The Red, White, and Green

Wow. Dasani (or Coca-Cola, I should say) is really working hard to make you feel OK about drinking filtered tap water out of a plastic bottle. I caught sight of a new Dasani PlantBottle ad in the March issue of Glamour, and there’s one thing I have to give the company credit for: effective advertising.

Lovingly caressed in the dewy leaf of a plant and topped off with a bright green plastic cap, even I was momentarily seduced by the seemingly pristine looking bottle. That’s a bold step for a company as large and mainstream as Coca-Cola, I thought.

Wait a second. This is water I could get from my tap. For free. And it’s served up in a plastic bottle. The PlantBottle may be manufactured from 30 percent sugar cane-based plastic, but this is still a completely unnecessary product. The Dasani website boasts a new section entitled “Eco-Living,” but there is absolutely nothing eco about this.

At best, it’s a small improvement for an incredibly wasteful industry. The plant material supposedly reduces the bottle’s carbon emissions by 25 percent, but consider that the bottled water industry produces more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 a year. And that it takes three liters of water to produce every single liter of Dasani. I suppose you could also argue that using plants for plastic lessens our dependence on foreign oil, but you know what else would lessen our dependence on foreign oil? Not having a bottled water industry.

An advantage of a lot of the new plant-based plastics is that they’re compostable, which helps cut down on pollution (e.g., the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). This Dasani PlantBottle can only be recycled though, since the remaining 70 percent is still made from good old-fashioned petroleum-based plastic. Too bad only about 20 percent of the 34.6 billion single-serving plastic water bottles bought in the US every year actually make it to the recycling plant.

I apologize for the rant, but nothing revs me up more than a massive case of greenwashing. Is it great that green has reached a critical enough mass that Dasani’s customers would even care about a plant-based plastic bottle? Of course. The bottled water industry isn’t going to disappear overnight; isn’t it better that Dasani is using 30 percent less petroleum-based plastic? Sure. But the model wearing a T-shirt on the Dasani website that says “Make Your Plastic Fantastic” is where I draw the line. No wonder she’s hiding her face.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Buy a reusable water bottle. I like Klean Kanteen.

Related posts:
Greenwashing alert: Baja Fresh
Avoiding bottled water at the airport

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Photo: Sustainable Health Enterprises

Warning: If you’re a man who didn’t grow up with sisters, you may be a bit squeamish when it comes to the following topic; but stay with me — this is important stuff.

When trolling the feminine care aisle, most of us give little thought to the matter at hand beyond how to get rid of those cramps and preferred absorbency. Judging by the plethora of plastic out there, the environment isn’t much of a consideration, either, despite the fact that 12 billion pads and tampons are sent to US and Canadian landfills every year. But in developing nations like Rwanda, menstruation is a matter of survival: Millions of girls and women miss up to 50 days of school or work a year because they can’t afford to buy sanitary pads.

One woman, Harvard Business School grad Elizabeth Scharpf, has come up with a way to change all this, and to do it in a way that actually helps the environment: sanitary pads made from trash-bound banana-tree fibers. As if this weren’t amazing enough, Scharpf and her Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) organization are working to help Rwandan women set up their own businesses manufacturing these pads. (Farmers benefit, too — they now get paid for those banana-tree fibers that were once thrown out.)

This is world-changing stuff: Scharpf shared the stage with Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative last September.

I came across Scharpf’s story in the February issue of Marie Claire, but that article is not online, unfortunately. Read more about the incredible work Scharpf and her team are doing by visiting the SHE blog.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: The average woman throws away between 10,000 and 15,000 tampons, pads, and applicators over her lifetime. Believe it or not, there are eco-friendly options out there that don’t suck. Keep an open mind, and check out some cool alternatives here.

Related post:
Save water, pee in the shower

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I’ll admit, I’m human: Today I didn’t have time to make a homemade lunch before I had to rush out to do errands, so I swung by Baja Fresh for a veggie burrito. I like that Baja uses minimal packaging for its smaller orders — usually the burritos are just wrapped in foil and placed in a tiny paper bag with a few tortilla chips — so imagine my surprise when I saw this waiting for me at the pickup counter. Does anyone see the irony here?

I’m sorry, Baja Fresh, but using plastic bags made from 50 percent recycled materials does not an eco-friendly company make. It may be a step in the right direction, but those single-use plastic bags still end up clogging our landfills and polluting our waterways — and less than 5 percent of them are recycled every year.

Quite curious to see what sort of green initiatives are underway at the company — since the franchise uses even more plastic (plates, cups, and utensils) for its dine-in customers — I went to the company website, thinking that maybe there would be a full environmental report. Nothing there.

It would be great if Baja Fresh switched to 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper take-out bags, but at the very least, don’t plaster that you’re a green company all over a plastic bag! Ridiculous. This is greenwashing, plain and simple.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Minimize the amount of packaging you consume by avoiding takeout whenever possible; or, at the very least, refuse that extra plastic bag if you’re only going to be traveling a short distance.

Related posts:
Taco Bell’s new ‘green’ menu?
Los Angeles moves one step closer to plastic bag ban

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I have to share a little secret: Since the July launch of my Eco Etiquette column for The Huffington Post, I’ve breathed a sigh of relief with each passing week that no one has yet taken me up on my offer to explain the difference between cap and trade and Cap’n Crunch. The carbon cap and trade legislation being hammered out on Capitol Hill is so complex, and the source of such heated debate, that to distill it into 800 words or less would be a head-scratching task, to say the least. Thankfully, someone else did the work for me: I’ll now only have to refer inquiring minds to The Story of Cap and Trade, a new 10-minute video from Annie Leonard and the other brilliant minds that brought us The Story of Stuff.

[Click here to watch video]

All in all, the video does an excellent job making sense of an issue that only 1 in 4 Americans understands, though it lacks some of the light bulb moments I experienced after first watching The Story of Stuff — but maybe I’m just more jaded now. (The first time I saw that now-famous takedown of consumerist society, I thought: Planned obsolescence? Companies are really that evil? But then again, that was before we bailed out Wall Street firms with our taxpayer money only to have them turn around and hand over $140 billion in bonuses this year.)

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: We can’t afford to profess ignorance about an issue that has the power to change the fate of the world (for better or worse). Email The Story of Cap and Trade to your friends and family, post it on Facebook and Twitter — spread the word!

Related posts:
Senate needs to pass climate bill
Global warming will threaten national security

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The producer of the Erewhon Expo was kind enough to offer a response to my earlier post regarding the not-so-green promotion (flyers littered all over the neighborhood) of what was supposed to be a green event, although he didn’t really offer an excuse other than that in his opinion, the end justified the means. 

I am sorry about the flyers, but we had to bring lots [of] people to our [event and our] green and healthy living message to lots [of] people. Also, this event created more then 150 jobs, and we educated lots [of] people about green [living] and health. You can’t judge an event from the flyer. If you came to the show, you [would] be very happy and proud that we did something for the community. Next time I do this event, I will ask for your help and ideas so we can create something more green.

Happy to help, Erewhon.

p.s. An RWG reader just emailed me this photo, and I couldn’t resist publishing it. He took the pic at the corner of Melrose and Alta Vista, a full two miles from my neighborhood (looks like we weren’t the only ones graced with Erewhon’s garbage). Note that it’s now been four days since the expo. Any more photos, RWG readers? Send ‘em my way!

–Jennifer Grayson

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Los Angeles natural foods market Erewhon hosted its 30th year anniversary celebration this past Sunday, featuring 100 exhibitors and lecturers — even drawing eco-celeb Ed Begley Jr. as its keynote speaker. I didn’t make it to the event, unfortunately. However, I did see the postcards that were littered all over my neighborhood in order to publicize the event, and that are still lingering days later (don’t worry, I picked them up and put them in the recycling bin after taking these photographs).

Seeing as a flyer was placed on my windshield no less than three times this past weekend (my husband’s car as well), I’m guessing that Erewhon printed and distributed thousands of them for the event (and I’m no Dwight Schrute, but the cards didn’t even look like they were printed on recycled paper).  There are plenty of eco-friendly ways to promote an event  – radio advertisements, posts on popular local websites like DailyCandy and LA.com – even a strategically placed poster or two wouldn’t have created the mess and the waste that these flyers did, not to mention the inconvenience for locals, who had to pick up all the litter. For any company, this kind of pollution is unnecessary; for Erewhon, “a model store in the natural foods industry” (their words, not mine), it’s downright embarrassing.

–Jennifer Grayson

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I was always thought I was a careful consumer–considering environmental impact as well as my family’s bottom line when contemplating purchases–but with the current economic crisis, I’ve found myself re-thinking every purchase, no matter how mundane: Why buy a new shampoo when I’ve got a few bottles (albeit ones I don’t like very much, but still perfectly usable) in my closet? My favorite flats are wearing thin, and I could use a new pair, but why don’t I just send them to the shoemaker and replace the soles instead? 

And that’s when it occurred to me: The current economic crisis isn’t just forcing people to make changes that will help them save money. It’s bringing a sea change to America’s culture of consumerism. And this new careful consideration of how we spend our money benefits the environment. A few concrete examples:

• Scaling back on expensive vacations. Instead of jetting off to Europe, more and more Americans are taking trips closer to home. (A roundtrip flight from Los Angeles to London releases 2,304 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, according to the TerraPass flight calculator.) I, for one, have rediscovered camping (added eco bonus: connecting with nature, and marshmallows that easily biodegrade in my stomach).
• Buying products that last. When I do have to make a purchase, you can bet that I’m going with the longest lasting, most durable product–even if it costs a bit extra. Less consumption of short-lifecycle goods means less waste headed for the landfill. (If you haven’t seen the “Story of Stuff” yet, watch it now.)
• Staying in my neighborhood. I’m saving money on gas and reducing carbon emissions at the same time by staying in my neighborhood (or biking or walking) whenever possible. LA has a car-centric culture, but is actually very walker friendly (sidewalks everywhere!). Why do I need to drive to some restaurant five miles away when there are a dozen great places in my ‘hood? 

Some may argue that the US economy is built on consumerism–after all, part of the reason the economic crisis is worsening is that people who have lost their jobs and homes have drastically reduced spending, forcing businesses that rely on that spending to lay off even more workers, who then in turn stop spending because they no longer have a paycheck (and the downward spiral continues). But if anything has become clear in recent months, it’s that our planet–and our economy–can’t support out-of-control consumer greed.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Sure, anyone with deep pockets can go out and buy a new hybrid car or install solar panels at home. But what about those of us who are struggling financially, yet want to do our bit to reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Today’s Wall Street Journal offers 10 ways to help the environment and save money at the same time. A few highlights:

• Leasing solar panels. Buying and installing solar panels offers huge savings in the long-term, but can cost tens of thousands of dollars. In California and a few other states, however, some companies will install solar panels on your property, then charge you for the power from the panels at a much lower rate than a traditional utility bill–expect a savings of about 11 percent in yearly electricity costs.
• Lighting motion sensors. A common scenario in office buildings, installing lighting motion sensors in your home is a simple way to cut costs, especially for outdoor lights that are often left on at night. This is a solution that offers little up-front cost: Many porch lights have built-in sensors and cost around $50. 
• Smarter water heating. If you heat your water with natural gas and pay high utility rates, a drain-water heat-recovery system can be an effective solution. Here’s how it works: Heat from waste water as it travels down your shower drain is captured by the system and then essentially recycled, warming up more water for your shower. If your utility company offers a rebate for installation, expect ROI in less than a year.

This is just more proof that our current economic crisis is going to be the real driving force for environmental change. Sure, there will always be concerned citizens who want to help the world for the world’s sake, but many folks will be making changes solely to cut costs (biking to work to save on gas money, foregoing bottled water in favor of a filtered pitcher at home) that will then in turn benefit the environment. As a green tech expert I spoke to recently said: “Economy and ecology. You cannot separate the two.”

–Jennifer Grayson

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