According
to the National Retail Federation, annual Halloween spending has
surpassed $5 billion in the United States. With the average person
spending the most money on costumes, followed by candy and then
decorations, it’s a holiday enjoyed by adults, kids and even pets
across the country. Halloween is second only to Christmas in the
decorations market. Unity Marketing found that consumption in this area
has grown with people’s fascination with ghosts, the supernatural and
sci-fi, often prompted by popular cable television shows. However with
billions of dollars being spent on a single holiday, what is very real
is the environmental impact of our often disposable festive wares.
During
tight economic tim es, imagine the impact upon our wallets if at first
we chose to buy less and then brought back our creativity and tradition
with homemade alternatives to what is mass-produced for the holiday.
Curbing consumption has an additional environmental impact if we make
different choices in determining what we do purchase for the holiday.
From vintage to responsibly produced goods, there are many choices available to the conscious consumer.
Candy is a good place to start in making more mindful decisions. As
many Halloween treats are chocolates, look for products that are
certified Fair Trade. Why? According to certification organization TransFair,
“Fair Trade certification ensures that cocoa farmers receive a fair
price for their harvest, creates direct trade links between
farmer-owned cooperatives and buyers, and provides access to affordable
credit. On Fair Trade farms, slave labor is strictly prohibited and
farms are inspected to ensure that Fair Trade standards are being met.”
In the spirit of October being Fair Trade month, let’s continue to
educate our friends and neighbors! Co-op America has great resources to help spread the word on this issue. You can also
order a “Fair Trade Trick or Treat Action Kit” through Global Exchange.
Good choices for individually-wrapped Fair Trade chocolates for
Halloween include: Sweet Earth Chocolates (skulls) and Divine Chocolate
(eyeballs).
What about other goodies? Clif Bar Kids has an organic bar made with
whole oats in a ‘smores flavor, complete with spooky packaging.
YummyEarth Organic Fruit lollipops are sweetened with cane juice, not
corn syrup. National Geographic’s The Green Guide also has an extensive list of healthier and eco-friendly treats.
There’s also the idea of passing out non-edibles, like Smencils pencils
made from 100% recycled newspapers. For collecting treats, go retro in
using your pillowcase or reusable grocery bags also work. Chico bags
can hold up to 20 pounds! Halloween is also the perfect time to add
items in good condition but no longer needed by your household to your
porch offerings. Why not offer quality goods to someone who may need it
with all of those extra visitors to your porch on Halloween night (and
save the addition to the landfill)?
When
choosing costumes avoid the cheaply-made and once-worn costumes that
we’re used to seeing with some creativity. Check out your local thrift
store or eBay for clothing pieces that can be re-imagined or have a
costume swap with friends whose children are different ages, re-using
get-ups from previous years. If you’re the crafty sort, Sprig.com just
ran a great article of ten homemade costumes with photos and
instructions. And if you are short on time, try Sarah’s Silks, costumes
made with renewable sources in monitored factories. To complete your
child’s costume (or your own!) stay away from traditional makeup kits
sold in specialty stores for the holiday, as they may contain hormone-disrupting paraben preservatives and phthalates. Instead, play around with adult’s cosmetics from natural products stores, or even kitchen staples like ketchup.
Decorations are a fun way to make your home an eco-friendly spot for
hosting friends or passing out candy. Choose organic pumpkins and buy
fewer. We tend to forget that they are a food source in addition to a
decoration and that many are simply thrown out at the end of the
season. Toast the pumpkin seeds from jack-o-lanterns and use others for
eventual cooking and then, compost what’s left over. Squashes also make
beautiful decorations until it’s time to cook them. If you’re into the
traditional ghosts and ghouls, look for ways to craft spooky décor from
recycled goods and things already in the house. Beautiful and kitschy
vintage Halloween decorations can also be found online. Set the mood
with soy or beeswax candles, or try energy-saving compact fluorescent
light bulbs in Halloween colors.
Let your consideration of your Halloween eco-footprint also promote
general mindfulness that includes safety. Environmentally-friendly
reflective tape can be found online, and used on bikes, skateboards,
even brooms! When your family is kept safe it is also a good reminder
of our planet’s interconnectedness. Consider helping your kids to
support children in other parts of the world while they are at their
trick-or-treating best through a program like UNICEF’s “Make Halloween Count” youth action program.
As your excitement for Halloween grows, take one more step to share
an excellent site for environmental news by sending a friend one of Grist.org’s Halloween e-cards. You can also delight in the fact that you’re saving paper and supporting a nonprofit organization.
By Lindsey Wolf, adapted from elephantjournal.com.
Elephant Journal is an online resource for stories on sustainability,
active citizenship, conscious consumerism and non new-agey spirituality.
In a world that is ever buzzing, growing, moving, and consuming there is an underlying push toward the opposite.There lies in each of us a need for stillness, contemplation, and closeness to nature. We look for ways to balance our needs. Even within the environmental
movement, we are continuously striving to balance our desires for more.
We’re always looking for ways to make our day-to-day lives simpler. And
in turn, we ask ourselves what can do to save this precious planet? We
recycle; we buy LED light bulbs, we shop consciously, and we tote
around our PVC-free yoga mats. However, the question remains: are we
really connecting with the earth on a deeper level while on our quest
to save it?
Sometimes
art can help us tap into our universal connection to nature. The work
of U.K. based environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy does just that.His
work is an exquisite reminder of why we buy organic clothing, why we
take five-minute showers, why we use scratchy toilet paper, and why we
continue to strive to do more.Through his unique medium
of environmental art, Goldsworthy succeeds in transporting us to the
core of nature’s beauty and strength.
Goldsworthy creates a myriad of environmental art projects, some built indoors and others built outdoors.Indoors,
his artwork can look as if they were laid there by a swift wind, and
outdoors they represent human interpretations of nature itself.In any setting, they are a single moment’s perfection.They
seem to be suspended in time, and are left to simply wash away,
crumble, ruin, or break down from the elements. Like in nature, his
installations are created to age and weather, and to only last for
short amounts of time. According to Goldsworthy, “My sculpture can last
for days or a few seconds — what is important to me is the experience
of making. I leave most of my work outside and often return to watch it
decay.”
Each piece is created using as many natural tools as possible.For example, when Goldsworthy strings together long chains of leaves, he uses his own spit.He also uses thorns to string together wonderfully fascinating layers of branches.The
use of natural materials lends itself to simplicity, and ultimately a
human perspective of nature at its finest. Goldsworthy sees each
element of his art as part of nature itself, “My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city…”
Goldsworthy’s work is mostly documented through photography, which preserves it in a single instance.His use of natural materials ranges from ice and snow to leaves, twigs, clay, and rocks.Some are completed through the use of volunteers, and others are an individual creation.From
twigs seemingly “growing” out of the water, to bright circular mandalas
made of orange and yellow leaves, each work is unique.
Sometimes on this journey towards sustainability we need a reminder of why we sink our hearts into such a cause.Each work by Goldsworthy gives us a pause, an opportunity to silently meditate.Everyone
will see something different, but if you look close enough and long
enough you just might not need that yoga mat after all.
beginning of October comes the official kick off to Fair Trade Month,
a month-long celebration and promotion of Fair Trade certified
products. Indeed, the Fair Trade movement has a lot to celebrate this
year. According to the Fair Trade Labelling Organization International (FLO), consumers around the world spent more than $3 billion on Fair
Trade certified items in 2007, a whopping increase of 47% from the
previous year! An increasing amount of diverse products are also
entering the Fair Trade market, thus expanding consumers’ options from
the traditionally known Fair Trade items such as crafts, coffee, and
chocolate to include fruits, wine, flowers and even soccer balls and shoes.
This means, that now over 1.5 million producers and workers in
approximately 58 developing countries can benefit from increased
business due to Fair Trade sales.
It’s been commonly understood that Fair
Trade is a preferable, more moral way of conducting business than the
conventional ‘top down’ approach of major, multi-national corporations
in which sweatshops tend to thrive and the workers on the lowest levels
are squeezed. The underlying principles of Fair Trade are to deliver
more than just a financial package to the workers, in order to not only
guarantee that they are paid a fair rate/wage but also to create a
system in which a long-term, sustainable relationship is developed
between the buyer and third world producers that will ultimately
empower these workers and their community to thrive and succeed in the
global marketplace.
In
recent months, however, some organizations have doubted the true
benefit of Fair Trade and have started to question the validity and
impact of the movement. On February 25, Britain’s economic think tank The Adam Smith Institute, a self-proclaimed leading innovator of free-market economic and social policies, published a report by Marc Sidwell entitled “Unfair Trade”.
Mr. Sidwell argues that Fair Trade is actually anything but fair and
while Fair Trade and its supporters may have positive intentions, it
actually does more harm than good.
Sidwell writes that Fair Trade distorts
local markets by fixing a high price of goods for only a small
percentage of producers (thus hurting the majority of the other farmers
producing the same goods at lower costs who are allegedly excluded from
Fair Trade business practices). He also argues that Fair Trade is
“irrelevant” to large scale poverty relief and does not aid economic
development properly, rather it prevents the poor from gaining the
proper tools to successfully improve their financial outlook. He goes
on to claim that Fair Trade actually prevents farmers from advancing
their technologies and efficiencies and the opportunity for
diversification, and are thus actually stuck in an unsustainable practice.
Sidwell furthermore asserts that Fair
Trade is merely a marketing scheme that rewards inefficient farmers who
produce poor quality goods, thus also being unfair to the consumer who
allegedly has a wealth of ethical purchasing options available to them
without even knowing it due to the overwhelming monopoly of Fair Trade
certified goods.
As
would be expected, the release of this report caused a backlash of
responses from the Fair Trade community and ethical bloggers alike,
including a lengthy, evidence-driven press release from The Fairtrade Foundation attempting to discredit Sidwell’s arguments. They angrily write, “Two
billion people work extremely hard to earn a living but still earn less
than $2 per day and the FAIRTRADE Mark enables consumers to choose
products that help address this injustice. As no-one is forced to join
a fair trade producer organisation, or to buy Fairtrade products, you
would think that free market economists like the Adam Smith Institute
would be pleased at the way the public has taken our voluntary label to
its heart…”
So how is Fair Trade really affecting the
workers of the world and is its global impact truly innovative and
revolutionary, or merely smoke and mirrors as Mr. Sidwell points out?
After spending 17 solid pages tearing the
Fair Trade mission into pieces, Sidwell’s only suggestion for a viable
alternative is to follow the global path of Free Trade. He uses China
and India as two examples of how Free Trade has lifted traditionally
poverty-stricken countries into more solid financial positions where
they very recently have been successfully lobbying for global economic
leadership positions. While Sidwell’s examples may offer some element
of truth, it certainly does not account for the long list of human
rights abuses and exploits both countries have added to their economic
repertoires.
With a debate like this, we have to stop
and ask ourselves…is the explosive growth of China and India truly
having a proper ‘trickle down’ effect? That is, are the workers of the
world, the people at the lowest level, the people that bear the grunt
of globalization on their backs really feeling any kind of financial
relief or reward from the macro economic improvements of their nations?
And what about the workers living in countries that are not
advantageously growing with globalization, such as Peru, Argentina,
Ethiopia, Haiti…the list goes on? Do they have no opportunity for
growth…or can the Fair Trade market act as an outlet for these workers
to exit the fringes and become active players in the global
marketplace? Perhaps what the world needs is a harmonious balance
between Free and Fair Trade in which poor nations on a macro level and
lower class workers on a micro level can all flourish together. After
all, with a happy, healthy workforce comes increased loyalty, ownership
and productivity which ultimately trickles up to the overall economic growth of the nation as a whole.
Regardless of anyone’s argument, I can
tell you that after personally experiencing close contact with real
people in the developing world, doing business under Fair Trade
principles is a rewarding and effective method of trade. It provides
wonderful opportunity to meet, get to know, and partner directly with
the people that are actually making our products. I see firsthand how
our business effects and improves their lives, the lives of their
families and their community. And I hear the passion, excitement and
pride in their voices when they receive a new order. Maybe I missed
something…but to us, this is what Fair Trade is all about.
With 54% of
America drinking coffee on a daily basis and 25% being “occasional”
coffee drinkers, we can safely say that approximately 80% of the
population is very familiar with sipping a cup of joe. Second only to
oil, coffee is the most traded commodity in the world, with the United
States alone consuming one-fifth of total global production.
Yet, as demand for this roasted bean rises, value is sharply declining. In August 2001, the price of coffee fell below fifty cents per pound,
although the prices in coffee houses and grocery stores remained
constant. This means a sponging of excess profits by all parts of the
coffee industry except the farmers in poverty-stricken countries such
as Ethiopia that grow some of the most high-quality beans in the world.
This is not an unusual story in the coffee industry.
Before opening The Cup espresso cafe in Boulder, Colorado, owners Chris and Wendy Ball began
doing research on the different varieties of coffee and were appalled
to uncover the conditions that many farmers are forced to work under.
In defiance, they decided to sell only Fair Trade certified organic coffee.
“We wanted to make sure that the business we chose to do was not being
done on the backs of slave labor,” says Chris. The walls of their funky
and modern cafe, rather than being lined with salable art, are lined
with pictures of coffee farmers and their families engaging all stages
of bean production. “Putting faces to these people is super important,”
Chris says.
Due to coffee being an internationally traded commodity, its price
is dictated by many of the same market factors involved in the sale and
production of oil. The people who farm the coffee have no access to the
markets and this leads to huge price instability. When a farmer begins
planting their crops, prices might be, for example, $3.00 a pound, but
by harvest time it could have dropped to $1.00. Of that price, the
farmer generally does not see enough to meet their costs of production,
much less to feed a family. Part of the problem is the roller-coaster
of supply and demand. Coffee is a delicate crop that can be destroyed
at any stage of the process, from planting and harvesting to roasting
and brewing. It is prey to natural disasters (common in most tropical
growing climates) and a hurricane or tsunami can easily wipe out an
entire annual crop. When this happens, the price of coffee soars,
farmers see an opportunity and begin planting coffee, which leads to an
over supply when all the plants recover, and the price plummets even
further.
In
addition to the stress of widely fluctuating market prices, coffee
farmers also have to worry about Coyotes. No furry animal, these
money-hungry middlemen pass through and demand that farmers sell their
harvests to them at a set, sub-standard price. Because farms are
generally far removed from their marketplaces and the farmers usually
have an immediate need for money to buy food and pay their expenses,
they are left with no choice but to sell. “It’s a brutal system that
stacks itself against the people at the very bottom,” Chris explains.
Fair Trade policy (created by Transfair USA and monitored by the Fair Trade Labeling Organization and third-party organization FLO-CERT)
attempts to alleviate many of these problems by establishing a set
price per pound for coffee. This allows market fluctuations over the
course of the harvest to be smoothed out by guaranteeing farmers a
living wage. Fair Trade farmers are currently paid $1.26 per pound of
coffee. If, however, the market price goes higher than that, the farmer
is paid the market price plus five cents, or eleven cents if the coffee
is organically grown.
In addition, Fair Trade policy guarantees free financing to farmers
so that they won’t feel pressure to sell their crops at a low price
because of momentary hardships. Technical assistance is also provided
so time can be taken to improve the quality of their beans and
therefore garner the higher prices per pound that specialty coffee
sells for. Finally, it gives farmers access to international markets
and allows them to participate in international debate. “It gives the
people a voice and allows them to have some power over their own
lives,” Chris says.
Fair Trade coffee is not, however, without its problems, and one of the main issues it currently faces is green-washing.
Big corporations have figured out that Fair Trade coffee sells, and
consumers are more than willing to shell out more money in support of
the humane treatment of farmers. Many coffee houses in the EU and North
America advertise that they carry Fair Trade coffee, but only sell it
in whole bean packages on the shelves; they don’t brew it. Or, worse,
companies will pay the Fair Trade price for a pound of coffee, but
won’t adhere to the other policies of Fair Trade, yet still label that
coffee as fairly traded.
“Corruption is one of the largest scapegoats that people say they
use as a reason not to buy Fair Trade coffee,” Chris explains. “I
acknowledge that there are some problems with it but my answer is, at
least it is trying. You can’t wait for the silver bullet to start
shooting at the problems that are out there. You have to use the tools
that you have available to you right now to make a difference.”
It is a chain of responsibility- from the certified organizations to
ensure all companies that use their labels are meeting strict
regulations to the consumer remaining informed about these issues.
Corruption is a problem that consumers have to pay an increasing amount
of attention to. The best thing to do is to ask the right questions at
a local coffee retailer. If a coffee shop has organic, Fair Trade
certified coffee on their shelves but they aren’t brewing it, ask them
to. If it is labeled as “fairly traded” but does not have a
certification- it is probably not an accurate representation of what
goes on behind closed-doors. For Fair Trade to succeed, it means a
holistic integration of economic, social and environmental
responsibility on everyone’s part.
Get informed on the current state of fair trade policy by un-biased organizations such as Oxfam
Search for retailers near you that are dedicated to supporting the fair trade movement by only serving certified coffee
The terms “shade-grown”
and “organic” seek to further enhance the social and environmental
quality of coffee growing environments. Organic production has it’s own
certification that places harsh limitations on chemical pesticide and
fertilizer use. If coffee is “shade-grown” it means that farmers are
able to grow other crops (like bananas) amongst their coffee plants,
therefore providing them with additional income.
Monday, September 22, 2008, 03:36 PM EST
[General]
Not
everyone is as lucky as residents of the West Coast. In the
metropolitan centers of San Francisco, Berkeley and Seattle, curbside
composting is available, making the disposal of food and other
biodegradable items an easy task. So what about those of us who do not
have a compost service come to our door and who may also live in an
urban environment? What if we live in an apartment and don’t have a
convenient place to put biodegradable food scraps? How do we compost?
Surprising but true, creating a
composting habitat in an apartment is easy and inexpensive. A large
plastic storage bin, shredded scrap newspaper, a drill and the ability
to get over any aversion to wriggling redworms is all that you need to
get the process going. Follow these few steps and you’ll soon be on your way to transforming food scraps into organic fertilizer:
Get a large plastic bin
Drill small holes in the bin to allow air to flow
Fill half with moistened, shredded paper
Add at least 1,000 redworms on one side (moving the shredded paper over to the other side)
Add more shredded paper on top
Add food scraps
Stir occasionally to ensure air flow
Like most everything else, you can buy redworms online and have them shipped to you. If the idea of flying your worm friends
cross-country makes you uneasy, local breeders can be found on sites
like craigslist.
Redworms prefer moderate temperatures and the paper for the bin needs
to be moist but not too wet! According to master composter Barbara
Finnin, who is also the executive director of City Slicker Farms,
redworms eat half of their weight per day. Keep this in mind when
adding scraps to the bin-if you have more than your redworms are
eating, upgrade to a bigger bin and more worms.
A
concern for many novice composters is odor. Fortunately, this is easy
to prevent. Stirring the compost every day aerates the scraps and
prevents unhealthy bacterial growth. Also, keep in mind that dairy and
meat emit more smells than produce. Finnin suggests starting off with
fruits and vegetables before moving on to other food scraps. If done
properly, having the compost bin will actually decrease the smells
coming from your regular garbage.
So what do you do
with the end product? House plants thrive on nutrients from compost. If
you don’t have house plants, you can give the fertilizer as gifts, sell
it online, and/or feed it to plants on your street or in abandoned
lots. While composting inside might seem daunting at first,
once you start, you will see the amount of trash you create per week is
significantly reduced, while generating essential nutrients to help
grow healthy plants and food. It becomes addictive- we hope you won’t
be able to stop!
Here is an excellent instructional video with Barbara Finnin on how to build an indoor compost system:
Ready to build your organic fertilizer-making machine?
A good source of information (and considered the bible of composting) is Mary Appelhof’s Worms Eat My Garbage, replete with worm humor and illustrations.
For the non-crafty type, there are composting bins available online that will fit in most apartments.
During
tight economic tim es, imagine the impact upon our wallets if at first
we chose to buy less and then brought back our creativity and tradition
with homemade alternatives to what is mass-produced for the holiday.
Curbing consumption has an additional environmental impact if we make
different choices in determining what we do purchase for the holiday.
From vintage to responsibly produced goods, there are many choices available to the conscious consumer.
When
choosing costumes avoid the cheaply-made and once-worn costumes that
we’re used to seeing with some creativity. Check out your local thrift
store or eBay for clothing pieces that can be re-imagined or have a
costume swap with friends whose children are different ages, re-using
get-ups from previous years. If you’re the crafty sort, Sprig.com just
ran a great article of ten homemade costumes with photos and
instructions. And if you are short on time, try Sarah’s Silks, costumes
made with renewable sources in monitored factories. To complete your
child’s costume (or your own!) stay away from traditional makeup kits
sold in specialty stores for the holiday, as they may contain hormone-disrupting paraben preservatives and phthalates. Instead, play around with adult’s cosmetics from natural products stores, or even kitchen staples like ketchup.
