Green Options

Where can you buy healthy fresh food in your neighborhood? Where are the grocery stores and farmer’s markets, how is the quality of food that is there, and which food options do you actually have access to? Are there nearby food banks or community gardens? Can you grow your own food? What local food choices are available to you in your community?

I took this photo in the meat section of my neighborhood grocery store earlier this week.

Last night Keilly Witman from EPA’s GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership, the program that attempts to get grocery stores to reduce ozone-killing refrigerant leaks, talked at EcoTuesday in DC. What I thought might not be our most exciting topic turned out to be one of the most interesting I’ve heard in the 8 months of co-hosting these events.

Ozone-depleting refrigerants are also potent greenhouse gases. One pound of the most commonly used HFC refrigerants has the same impact as about 4000 lbs of CO2. This is why Witman calls the reduction of refrigerant leaks the low-hanging-fruit of emissions control. There are 35,000 supermarkets in the US and each typically carries about 4000 lbs of refrigerant and leaks about 25% of that.  So, you do the math: 1000 lbs of high global warming gas from each of 35,000 supermarkets = 35,000,000 lbs leaked each year.  And its pretty simple and cheap to cut that number in half, which is where most GreenChill partner markets come in.

According to a 2008 GreenChill press release:

Compared to the rest of the supermarket industry, GreenChill partners are already emitting fewer ozone-depleting refrigerants and greenhouse gases than their competitors, and saving money at the same time. The partners’ savings in operating costs equal almost $13 million.

If every supermarket in the nation joined GreenChill and reduced their emissions to the current GreenChill average, the industry could prevent the release of 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent and 157 ozone-depleting potential tons annually.

GreenChill has about 30 supermarket partners.  Let’s start applying the Big Green Purse principle and ask: Is your market a Greenchill partner or should you shop elsewhere?

I had the opportunity to visit my very favorite food shopping spot - the Berkshire Coop Market. It is in Great Barrington Massachusettsand if you haven’t been to either Great Barrington or the Coop, I recommend planning a visit on your next trip in New England. I have to drive 150 miles to go shopping there, but I make the trek from time to time, under the guise of ‘visiting friends’, but there is always a trip to the Coop as a priority.

When I used to live up there in the 1980s and we were the experiential ‘green’ community, I not only became a member of this burgeoning food coop, I ended up as president of the Board of Directors for a year or so. I was young, energetic, enthusiastic and still unmarred by realities that can make a person cynical about such things.

Back then, the Coop was in the basement of an old granary. It was cold, damp and full of love (and spiders). We dreamed of a store where we could have a cafe and freshly baked products and room for lots of locally grown produce. I helped build up the membership significantly back then, but I moved away and left the dreaming to those left behind. I visited of course, but essentially lost track for quite a number of years.

Editor’s note: OK, most of us probably don’t really consider shopping bags an accessory. According to our friends at Life Goggles, though, Envirosax bags aren’t just functional and reusable — they’re also real eye-catchers! This post was originally published on Monday, May 26, 2008. If you really like these bags, make sure to check out Victoria Everman’s interview with Envirosax founder Belinda David-Tooze from last May. Also check out how these bags stack up against others with Life Goggles’ new reusable bag comparison chart.

Envirosax was founded in Australia in 2004 (now available in the US), and makes eco-friendly bags. Made from a lightweight polyester, they have reinforced seams in order to carry the weight of two plastic shopping bags.

The most striking feature (besides that they roll up really small) is the sheer number of cool designs they come in. The picture is of the one I’ve got, Mikado #5; however they have many designs in the Graphic Series (Mikado, Retro Graphic, Monochromatic, Flora, Amazonia, and Retro Kitchen). They also have a big Kids range (as in a big range, not a range for big kids…). My favorite being the Dogasaurus.

In October, GO writer Jessica Jane French took a look at efforts by community organizations to address “food deserts” in Detroit. What’s a food desert?

According to The Low Income Project Team, food deserts are “areas of relative exclusion where people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy food.” This does not mean that people in food deserts do not have access to any food… just the stuff that is relatively good for them.

In fact, a food desert often has an abundance of “fringe locations,” or businesses that do not serve the sole purpose of selling foodstuffs, yet where food is available think dollar stores, gas stations, liquor stores, etc.). The type of food sold at these stores is usually the worst type of food, and when the only food available is pre-packaged, and full of preservatives, there are bound to be health risks.

Non-profit organizations aren’t the only ones working to address this problem, though: as The Michigan Citizen notes, one budding entrepreneur has plans for a “green” grocery store in midtown Detroit. Tawnya Clark, a student at Bizdom U, “an entrepreneur training program housed on Wayne State’s campus,” sees opportunities to create a thriving business and play a role in urban redevelopment. Her concept: “…an organic produce market with locally produced and based products and items, from Detroit and Michigan.” Her vision:

Clark sees her store as not only providing healthy food, but as a destination point, a way to keep money in the city.

We remembered to take our bags to the grocery store last night and to use them!  The bagger thought we were buying the Halloween ChicoBags and tucked them into a different bag *eyeroll*, but other than that things went decently.  We ended up with two or three plastic bags in addition to the two canvas bags and two ChicoBags.  My mom says she’s planning to make bags for me, too.  And our Annie’s bag with Bernie on it is currently [...]

"There’s no free lunch" is an old axiom that surfaces everytime I think something for nothing is coming my way. This time it’s ethanol, and you’re probably already aware that less corn is going to your table because more of it is going to fuel. So we’re paying for cleaner air everytime we buy products made from corn.

Articles are showing up more and more by writers complaining about rising food

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I couldn’t pass this one up. Reuben Miller sent this to me from his Stumble site and it just seemed like too good an idea to pass up.

Imagine, driving, or riding, or whatever your shopping cart to the grocery store, detach the bike and wheel the cart into the store. Once at the checkout, no need for bags: just load the groceries into the cart, attach it to your bike

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Today's tip is so simple, but it's got to be said. Don't bag your bananas. Do you do it? Most people do. We're not sure why. Bananas are already kind of pre-packaged and ready to travel. They are even attached to each other; they almost provide us with a little handle to grab them by.

It's all just marketing, really. Product packaging has gone way beyond its original purpose of safety and freshness, and has turned into a nightmare. Packages are getting more complex, which means higher waste levels. What's worse, these new designs often make recycling more difficult.

One-third of all non-industrial waste in the US (and other developed countries) consists of product packaging. NYC.gov even tells us that for every dollar we spent on cereal, only 9

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Paper or plastic? Ug. Hopefully by now everyone knows that the right option really isn't in the question. What we hope everyone will consider is BYOBing it - Bring Your Own Bag.

It's March 2, and just sixty-one days into 2007, Reusablebags.com estimates that over 82.7 billion bags have been used so far this year. Other countries are doing better than the US on this, with several large chains in Europe and Asia now charging

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