Paper vs. Plastic: Choose Neither

Although it’s possible to recycle disposable grocery bags, it’s still a major drain on our environmental resources, and isn’t really worth the trouble. A reusable bag will last forever, and is 95% less likely than a disposable bag to bust open just because you tried to bring home 2 bottles of wine. Still need convincing? Read on to discover why your answer to “paper or plastic?” should be “neither.”

• More than 1 million plastic bags are discarded per minute
• Plastic bags contaminate food and water
• When an animal ingests a plastic bag, these toxic chemicals also enter our own food chain. Yummy!
• Retailers spend approximately $4 billion annually on providing disposable bags– money that could instead go toward improving employee wages, or spiffing up that awful public bathroom
• Plastic bags are so invasive and so darn indestructible, they’ve even become a major litter issue in Antarctica
• Plastic bags are the number one source of ocean pollution
• The manufacturing of paper bags wastes tons of water, too, rendering it completely unsuitable for human or animal use
• The sediment from paper bags causes toxicity in fish and other marine wildlife– and, as you probably know, plastic bags have a horrible reputation for strangling and suffocating all kinds of critters the world over
• A single reusable bag has the capability to replace 1,000 disposable grocery bags in its lifetime

If you carry a purse and are only purchasing one or two small items, consider putting your items in there instead of getting a disposable bag. To make sure you’ll actually remember the reusable bags you put so much earth-friendly effort into retrieving, keep them stashed in your car, or even in an office drawer. If you need something hardier than a bag for your shopping spree, try using a plastic crate!

Stop by The Greener Good to check out the reusable bags we have in store. Our extended holiday hours have begun, meaning that we’re open until 6 PM Tuesday through Saturday!

Paper vs. Plastic: Recycling

Yesterday’s blog focused on the manufacturing processes behind paper and plastic grocery bags. The volume of resources that both kinds of bag require seems pretty outrageous– especially when it comes to paper. Although recycling may seem like a great way to get more bang out of a disposable bag’s materials, it’s not exactly a simple or cheap endeavor.

When paper bags are recycled, they must be returned to their pulp state. This is achieved by breaking down the paper with hydrogen peroxide, sodium hydroxide, sodium silicate, and other freaky-sounding tongue-twisters. After the bags have dissolved into pulp again, the fibers are bleached and re-dispersed, then cleaned and run through a screen to remove contaminants. Because most bags are printed with ink, the pulp also has to be washed with clean water.

The rest of the ink-removal process is tedious and difficult. When dunked in boiling water, ink particles float to the top of the vat in the form of bubbles, which must quickly be removed before they pop and float down into the pulp again. Waste from the recycling process that is not suitable for paper products is cleaned and sorted for other purposes, such as making fertilizer or bricks.

Over half of all plastic bags go straight to municipal landfills, where they make up a whopping 18% of the landfill’s waste. However, plastic is much easier to recycle than paper, as it only needs to be melted and re-molded. Cleaning isn’t necessary, because the temperatures used to melt the bags also sterilize them. Plastic can be recycled and repurposed many times over without a significant loss of quality, and even brittle plastic that’s a little past it’s time can be used in products like ashtrays. Studies have also found that it takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper.

Unfortunately, only 5% of plastic bags are recycled. Paper bags are recycled at a similarly dismal rate of about 10-15%. Because recycling grocery bags requires so much energy and so many resources, many wonder if it’s even worth it. What’s the green alternative to paper or plastic, then? Check out tomorrow night’s blog to find out!

Paper vs. Plastic: The Controversy Continues

It’s the dreaded question you’re asked every single time you head to Central Market. “Paper or plastic?” Suddenly hit with a wave of insecurity and unsureness, you desperately grapple for the “correct” answer. You want to be green! You want to recycle! You want to show the cute hipster cashier that you care about the environment! Which choice is truly better, then? To give you some much-needed insight, this week’s blog series will focus on the production processes and environmental impact behind paper bags and plastic bags. Read on, conflicted grocery shopper!

Paper is made from the pulp of logs (known on the street as trees), which are felled in forests at a rate of 14 million per year. After their 3-year-long drying process is complete, the logs are hacked into itty-bitty 1″ cubes, and stored for later use. When it’s time for the cubes to grow up and become paper, they are cooked with tons of heat and pressure, and are “digested” with limestone and sulfuric acid. Thousands of gallons of fresh water are then used to wash and bleach the pulp, which is cut into finished sheets of paper. Cutting, printing, and packaging of paper bags can be quite expensive and labor-intensive, requiring much time and energy.

Plastic, on the other hand, is a by-product of oil refinement, and burns through 12 million barrels of oil a year. Plastic bags are made from a certain genus of plastic called “polyethylene,” which comes in the form of charming resin pellets. Machines heat the pellets until they can be pulled out into long, ultra-thin tubes, which are then burned with a hot rod to separate one bag’s end from another bag’s beginning. Bags are separated individually, and then handle-holes are cut out with a large stamp.

Overall, plastic is actually cheaper to produce, and requires less dangerous, exhausting labor. Plastic also uses less energy, operating off electricity alone, whereas paper requires massive amounts of natural resources like trees and water. However, plastic bags create 4 times the solid waste that paper bags do, and they can last forever. Even “biodegradable” plastic bags will never truly break down- just separate into millions of tiny, obnoxious, immortal pieces.

If you’re thirsty for knowledge on what paper and plastic recycling is like, stay tuned! More fascinating facts about your not-so-mundane grocery bags are coming up in our next blog post tomorrow.

Holiday Gift Guide

‘Tis the season to be shopping! For the environmentally-conscious consumer, however, that can be an absolute nightmare. How do you find products that are socially responsible? Where are all the ethical companies hiding? Which gorgeous piece of recycled Fire & Light glassware should I get my mother? Don’t fear, Greener Gooder– we’ve got answers in store for you! To kick off our Holiday Gift Guide, we’d like to introduce four important things you should pay attention to when choosing to make a purchase.

1. Quality of Finished Product

This one is self-explanatory. Poorly-made products are easy to spot, and although they may be more affordable than their high-quality counterparts, that cheapness comes at a price. Additionally, a gift should be functional. Useable, high-quality gifts (like any of our baby products) mean less waste in a landfill, and more cheer in your holiday. To find out what contributes to the quality of a finished product, read on!

2. Quality of Manufacturing

Planned obsolescence is a widely-used practice in the manufacturing world in which a designer purposely plans a product to have a limited useful life. This can be done in a myriad of ways, such as making a new version of software incompatible with an old version of software, or manufacturing a product to break within a certain length of time. This method is a strain on consumers and on the earth, as it generates massive amounts of pollution and waste. Well-manufactured goods should be backwards-compatible (meaning they can interact with older versions), and should not require replacement parts or repairs.

3. Quality of Materials

Is the prospective gift sturdy and made of recyclable materials, or flimsy and made of non-biodegradable plastic? Certain materials, such as coltan, have a reputation for being harvested in nefarious ways, which makes any manufacturer who uses them guilty of contributing to unethical labor issues. Other seemingly-innocent materials, like the parabens so frequently used in personal care products, put consumers directly in harm’s way. Always research the materials listed in the products you buy, and ensure that you are not supporting business who exploit their suppliers– or endanger the consumer.

4. Labor Practices

Does the company have a reputation for being discriminatory in their hiring practices? Are any laborers forced workers? Are any laborers children? Is their work environment safe and healthy? Is overtime work consensual? Does the workers’ compensation adequately cater to their needs? The answers to all of these questions should factor into your choice to buy from a certain company. When labor practices are ethical and fair, productivity and quality are both increased– which means better stuff for you, and better gifts for your loved ones!

For more tips on buying gifts for your holiday season, check our blog throughout the week! We’ve got lots of fairly-traded, well-manufactured, good-material’d, high-quality goodies coming your way! Remember: at The Greener Good, it’s all good.

Made in the USA

In the past 10 years, over 50,000 American factories have shut down and shipped overseas in the name of “multinational investment”– in other words, factory outsourcing. Driven chiefly by the prospects of cheap labor and reduced taxes, corporations fire their employees en masse and gallivant off to China, where they can profit from sneaky currency conversion and a much larger market. What’s wrong with cheap products, though? Don’t they make a wider variety of goods available to more Americans?

Not exactly. For starters, the outsourcing movement has demolished at least 5.5 million American jobs, and forced millions more impoverished laborers into lives of near-slavery. Although companies claim that they’re saving the dollars of US consumers by making goods more affordable, the American consumer isn’t really benefiting at all when their own salaries are slashed in half for the sake of low-quality products. If you’re still not convinced that ‘multinational investments’ are a bad move, consider the following:

• Workers unions don’t exist in places like China, Taiwan, and India, where employees work devastating hours for excessively meager wages in horrifying conditions
• Unethical, unregulated factories pump out massive amounts of pollution into the atmosphere, covering cities like Linfen, China in a choking layer of smoke (the toxic levels of arsenic in their water supply aren’t particularly “green,” either)
• Foreign factory jobs do not create enough money to stimulate the economies of the developing countries they are established in– the average overseas factory worker is paid $1/hr, with no benefits or health plan
• Multinational investments inhibit the growth of local industries in America, which are quashed by corporate giants making quick money off abused laborers
• Factories force developing countries to produce goods for export rather than focusing on the needs of their local communities and their nation
• America buys $600 billion more than it sells on a yearly basis– hey there, trade deficit, what’s up?
• American-made products stimulate the economy, create jobs, raise wages, and allow a huge wave of relief to flow over pressured international laborers

Although the concept of “buying American” is pretty straightforward, it can be maddeningly frustrating to actually pull off. To get through your daily routine without using a single imported good would be a wee bit of a struggle, to say the least. From your coffee, to your clothes, to your car, everything you use is the result of multinational factory outsourcing. There’s a light at the end of the sooty tunnel, however! Stay tuned to this week’s blog series to find out what The Greener Good is doing to help concerned consumers make wise decisions about the products they buy.

Why Isn’t Bamboo Green?

Our last blog outlines some of the benefits of bamboo, which is popularly regarded as being a very “green” material. Bamboo regenerates quickly, doesn’t require a lot of water, and even puts out more oxygen than standard hardwood trees– but is there another side to this miracle plant? The Greener Good believes in helping to create informed consumers, so our answer is yes!

Although bamboo IS a sustainable resource, the production process is a liiiiittle bit less than “organic.” To become soft and pliable, bamboo fibers are soaked, pressed, and dissolved in massive quantities of toxic chemicals, namely sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide. These chemicals release pollutants into the air, and also pose a threat to the laborers working in direct contact with them. The resulting fabric is much more similar to rayon than anything else, and garments that proudly advertise that they’re “Made of organic bamboo!” usually only have between 7-15% of the original bamboo fiber in them.

Additionally, natural forests located near bamboo plantations are sometimes bulldozed to make way for more bamboo production, and can also be unintentionally overtaken by the fast-growing grass (Surprise! It’s not a tree at all!), which chokes out the flora and fauna that have been naturally growing there for years. Because bamboo has become a hot commodity, some farmers will even replace agricultural plantations with bamboo plantations, in hopes of earning larger profits. Creating forest monocultures displaces natural plants and wildlife, and endangers the diversity of our planet.

        

Not all bamboo is sheer evil, though! At The Greener Good, we strive to ensure that the bamboo products sold in our store are as green as can be. Harmful chemicals like sodium hydroxide are only used in the production of “chemically manufactured” bamboo fiber. Yala, father company of our Bamboo Dreams line pictured above, manufactures their bamboo products mechanically through a really cool process that involves crushing the bamboo into mush– and is much more organic/safe/green than chemical manufacturing. Some of Yala’s items contain up to 95% bamboo fiber! Our other bamboo products, such as our bamboo toys and bamboo utensils, are not manufactured using toxic chemicals, and are as organic as possible. Don’t worry… it’s all good here at TGG!