Paradigm Exchange

Mayonnaise recipe... home-making couldn't be easier than this

2009-10-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks KCRW's Good Food blog for this video of the day on how to make mayonnaise:

Examples of "eco-poseurs" and "greenwashing"

2009-10-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

Perfect examples of the latest eco-poseurs and greenwashing:

Earlier this year, following a new trend in making clothing out of recycled PET bottles, Sears introduced a men's suit made out of plastic bottles. What, how, and why??!! I did a quick Wikipedia search to find out "how". Apparently recycled plastic bottles are processed back into PET flakes and used as the raw material for a range of products that would otherwise be made of polyester, including clothing. Okay, well "why" would we want to wear polyester or any "hybrid" synthetic clothing in the first place?!! Natural polyesters and a few synthetic ones are biodegradable, but most synthetic polyesters are not and why have plastic fibers rubbing up against you? I think we can find a better use than clothing for recycled plastic!
Woven Wrapper Purse - This "eco-friendly" purse is woven out of recycled juice pouch wrappers. Okay, granted they are made by a women's cooperative in Philippines...does that make them better? and they are Fair Trade...on sale for $71.95....wow, really? Sorry I just think these purses are ugly.
"All natural" and/or "organic" skin care products that still include paraben or any sort there of....or how about anything with "eth" and PEG. California Attorney General sued Avalon Natural Products, Whole Foods 365, Beaumont Products (manufacturer of the Citrus Magic brand), and Nutribiotic in 2008 for selling products that tested close to or in excess of 20 parts per million for 1,4-Dioxane (considered a probable human carcinogentic by the EPA and formed during the process of "ethoxylation"...hence the "eth".

Celebrity spoof spot lights "greenwashing" and "eco-poseurs"

2009-10-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks Grist.org for bringing it to my attention in your recent article, "Does being hot make your green website hot too?, that Julia Stiles has launched a clothing line, Julia Stiles Styles. Her motto being “Helping the environment. You’re welcome.” The website features three outfits: A shirt made from ten other shirts, a two-piece suit made from recycled newspapers and accented with a tie made from a swiffer, and a shant (a shirt that you can wear as pants). The items are priced in the hundreds and when you click to purchase an item the site notifies you that all Julia Stiles Styles are sold out but suggests you donate to the Lunch Box Fund instead, a legitimate Fund providing impoverished children in the township schools of Alexandra and Soweto with often their only meal of the day. She upholds her spoof throughout a video posted on her site in which the clothing is modeled during an interview with Julia. I've always loved Julia Stiles "style" of humor and this has only amplified my opinion of the actress.

Forest Ethics and Junk Mail

2008-08-28T01:31:00.000-07:00

Today I dove deep into Forest Ethics. Forest Ethics is a nonprofit environmental organization with a mission to protect Endangered Forests. Their first step is to identify which forests are endangered (Great Bear, Inland Rainforest, Boreal, Chile, and Sierra Nevada). Next they determine which corporations are purchasing the products of that destruction. If a corporation refuses to change its practices, they hold that company publicly accountable with protests, websites, email campaigns, national advertisements, and more. When a company is ready to protect Endangered Forests, Forest Ethics help them implement sound policies through their Corporate Action Program. While logging companies may be able to tune out the protests of environmental groups, they can’t ignore their largest customers when they demand environmental reform.

One of Forest Ethics’ current campaigns is against the catalog industry with Sears (also Sears-owned Lands’ End) at the forefront of their campaign. Click here to download the full PDF report on Sears. According to Forest Ethics Sears is one of the largest catalog producers in the world and they’re the largest catalog company without responsible paper standards. Their catalogs have virtually no recycled content and use paper sourced from vital ecosystems and Endangered Forests, including the Canadian Boreal.

Less than 8% of Canada’s Boreal Forest is protected. It is being logged at a rate of 2 acres a minute, 24 hours a day. The United States consumes more than half of all the trees logged in the Boreal—many in the form of catalogs and junk mail. Clearcutting, mining, and oil and gas development have already devastated half of the Canadian Boreal and half of the historic range of the Boreal’s iconic woodland caribou. -Forest Ethics

Forest Ethics goes on to say “Many other catalog companies have already changed their ways. Victoria’s Secret and other industry leaders including Dell and Williams-Sonoma are making great progress, and the rest of the industry will have to follow suit to stay competitive.

Meanwhile, Forest Ethics is getting ready to launch their Do Not Mail campaign to stop junk mail. Check out the fact box from Forest Ethics where they show that greenhouse gases created each year by junk mail are the annual equivalent to 11 coal-fired power plants or 9,372,000 average passenger cars. (Doesn't mention if it's the whole worlds junk mail or the USA's junk mail)

It’s sickening to read these statistics. Its insulting and an amazing waste! Most of all a waste of our resources and energy, but also a waste of our time when we open the mail to figure out if it is indeed junk mail, throw it away, and try to get them to not send us the crap anymore. I can't imagine it’s an effective marketing approach using this tactic. Oh look, just read deeper…Forest Ethic's agrees that it's ineffective and shares it's findings: “A response rate of less than 0.25% is considered acceptable for the 500 million U.S. credit card solicitations that are mailed monthly.” Let’s do the math…0.25% of 500 million is…1,250,000 people that sign up. Let’s say it costs $0.01 to produce one mail ad, that’s $5,000,000…or $4.00 paid per new customer, interesting, seems like these companies could put that money to better advertising use but apparently not since I’m sure they’ve ran their return on investment...and really $4.00 isn't much to pay considering how much they can make with each new customer.

I signed up a month ago with a company to rid my mail of junk mail. So far I haven't noticed a difference but apparently it can take up to a few weeks/months to work. Here are websites I’ve found that appear to offer credible services:

Opt-Out Prescreen will allow you to opt out of receiving credit card and insurance offers. Call 1-888-567-8688 (888-5-OPT-OUT) from your home telephone, or visit their website at http://www.optoutprescreen.com.

http://www.donotmail.org/ (you can also sign a ‘Do Not Mail’ petition here)

http://www.greendimes.com/