No Impact Man Screening-tonight! FREE!!!

I hope to see you all out at the screening tonight!

-The Reuser

Granola Bars: Product Review #6

This review is part of a series.

Product Name/Company/Price: Nature's Path Organic granola bars, Hemp Plus Raisins $1.99

The Good: Wheat free, low sodium, no trans fat, organic (every ingredient that can be is), 400 mg Omega-3 per serving, whole grain, company is in same state as me. These are pretty tasty. I can definitely see taking one of these puppies along on a hike or as a mid afternoon snack to ward off hunger. 

The Bad: They're almost *too* sweet, with the raisins and they're a bit sticky.

Would I buy again? Probably

Green Drinks 2 Year Anniversary Party NEXT WEEK!

I sure hope I'm going to see you all out at our wonderful 2 year anniversary party next Tuesday night! More details

Crackers: Product Review #5

This review is part of a series.

Product Name / Company / Price: R. W. Garcia 5 Seed Onion & Chive Crackers $1.99

The Good: Made with organic corn, wheat and gluten free, non-GMO, no trans fats. These little guys are pretty tasty. They sorta taste like the cracker equivalent of a tortilla chip.  Or, if tortilla chips and crackers had a little tryst, this is what would come of it.

The Bad: They're a little bland (I expected the chive/onion taste to be bolder) and only the corn is organic-the other ingredients don't seem to be. 

Would I buy again? Probably

Vote for a micro-grant

Check out this micro-grant "competition" and vote for Anna Grunwald.  She wants to take her students on a tour of their local recycling facility.  Having given countless tours of our transfer station, I can honestly say that it's an experience that you will probably never forget.  I wish everyone could tour their local transfer station!

No Impact Man screening

The Reuse Alliance is sponsoring some free screenings of the documentary No Impact Man. We happen to be lucky enough to be one of the locations.

The Reuse Alliance is partnering with Vancouver Green Drinks and The Quarry at Columbia Tech Center to bring you this wonderful opportunity.

Screening Details

 I'll be there-will you?

Wafers: Product Review # 4

This review is part of a series.

Product Name/Company/Price: Helwa Organic Lemon and Vanilla Wafers, $.99/each

The Good: These are pretty tasty

The Bad: They're flaky-you end up getting crumbs all over you.  That's not really a deal breaker, but seriously...crumbs everywhere!

Would I buy again? Probably.

Chocolate!: Product Review # 3

This review is part of a series.

Product Name/Company/Price: Dagoba organic Chai chocolate, $1.49

The Good: The chai is an interesting addition. It's mild enough that the whole thing still tastes like chocolate, but a little spicy.

The Bad: It's not really "bad" it's just not necessarily my cup of tea-pun intended.

Would I buy again? Probably not, especially since Dear BF didn't like it at all. He made a face and said "Why would you mess with chocolate?"

We tried a second type, as well:

Product Name/Company/Price: Alter Eco Fair Trade Milk Chocolate Cajou, $1.49

The Good: The chocolate is very smooth. 

The Bad: I prefer chocolate straight up-completely unadulterated. I think I would prefer this chocolate that way.

Would I buy again? Maybe. If the chocolate didn't have any additives (cashews and raisins), I definitely would. All Dear BF said was, "Yeah, it was good."

Chocolate Chunk Cookies Product Review # 2

This review is part of a series.

Product Name/Company/Price: The first product I tried was Chocolate Chunk Gluten free cookies from Arico Natural Foods Company, $1.49 at Grocery Outlet

The Good: No trans fats, no preservatives, no artificial flavor or color, certified organic, Arico is local; the address is Beaverton, OR (about 20 miles away from where I bought the cookies.) Every ingredient that can be certified organic is.

The Bad: pretty much everything else. These cookies are not to my liking. They're pretty bland-for being supposedly chocolate "chunk" the chunks are more like small skimpy "chips." The texture is all wrong for me. I like cookies to be ideally chewy or barring that, crunchy. These have a somewhat dense cake-like texture. I've never had any other gluten free cookies to compare them to, so maybe they're good as far as gluten free goes?

Would I buy again? Absolutely not

One last caveat: I noticed just now while I was writing the post that the package I bought has a small slit in it (looks as though someone was using a box cutter to get into the package of these cookies and accidentally sliced it.) This may have changed the texture/moisture level of the cookies.

Earth Day event at the Marshall Center THIS weekend!

If you're in this area, you should definitely come out to the Earth Day event this weekend.  I'll be there as well as 2 of my colleagues, my CSA and a bunch of other great folks.  There will be four main tents with themes-Planting, Tending, Harvesting and Preserving. This is a great family event. Bring the kids, bring the pups! (it's an outdoor event.) Complete an Earth Day passport (visit all the tents and get a stamp from each.) to be eligible for free lunch, (first 400 people) a free bag of compost and entry into a drawing for fantastic prizes! We hope to see you there!

Organic plant starts: Product Review # 1

The very first items in my cart were actually outside the store. There was an impressive display of herb and veggie starts and I bought five in all; strawberry, yellow brandywine tomato, tomatillo, lemon balm and chives.

This review is part of a series.

Product Name/Company/Price: organic strawberry, yellow brandywine tomato, tomatillo, lemon balm and chives from Brentwood Park Organic farm in Estacada, OR. $1.29 for everything except the chives-they were $1.59

The Good: the chives are tasty and the lemon balm reminds me of my childhood home. All the other plant starts I'll have to mention later in the season, once they've been planted and hopefully are producing. The whole display looked pretty healthy.  Also, Estacada is pretty local.  It's about 30 miles away from the store.

The Bad: My strawberry plant already looks pretty dismal. It might be just fine, but it's touch and go for now. Otherwise, everything looks great.

Would I buy again? Definitely. I'm always on the lookout for good plant starts.

I'm still trying to decide whether a plant start being organic is important to me. What seems more important would be what you put on the plant once you get it home. On the other hand, it was nice to know the chives didn't have anything on them when I tried a little bit of them. Also, simple science seems to suggest that if they're organic starts, they'll be a bit more suited to life with me. (I'm mostly an organic gardener, so if the plants "needed" something to be healthy, they'd be out of luck.)

Shopping for eco-friendly products at Grocery Outlet

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting a series of product reviews. I was approached by Grocery Outlet and given a gift card to buy products and review them. While Grocery Outlet did indeed send me the gift card, all the reviews are solely my work. I was not given any parameters beyond "shop at our store with the gift card and review whatever you buy" I was not told to give favorable reviews of any of the products (and indeed I won't be for all)

So what did I buy? First of all, lots! I shop at Grocery Outlet probably on average 2-4 times a month. The selection is always very...varied. There are certain staples that you can find there pretty much any time, (for example, meat, cheese, milk, butter and produce.) but everything else is a complete mixed bag. The one consistent thing is low prices. Because they seem to often have close out items from other stores, (they call themselves a "remarketer of excess inventories") their prices are usually very reasonable.

In the past, I have noticed a fair amount of organic products (or products with some other environmental claim) at Grocery Outlet. For this project, I did my shopping at the Hollywood district store in Portland, OR.

They have the largest selection of organic products of all the Grocery Outlet stores. In fact, when I first started shopping, I thought I was going to have to carefully search every aisle for products, but as I neared the end of the first aisle, the PA system informed me that this particular store had an entire aisle (pictured below) dedicated to organic/eco-friendly products. My shopping then got a lot easier!

Reuse binder clips to organize your cables

While reading this article on ways to de-clutter your digital life, I was struck by the alternative use of simple binder clips. (See #1)

blog size issues

I'm aware I'm having size issues with my blog. I will rectify the situation asap. Sorry for the inconvenience.

-The Reuser

PVC in food packaging

I recently found out that the packaging for one of my favorite treats is PVC or polyvinyl chloride. I found this disturbing not only from a standpoint of potential health risks, but also because PVC is hard to recycle (only one recycler I know of touches the stuff) and with the packaging very closely resembling other tubs that are accepted in our program, people would be tempted to include this material in their curbside recycling carts thus ending up as a contaminant in our system.

I decided to write to the company. Here is the email string in its entirety:

From The Reuser to American Licorice Company:

Hello! I wanted to write to tell you I love Red Vines! They're a "dangerous" food for me, because I can never stop eating them, if they're around. However, I was noticing today that the 4 lb. tubs of Red Vines are made out of vinyl plastic. I would like to ask you to reconsider using vinyl to package your product. Please see: http://www.watoxics.org/healthy-families/safe-start-for-kids-1/plastics-101 Have you had any other requests of this nature? I think I will probably not eat Red Vines again until they're packaged in something a bit safer. I've also brought this to the attention of my workmates, as we are all waste reduction educators and vinyl cannot easily be recycled. Thank you for your time and consideration.

From The American Licorice Company to The Reuser:

Thank you for taking the time today to contact the American Licorice Co. and for your concern with our products. For strength in shipping we use plastic vinyl containers. Our consumers find ways to re-use the containers for other purposes. Perhaps, you would feel more comfortable buying our 1 lb bag of Red Vines.

Red Vines 1 lb bags are carried at several national and regional chain stores. Please try Albertsons, Save Mart, Sack’ N Save, CVS, Flash Foods, Costco, Osco/Savon, Krogers, Food Lions, Rite Aid, Longs, Smart & Finals, Safeway, Sam’s Club, Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s. Please visit our website at www.redvines.com to find a store in your area that carries Red Vines brand candy.

If you have difficulty locating your favorite American Licorice products in retail, you can also visit our online candy store, Candy Cabinet (https://www.candycabinet.com) where American Licorice products are sold. You can also call Diversified Distributers at 1-877-453-1638 and tell them which of the American Licorice products you’re interested in. As a token of your love for our products, we will be sending Red Vines to enjoy. Please provide mailing address for delivery.

Cordially,

American Licorice Company

From The Reuser to The American Licorice Company:

Unfortunately, your answer is not very satisfactory. Have you tried other packaging types? If so, what have been the results? Is your company concerned at all with the potential negative effects of vinyl? Do you have a sustainability specialist? If so, can you please forward my email on to him or her? I understand that some of the tubs could be reused, but hopefully not for food items. This also dismisses the potential effects of your vinyl tubs being included in most recycling systems (such as ours) that can't handle them. I've been paying extra attention to the plastic packaging in the stores lately and it seems most of it is PETE. Is there some reason red vines couldn't be packaged in PETE or PP (polypropylene) plastic? I know you mentioned strength in shipping, but if every other plastic type I've seen is PETE, that becomes hard to believe.

From The American Licorice Company to The Reuser:

We do use polypropylene in our packaging. Our Original Red Vines 1lb bags and our 32oz Family Mix bags are packaged in PP. If you are interested, Red Vines 1lb Bags and Family Mix bags are carried at Albertsons, Save Mart, Sack’ N Save, CVS, Flash Foods, Costco, Osco/Savon, Krogers, Food Lions, Rite Aid, Longs, Smart & Finals, Safeway, Sam’s Club, Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s. Please visit our website at www.redvines.com to find a store in your area that carries Red Vines brand candy.

If you have difficulty locating your favorite American Licorice products in retail, you can also visit our online candy store, Candy Cabinet (https://www.candycabinet.com) where American Licorice products are sold. You can also call Diversified Distributers at 1-877-453-1638 and tell them which of the American Licorice products you’re interested in. Once again for your concern

Cordially,

American Licorice Company

From The Reuser to The American Licorice Company:

You continue to ignore my essential question which is whether or not your company is concerned with potential negative effects by continuing to use vinyl in some of your packaging? Please address this essential question. I'm not asking where to find your products, I have no issues with that. I'm also not asking if I can buy your product in other types of plastic, I'm well aware I can. I'm asking about issues with using PVC and whether or not there has been any movement away from packaging in PVC tubs?

While I do appreciate your time taken to answer my questions, I feel you've been a bit willfully ignoring my question.

Sincerely,

The Reuser

That last email was sent on February 24th and I've had no response from them since. Nor have I purchased any products from them since that time.

The picture above was taken at the transfer station, proving that people do in fact believe the plastic is recyclable and mistakenly include it in their recycling carts.

"degradable" plastics

The Association of Postconsumer Plastics Recyclers has put out this position paper about degradable plastics. This may be a highly specialized post, but I find this stuff fascinating. It's worth educating yourself about these types of plastics, especially if you buy disposable plastics.

Greenwashing Spy

Greenwashing a.k.a. green whitewash is the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly*

In a webinar recently, I heard about Greenwashing Spy-a blog all about exposing such acts.

*from wikipedia

Olympics ad graphics reused

This is probably old news to some of you by now, but a company called Mannington will be recycling ad graphics used at the Winter Olympics (about 3 football fields worth) and creating flooring tiles out of them. I first read about this in Waste & Recycling News, but there's lots more articles now.