Every Trade A Fair Trade...

If you're like most Americans, you may not stop to think about where things come from or how they're made unless there's a problem. After all, most of us have too much to do and too little time. Still, it's good to stop and take a look at the world around us from time to time. Where things come from is just one question - how they come to land on our table or in our homes is another. How did that shirt or that coffee or that television end up in your home? Chances are good, many of the foods and products you buy have traveled around the world to end up in your hands.

Think about coffee for example. Let's say you buy a bag of French Roast from a local retailer. Let's say it's a 16 oz. package and it sets you back $12.95. One pound for about $13 bucks. A lot of people had a hand in getting that product into your hands - from the retailer to the distributor to the roaster to the grower. Everybody needed to be compensated for their efforts so that $13 has to be shared all the way from grower to retailer.

Coffee is typically grown in developing countries and the Fair Trade movement helps ensure that the folks growing the coffee get a fair deal. That wasn't always the case - and still isn't in places where Fair Trade agreements are not in place. Fair Trade helps farming families lift themselves out of poverty by investing in their farms and communities, protecting the environment and developing business skills to compete in the global marketplace.

Fair trade is not just about price, but price is an important element. That same $13 bucks needs to be split fairly among all the people who are responsible for getting that product to market. Historically, the folks doing the growing were sometimes short changed and the scales were not balanced.

The Fair Trade movement helps to bring things back into balance. It's about fair price, but it's also about fair labor conditions and direct trade (cutting out some of the middlemen along the way). Fair trade also helps to develop communities and supports sustainable agricultural methods. That's why you'll find a lot of Fair Trade products are also organic - if you want to have a sustainable agricultural model, you need to nuture the land you have so it can continue to be fertile and productive for generations to come - organic methods do just that.

October is Fair Trade month and now that you've learned a bit about Fair Trade, you may want to consciously seek out products that are Fair Trade.

Want to learn more? You can visit these sites:
http://www.fairtrademonth.org
http://www.transfairusa.org

Of course, shopOrganic strongly supports the Fair Trade movement and we proudly carry products that are Fair Trade certified.


We can't always control things in the world around us, but each of us can make a difference in small ways that add up. Buying organics is one way, supporting and purchasing Fair Trade products is another.

As I'm fond of saying, consumers vote with their dollars and I hope someday we'll see a landslide victory for organics.

Be well. Read more!

Paper...Plastic? How About Tiffin Instead?

Most U.S. consumers are familiar with the sing-songy question at grocery stores: "Paper or plastic?" In some cities, plastic bags have been banned - and for good reason. But changing to paper isn't necessarily a more ecological choice. Below, I've listed some information about both paper and plastic that may surprise you. Understanding the challenges might also help you take another step toward going green.

Since plastic and paper are so handy for portable food - for lunch at work or school, for picnics or road trips, it would be hard to go without. So I thought it might make your life easier to introduce you to a back-to-the-future kind of product - the venerable tiffin.

We scoured our resources and located a responsibly manufactured source for tiffins. Tiffins are traditionally used in India, but they're fast becoming popular around the globe and more and more people look to sustainable alternatives to paper or plastic especially for carrying your breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. But they're even more useful than that.

Tiffins come with a lid that doubles as a plate. The lids clamp on to hold lids on tight. The top comes with a built in handle for easy carrying. Re-usable, dishwasher safe, these handy little containers will find their way into your life in surprising ways.

Cara (of shopOrganic fame) mentioned that she brings her tiffin to restaurants so if she wants to take home a 'doggie bag', she has her container with her. Imagine the styrofoam, paper and plastic she saves each time! If we all did that, think of how much less waste we'd each create in one simple move. And, Cara also reports that she can just grab the tiffin and head out to work the next day with her leftovers already packed. How convenient is that?

So, take a look at tiffins and report back how many creative and useful ways you have found to use tiffins to reduce, reuse and recycle!

If you're interested in the paper vs. plastic info, here you go.

In the United States, we use over 380 billion plastic bags each year. That's more than one billion plastic bags per day. One of the problems with plastic is that it does not biodegrade - it just breaks down into ever smaller pieces. These scraps find their way into rivers, oceans, parks, gardens, farms, and landfills. Animals ingest these plastic scraps causing all kinds of problems for wildlife. The amount of petroleum required to make a plastic bag is enough to drive a car one mile.

Plastic also takes fossil fuels to produce - and we know we have a finite source of fossil fuels...Most U.S. cities spend as much as 17 cents per bag in landfill, sewer cleanup and litter pickup costs, wasting millions of tax dollars.

So it seems a bit out of kilter to use it to make flimsy plastic bags to carry our groceries home in. Let's take a quick at paper.

It takes 60% more energy to make a paper bag than it does to make a plastic bag. Americans use an estimated 15 billion paper shopping bags, which requires about 18 million trees. Although paper bags are biodegradable, they do not decompose in landfills because when they're buried, the oxygen required to break down the paper is not present. The chemicals used to bleach paper can also leak into ground water. In fact, the production of paper bags creates 70% more air pollution and 50% more water pollution than the production of plastic bags.

Neither paper nor plastic present viable options for everyday use - they certainly have their uses and there are times that one or the other is the best or only option. However, if everyone reduced their use of plastic and paper bags by just one or two per year, we could reduce waste by more than 50 million pounds per year.

So, what you do DOES make a difference. Reducing just a bit and using alternatives like reusable bags when you go to the store, using tiffins or other reusable containers for take out, lunches and picnics makes a difference and every little bit adds up. You don't have to completely re-wire yourself - just a few small changes can make a big difference. Read more!