Think Globally Act Locally | The Power Of R

So I've given these re-useable produce bags a try the last few times I've been grocery shopping. They definitely work well and turn a lot of  heads in the broccoli isle. I'm actually very impressed with these little bags called TazzyTotes. I use them for a majority of my shopping in the produce section and I even put a couple  Chorizo sausages in one to see how well it worked for deli stuff. The woman behind the deli counter was confused, "can we use this... is this legal... is it food safe?" "That's an interesting question," I replied. "I promise I won't sue you for living on the edge."

It's really amazing to look around the grocery store and see all of the packaging, I mean, actually see it for what it is. It's insanity. When I got home with my reusable bags and put them in the fridge, I went out to the garage and perused my overloaded recycling bins. About 95% of the stuff in my bins is food packaging. I'm not sure what to say about that except I think something is wrong with this picture.

Food security is a huge issue in our country and you only have to contract dysentery once to figure out why. Clean food is not something we really have to think about every day, save the listeria outbreak last year in Maple Leaf meat products.  The thing that bothers me the most though is our obsession with wrapping foods, even vegetables, into a state of total plasticity. Fancy plastic packaging is taking over what used to be a very natural and  "organic" daily routine.

When the woman at the deli counter contemplated the possibility of being fired for giving me two pieces of dried meat in my own bag, I had to give my head a shake. Our society is so safe that we can walk around like a bunch of lemmings and never really worry about falling over a ledge. It is possible to go through the day to day in Canada without actually being present until American Idol comes on and you need to wake up and become an expert singing judge for an hour. The Canadian legal system has done a very efficient job of separating our own consciousness from reality. Especially when it comes to grocery shopping.

For me, the grocery store is like a zombie land most of the time. I walk around there, buy stuff, and I don't really know where I've been until I arrive home. It's at that point I snap out of my consumer hypnosis and remember the organic green onions in the thick plastic bags saying ,"buy me I'm organic and pretty," the cauliflower saying "I can double as a bowling ball and I promise that I'm tasty," the California strawberries saying "we're flavorless and watery so that's why we need a plastic fish tank to keep us together in shipping... buy us anyways"  Really, where's the choice when the produce talks to you. Our brains are being buried in synthetic marketing.

We just need to wake up and make the experience of shopping a discerning process again. At the very least, talk back when we're being told what to do by a pile of plastic wrapped cucumbers. Maybe if we peel all of the plastic off the vegetables before we buy them, the stores will put pressure on the suppliers to stop sending veggies wrapped in petroleum products.  The grocery store would amass so much garbage that things would have to change. Give a reusable bag a try next time you go shopping, they don't talk back I promise.

Franco Noviello of Shaw TV shot this story about Disposable - The Billion Cup Blood Bath. We're really excited about the trailer and the action people are taking to eliminate the use of disposable cups in their life. In this story Franco interviews some of the actors and creators of the special effects used in the short.

Watch this story and then see the full trailer by clicking here

It’s the middle of December and I'm infatuated with lettuce. Romain, Green Leaf, Red Leaf, I’ll eat it all.  In fact, I try to eat lettuce on a daily basis because it’s healthy, full of fibre, full of vitamin C, and fun to eat! It’s crunchy and it can hold an infinite number of other vegetables or dressings in salads. I can roll up my lettuce leaves to make quazi taco’s, or put it in a sandwich. There’s no questioning that lettuce is awesome and I am obviously pretty amped (excited) about it,  but lettuce is also on my mind for other reasons lately. I'm rethinking how I go about things. How I waste, what I waste and what I can do to stop wasting natural resources. At lunchtime I thought about how amazing it was to be eating fresh lettuce in December with snow on the ground.  I can't grow lettuce at this time of year and yet, I'm eating it. Then I thought about how insects like to eat lettuce and that my lettuce leaves were flawless. They were actually so perfect that my attentioned then turned to the plastic box my lettuce came in. I knew right then that this would be no ordinary lunch and rethinking a simple head of lettuce was about to get complicated.

Some lettuce comes from the USA, Mexico or other countries warmer than Canada during the autumn, winter and spring months of the year. Amazingly, lettuce can be harvested, refrigerated, shipped thousands of kilometers, and put on the shelf for us to buy in one week or less. It’s incredible really and it’s all because of oil. Burning oil is the reason we can eat lettuce all year round. Big ships can carry tons of lettuce quickly. If we tried to ship lettuce from Mexico without burning oil or gas, it would be rotten before it left the country. Even if we could ship it by bicycle, we would only be able to carry a few heads at a time. That means that burning oil is essential to my consumption of lettuce over 250 days each year. Crazy. That equates to over one hundred thousand kilometers of gas burning transportation and tons of global warming gasses in the atmosphere just because I eat lettuce almost every day.

All around the world lettuce is difficult to grow because critters, insects, slugs and molds love to eat it too. That means farmers are forced to use poisons and pesticides to keep it looking perfect so we’ll buy it in grocery stores. Anyone who’s grown lettuce in their own garden knows that it can become a leafy hotel for earwigs, spiders and all sorts of whacky bugs. Most of these bugs don’t eat the lettuce but they do enjoy living on, in or around it. Bugs are natural though. It seems really strange to put poison on our food to get rid of those bugs, doesn’t it? Sure a few bugs might be creepy at first or holes in the lettuce might seem imperfect but really, poison, is that the only solution?

Recently I’ve been purchasing organic lettuce. It’s more expensive than regular lettuce but I trust that there’s no poison on it.  When I was making a salad the other day, I noticed that my head of lettuce had six dried up, crusty, dead lady bugs in it. At first I was taken aback, but then I thought it was pretty cool. Lady bugs are predatory. They eat other bugs – especially aphids. That means that the organic farmer who grew that lettuce was using insects instead of pesticides to keep the lettuce protected from other insects. Wow! Lady bugs are cool. I still wash my lettuce well before eating it but I feel good knowing that lady bugs are in my lettuce instead of disease causing pesticides.

Organic lettuce is now being packaged in fancy plastic containers or bags. Plastic is made from oil. I’m happy to see that the plastic boxes that lettuce comes in is recycled but something still seems weird about taking an organic product and wrapping it in oil based packaging. Doesn’t it? Sure the package keeps my food clean, the label looks really fancy and the lettuce comes out of the box all fluffy and delicious but ethically, I still feel like I’m hurting the earth when I eat it. The box goes into my blue box recycling bin; I eat the glorious lettuce, and then I feel bad for eating it. Why does lettuce have to be so complicated?

When I go to the grocery store I am still mystified that the grocery store looks almost exactly the same in December as it did in the July. The fruits and vegetables that I love are all there. Rethinking how I shop has become an interesting project. I want to reduce my eco-footprint every day so now I rethink the things I buy. I am rethinking food that’s wrapped in plastic or wrapped in non-recyclable packages. I am starting to use reusable containers for store bought bulk items. I am purchasing more locally grown produce and meat because it’s not packaged in plastic and it isn't shipped great distances before I eat it; that alone saves the atmosphere from tons of greenhouse gas. Naturally, I walk or ride a bike to the store to buy food whenever I can to reduce waste, energy use and keep my car off of the busy roads. I am looking for lightweight biodegradable bags made from organic materials to put my vegetables in - do you know where I can get some?  I'm doing what I can to lower my eco-footprint but even lettuce has become intertwined with my demanding "want it now - get it now"  lifestyle. I’m used to eating it all year round because it’s available all year round. Something doesn't seem right about that.

Lettuce isn't really that complicated but our lifestyles certainly have changed how we grow, transport, package and purchase foods like  lettuce.  What do you think? How are you rethinking actions in your life to reduce your ecological footprint? Send me your stories, suggestions and ideas about local solutions to global problems. Email powerofr@gmail.com and put “RETHINK - Beyond The Blue Box” in the subject line.

When I was growing up my family and I got our fresh water from a well. We lived on a rural property (outside of city limits) so that meant we needed to conserve our water and not waste any of it. We didn’t have access to city water. The well was only sixteen feet deep so that meant it was full in the winter but often ran dry in the summer. We needed to be really careful about how much water we used for almost nine months of the year. Our daily showers had to be efficient, we never let the tap run, and watering the plants needed to be as direct as possible. There was no room for slip and slides or massive water fights.

When you live on a limited water supply it's always a priority to make sure there is enough water for your whole family to drink. In addition to that you need water to flush your toilet. Finally, you need some water to water your garden and plants with. If you run out of water in the summer, like we often did, the plants suffer the most. We would have enough for drinking but not enough to water a large garden. My dad dug a second well that we used just for garden water. That was helpful but expensive and not everyone on my street could afford to do that.

So here are a couple of great tips for saving grey water. This is water that you can use on garden plants all year round. The first and most effective thing you can do is use a rain collecting barrel on your house. This barrel connects to your gutters. When it rains all of the water flows into your gutters and then into your barrel. You shouldn’t drink this water but the plants sure can. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can collect 100 Liters of water. The second tip is one of my favorites and I’ve mentioned it before in a past blog. When you take a shower bring an old ice cream bucket with you. During the shower the bucket will fill up with all the residual water that misses or bounces off of your body. That’s cool. You can collect 4 Liters of water with no effort. Use it on your plants outside. “Thanks for the drink, dude,” they’ll say.

These tips don’t take much effort and they conserve a tremendous amount of water. They will ensure that our city services, aquifers and water tables are always full of good drinking water. Fresh clean water for drinking is so precious. Plenty of rain water falls from the sky in the winter but most of it never gets into the ground. It runs into the ocean, evaporates or gets used by the forest plants before it can be collected for us to drink. Canada has most of the world’s fresh water but every day we have less because of pesticide use and pollution, urbanization and industry, and waste. The world is looking at us for leadership in water conservation because as the planet gets warmer, there is less clean fresh water for drinking.

Rethink how you use your water and do a Water Audit in your household (an inspection of how you use your water). This will help you figure out new ways to conserve water and protect it. For more information on Water Wise gardening click here.