generation package contains double-rolls, with 400 sheets per roll, but the Cascades rolls are singles with only 176 sheets per roll. Not a fair basis for comparison, but we’ll forge ahead (and possibly overstock this item in the interests of consumer research).

But the crumpled wrapper from our last purchase was still lingering beneath the bathroom sink. Enter ‘President’s Choice Green’, a private label brand of Loblaw’s,  found in the Real Canadian SuperStore and Extra foods chains. Made with 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Take that you other contenders! The sheet size is the same as the Cascades sheets (is that because it’s Canadian?) But the double roll contains 352 sheets (which is twice what a single Cascade roll holds - another Canadian standard?) Like the others, it is manufactured without chlorine.

But - there is nothing on the package assuring me of its hypo-allergenic qualities or its unscented nature. I did sniff and smelled only paper, but my nose is not terribly sensitive. As to colour, the package makes no claims, but it looks just like the other two. In fact…

The roll on the left is Cascades and the one on the right is  President’s Choice Green. The paper went through identical paper dimplers… could it be? Another Canadian standard? Or the same manufacturer? But Jean, (the inner skeptic speaks) the cardboard tubes are different. The Cascades is on a kraft brown tube and the other on a white processed tube. Clearly a significant difference! The question will be asked tomorrow (courtesy of a 1-888 number.)

All of this has been my way of avoiding doing the math. Which brand gives me the most green for the best price?

24 rolls of 176 sheets = 4224 sheets per package at a cost of $7.99 (cdn) = a number too ridiculously small to write here. (it was $0.002 if you rounded up the decimals)  

An easier comparison might be:

4224 sheets divided by 400 sheets (to make equivalent rolls) = 10.56 rolls  

$7.99 divided by 10.56 rolls = $0.76 per (doubled) roll  Cascades

4 (double) rolls at $6.29 (cdn) = $1.57 per roll Seventh Generation

Then I thought, why not phone my local store and make sure that there’s no strange price scale issues.

12 (double) rolls sell for $16.59 (cdn) = $1.38 per roll Seventh Generation

My instinctual grasp of simple math must be why I bought the four-pack of Seventh Generation instead of the twelve-pack.

Many more questions to answer tomorrow. Could it be that there is duty on imported bathroom tissue? Or that the exchange rate hasn’t caught up to the grocery shelf inventory? Or that the costs of shipping from Vermont are astronomical?

Truthfully, the thing that tipped my hand towards Cascades today was the FREE Reusable Shopping Bag enclosed in a second layer of shrinkwrap around the rolls. It fits the package with ease and saves that awkward under the arm juggle that virtuous plastic bag refusal entails.

Watch the video.

Choose your action.

At the very least, don’t buy your gas from Shell. 

Send the link to this video to two friends.

Consider writing a letter; to Shell, to your MLA (elected Member of the Legislature - provincial), to your MP (elected Member of Parliament - federal), to the local paper.

Many people taking small actions - can it change the world? Let’s try.

There are days when recycling and changing lightbulbs feels hopelessly trivial. 

Miss Landmine is a beauty pageant for Angolan women who have lost limbs in landmine accidents. This project, by norwegian artist, Morton Traavik, has generated some debate. Shouldn’t this be the purpose of art? Creating dialogue, provoking thought, moving people to action?

THE MISS LANDMINE MANIFESTO (from the project website)
(in no particular order)

* Female pride and empowerment.

* Disabled pride and empowerment. * Global and local landmine awareness and information.

* Challenge inferiority and/or guilt complexes that hinder creativity-
historical, cultural, social, personal, African, European.

* Question established concepts of physical perfection.

* Challenge old and ingrown concepts of cultural cooperation.

* Celebrate true beauty.

* Replace the passive term ‘Victim’ with the active term ‘Survivor’

Look at the smiles and read about the lives of the candidates at Miss Landmine.

Imagine, for a moment, living that life, having those dreams.

This is a site that allows you to build your vocabulary while donating grains of rice to feed the hungry. Yes, grains of rice - ten for each word that you choose the correct meaning for.

The rice is donated through the United Nations World Food Program  paid for by the advertisers that appear on the site.

Do you know a business that espouses ‘green’ but uses virgin old-growth toilet paper? (Not that T.P. is ever labelled in that way.) Why does this happen? Could it be because the standard office supply catalogues offer no alternative?

Visit http://www.frogfile.com and consider making a change.

 It might be like turning the Titanic, but until the bigger catalogues offer the green goods, it’s worth trying.

Why change to recycled toilet paper?

According to Greenpeace, if each household in Canada replaced 1 roll of virgin toilet paper with just 1 roll of recycled toilet paper, we’d save 47,962 trees, 3,204 cubic metres of landfill (181 garbage trucks), 65.5 million litres of water (a year’s supply for 135 families of four, and avoid 4,567 kilograms of air and water pollution from manufacturing.

All this for one roll of bum wipe.

passive: 1. suffering action, acted upon. 2. offering no opposition; submissive. 3a. not active; inert.

activism: vigorous action to further a cause, noun: activist

The dictionary definitions suggest that at best, passive activism is an uneasy balance of opposites. Daily life and observation imply that enormous segments of the population fall into this category of activism.

It’s a lot easier to send Greenpeace a cheque every month than it is to hang suspended 42 metres above an icy cold river.  

Greenpeace activists hang Stop the Tar Sands banners above the North Saskatchewan river in Edmonton. Photo courtesy of Greenpeace.