Those of you who have seen the Story of Stuff, or who know me, know that I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff: where it comes from, where it goes, why it is designed the way it is and stuff like that.
Occasionally, I see some product that just freaks me out. That happened last week. I can’t stop thinking about this thing.
It is a new men’s shave gel, which I read about in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/business/media/04adco.html). The product is called NXT, which is pronounced “next” and is made by Clio Designs. The shower gel itself is comprised of clear gel balls in a plastic bottle. But the gel is irrelevant. The whole article was about the bottle. NXT is packaged in a triangular shaped bottle with a light blue hue. The thing that freaked me out about this is that every single bottle has an LED light and 2 to 3 triple AAA batteries in it.
Two or three batteries in the PACKAGE, not even for the product ???? Batteries have such toxic components that many cities ban their disposal in the regular garbage and require them to be dropped at a household hazardous waste facility. We’re supposed to be designing toxics out of our production systems!
The product designer’s idea is that the bottle will let off a light blue light which will draw us to the shelves to buy it. News articles about the bottles say they “will glow on the shelves, inviting customers to pick them up. Every 15 seconds, a light-emitting diode in the bottom of the container flares on, stays lighted for a few seconds, then fades out.” What are we, moths?
I found pictures and more details on the product’s website, (whatsnxt.net) which explains that “…our products contain a mini-computer with LED lighting in the base. One bottle alone is cool but the whole line together is an experience.” An experience?? No it’s not. It is a bunch of bottles, and stupidly designed ones at that.
I called the company’s customer service line to ask them about the bottle. The woman I spoke to, who had to keep putting me on hold after every question, explained that the batteries will be handled safely because each bottle comes with a note requesting consumers to dispose of the batteries according to local laws. She didn’t know the specific plastic resin which each parts of the bottle was made from, but she did know that the top and base are different plastics so the customers will have to cut them apart in order to recycle the tube part, which she thought was recyclable.
So I called Californians Against Waste (http://www.cawrecycles.org/) to ask them. They couldn’t confirm how recyclable it is, since the NXT rep couldn’t tell me what plastic resin each piece was. But Brian Early at CAW did explain that “anytime you have an unusual shaped bottle, you decrease the chance it will be recycled.” You see, there are humans working the recycling lines and it is their job to pull out contaminants that get mixed it with the specific plastic type they are recovering. If something looks different, its chances of being diverted to the dump are higher.
One of the keys to mainstreaming environmental sustainability is by making it easy for people to do the right thing, rather than requiring an extra effort to chose the environmentally preferable option. If we create products and systems and infrastructure to favor the environmentally preferable choice, we don’t have to urge each person, one by one, to make the right choice. A package that has toxic-containing batteries which need to be taken to a household hazardous waste disposal site and which has to be sawed apart before maybe recycling part of it is not an example of making it easier for people to do the ecologically preferable option. In this case, I’d say the ecologically responsible option is to refuse to buy it – both the hype and the product.
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March 19th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I’m curious why you don’t even question the product category. Is shower gel really even necessary? To make it, take a compact product like soap, add water, and THEN ship it around the world. It makes no sense to ship water since it’s plentiful in a shower environment. Why is shower gel even a category that deserves consumer support?
March 20th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
How do you make it cool to be frugal?
That is the question.
Annie, I just saw your presentation. You’ve put into words perfectly EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS.
To try to get people to understand the situation our planet is in, I’ve used the analogy that we are in a truck. The truck is picking up speed as it goes, faster and faster. Except that we’re heading straight for a wall. And when the truck hits, it’s going to blow up, taking us with it.
Thank you. I’m forwarding the presentation to everybody I know. I just came back from a friends place, he doesn’t have internet so I put it on a memory stick and took it over. He too is going to spread this to as many as he can.
I can’t thank you enough for what you have done here… I’ll do everything in my power to see that as many people see this as possible.
March 21st, 2008 at 12:24 am
Shower gel? I confess I use it.
What freaked ME out just this morning was a product I’ve never heard of before, advertised in a design-your-own-bathroom book. It’s a Luxury Body Dryer–jets of warm air that ‘wrap around’ you and ‘effortlessly’ dry your whole body after a bath or shower.
But think of that totally unnecessary use of power! Don’t these manufacturers know we have an energy crisis and a global warming dilemma? There’s so much publicity about it. Do they live on the same planet? I can’t believe they would introduce a product like this at a time when we have so many environmental concerns.
And what’s so wrong with a towel, anyway?
March 21st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Sometimes I am ashamed of my own industry. In advertising, it’s our job to feed your golden arrow and as an environmentalist and outdoor enthusiast, I am conflicted by my career choice. Advertising will never go away, so I suppose that becoming an agent of change within my industry would be the right way to go (either that or change careers).
March 21st, 2008 at 5:40 pm
OK Annie.
Great movie… tells it straight.
What now?
How can you fight for pollution free cars when the petrol industry is so far up the government’s ass?
This is just one of the tons of questions that need an answer… and need it now.
I’m gonna put this page on my blog.
Andi
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Thank you for making this.
Informative and smart and TRUE!
Please think about adding one more item to the agenda. People have to make fewer babies. Yes, the government wants us to consume more AND make more babies (because they’re the future consumers don’t ya know, and the current, unsustainable economic model is all about consuming more and making more consumers).
There are too many people. Period. And anyone in an industrialized country with access to education and a certain freedom of choice should be CHOOSING to procreate less or not at all. Adopt instead. There are lots of babies in the world that need mommies and daddies. Just like it’s not our god-given right to consume, a clear-thinking progressive society should not be thinking that it’s also some sort of god-given right to make babies. We’re not mice. We have a choice. We should resist the constant message from government and big business that having a “family” is the only way to find satisfaction (when shopping clearly hasn’t delivered on that promise).
You can make your family by reaching out to other humans. Not by making more of them. It’s just a sad fact. We have to stop.
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:13 am
Hello Annie and all, here’s my feedback and value-add
1 The Blinking Light Product
What a waste and a cheesy gimmick. However, I would look right at it immediately, completely justifying its marketing use. It’s a gimmick, because everyone will do it if it’s that successful, eventually evening out the effect for new blinkers, smokers, or smelling products. Either that or the grocery store refuses to sell their crap.
2 Sue’s Last Comment
While feisty as well, takes a baseless stab at the body-dryer-thing. Why? Hand dryers in bathrooms save far more waste than already recycled paper towels produce.
3 The ‘Story of Stuff’ Web Video Presentation
This is the best use of a website using a body in front of a green screen, in front of a clear visual, that I have ever seen. Congratulations on a very well done presentation.
You summed the world up clearly and perfectly, and I love the feisty style. People are much better off hearing these types of messages frequently.
However, most people and grassroots campaigns are lazy and ineffectual, because they never offer solutions. Trust me, I live in Berkeley, CA and everyone has their general protest list, including me. Most other critiques on America, “the system”, “the man”, “corporations”, “big business”, or simply, “they”, offer a complete lack of sustainable alternatives.
Our society is bombarded with these messages of doom, like website banner ads, and hopelessness is the real enemy in my mind. That’s what got us here in the first place.
My recommendation is to release a part two video, where you either recommend some helpful solutions that everyone should always do and don’t, every day, or use your visual representation to endorse voting on ballots, or for you.
Someone once told me, “plan solutions for the worst, and let others hope for the best.” With millions of people watching, a lot can happen.
Congratulations and thank you.
March 24th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Annie,
Thanks so much for the wonderful work! I saw it at a public viewing recently, and just posted it on my blog. A few years ago I co-authored a large environmental public health report for the Pittsburgh region, so I very much appreciate what you’re doing.
Having returned to my original love of psychology, I’m now guiding people to live more authentically through my life coaching, with hopes that when people are more secure with who they are, they won’t engage in wasteful consumerism as a substitute for the things that are really important to them. Also, by guiding those already actively involved in improving the planet to live more fulfilling and balanced lives, I hope to help them remain in it for the long haul.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
The shower gel with fancy packaging is unlikely to be price-competitive with other shower gels. We’re in a recession. People will be scrutinizing their budgets looking for expenses to cut. If this shower gel doesn’t sell well — and I don’t think it will — then the manufacturer will take it off the market. Problem solved.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Annie – I LOVE your website and your blog. I just found it today and I am so relieved that someone has given an explanation to all my wondering about stuff. We live in a small house and reuse what we can for financial reasons – and because that’s what Grandma taught me to do. But I just can’t help but to think about all this stuff we’ve accumulated, how cheap it is, and how disposable it is!
Making the turnaround is complicated, but your site isn’t scary … it really gives me hope! For the first time since the 50’s consumer mentality started, I believe that we are starting to turn that corner.
Thanks again for putting it so plainly.
Jenny
March 25th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The glowing bottle is certainly a terrible waste, but so is most of supermarket packaging.
Next to the pre-cut pre-washed plastic wrapped salad leaves in the fresh produce aisle you can now find pre-cut pre-washed plastic wrapped apples (with preservative), wonderful for all the people without the manual dexterity to place the apple in their mouth and bite.
We all have to eat, but we don’t need so much packaging, recyclable or not.
An alternative to the mountains of plastic/metal/ paper crap produced is to find an organic co-op.
My local requires you to bring your own packaging- less waste, less cost to you and less drain on resources. You weigh the container, fill it up with what ever you want, and they subtract the difference.
Organic produce bought this way can be cheaper than coventional supermarket food, because you don’t pay for packaging, you take as little or as much as you need- and as a co-op member, all the profits go into cheaper produce, rather than supermarket shareholders.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Hi Annie, I just took a look at your site and I find it amazing, it has opened my eyes really. It forces you to confront a reality so brutal and we are in the middle of everything.
I live in Mexico, and I think it would be a great idea to have the site translated to at least Spanish and French, are there any plans on this? It would be great, I could help in making this happen.
Thanks,
Juan Pablo Olivo
March 27th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Annie, you are a rock star!
I first saw The Story of Stuff about two weeks ago, and have been spreading it like wildfire ever since. Last week I successfully got it to people in Minnesota, Canada, Australia, and India among other places; just from me in Northern California! Several of those people also sent it to others. It’s a fantastic way to get people more aware. I’ve found a lot of people who wouldn’t normally care or be interested are actually very receptive to the video, beacause it’s so well done and entertaining. I am a student at a community college, and we just watched ‘SOS’ in my botany class. How cool is that! A couple people asked for the website, too.
I want to say thank you to everyone involved in the video. I will not stop championing it to whoever I can.
And yes, I feel the same way about the gel. I think you and the other comments have summed up my feelings nicely. What’s NXT, battery powered produce?
March 27th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Thanks for pointing out this really stupid product. No doubt aimed at really stupid consumers! I’m currently researching a PhD on the life-spans of consumer electronics. I’m keep stumbling across examples of these ‘ephemeral electronic’ products. They just keep getting better and better……..I mean, worse and worse.
Miles
March 28th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I am an art student in England and came upon your website during a research based project about reduce, reuse, recycling. Although obviously aimed at Americans, I have found your presentation very inspiring and I am passing the word on and asking everyone I know to take a look for themselves.
Well done, I love it! Straight and to the point!
Thanks
Nicola
March 28th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Love the web presentation and I am thinking about e-mailing it to others just as I was e-mailed. Thanks! I didn’t expect to be inspired but I have been. I hope to share my own road with others who read this blog. Hopefully, others who are just becoming aware of the car-centric, consumerist and consumptive framework that grips so much of our society and threatens to overrun our planet will tune in as well!
My parents both grew up in Sicily and through exposure-coercive, of course-to their culture and being able to stay with our relatives in Sicily for 3 weeks every other summer I learned a different way of seeing life and happiness, the cooperative function of family, the do it yourself ethos (home, garden, etc.), the value of having 3 good shirts rather than a closet full of crappy ones, (You know, I am so sad to think that people spend hundreds of dollars professionally cleaning a shirt they paid $10 for. Think of the trash cans full of wire hangers and plastic alone generated by people taking washable clothes to be drycleaned. That is not to mention the dry cleaning chemicals and their pollution indiscriminately caused.. I learned the use of natural remedies and folk medicine (rest, fasting, sweating, sunshine, physical activity, nutrition, moderation…) instead of pills and doctor’s visits.
I am also so glad that my parents took my brother, sisters and I to Sicily every two years for 3 weeks when we were young. Truly experiencing foreign cultures (as opposed to vacationing in a foreign land) can break a lot the hold that a consumerist and consumptive system has but then again so does any organic alternative. When I went to Sicily I saw a land that was beautifully xeriscaped before I knew what xeriscaping was, I saw people who only bought things of superior quality and took care of those things and made them last. I saw people who found the time for fun, rest, sun and family. People who were healthy into their old age using nothing but good food and healthy habits.
At home in the U.S.A. I learned that wasting things is well, wasteful and irresponsible. If we have so much that we can waste how can we live with the knowledge that there are others who need basic things like toiletries, food, a family, a warm meal or shelter. I learned not to buy anything that is unnecessary or poorly made,that if you keep things pure you can use them in countless ways not just once: plain french bread becomes breadcumbs, old shirts became rags, coffee grinds become soil additives, that we grow our own food because the best produce is not sold by the pound but grown in our garden. I am so grateful that I have been able to share my appreciation for conservation and the value of things of lasting permanence that I learned from my parents.
Joe Asaro
March 29th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Packaging waste is a huge problem. This shower gel is ridiculous. Even if it fails in the marketplace, as I predict it will, millions of bottles will have already been produced. The leftovers will go to overstock and closeout dealers, where they will be sold for next to nothing. When people pay ‘next to nothing’ for a product they have even less problem ‘just pitching it in the trash’.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Hi Annie -
What a great film! It is succinct yet extremely revealing about the situation we have gotten ourselves into! I am very interested in the “decline of happiness/satisfaction” stat as it is relevant to the growth of consumerism in the USA. I am looking for ways to disconnect from the cycle of consumerism and I find that I still am lured to buy…your movie was illuminating..
how about a work about breaking free from the cylce next?
thanks, Kathy
March 30th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Wow.
I never knew the extent of such absurd marketing and how wasteful we truly are. I’m so thankful for the film and will be sending my $10 for a DVD and to help support the cause.
I want to try my best to be a solution to the problems that we face.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:21 am
no offense…you sound ridiculous. you lost sleep over that line of shave products? seriously? you need to focus girl? i heard on the radio the other day that we (Americans) threw out last year (LAST YEAR) 2.5 billion (BILLION!) plastic water bottles and over 2 trillion (yes…TRILLION) plastic bags in landfills…and you are worried and losing sleep over some little shave gel that has a couple of batteries in it? i just checked online and see that batteries are perfectly safe to throw away in the trash. there are countless products out there that consume billions and billions of batteries every year! walk a store like wal-mart or target. there are thousands of battery-powered products…many of which could be considered frivolous by you…but that’s for the consumer to decide. that’s capitalism. i also heard about how many millions of FedEx and UPS boxes and envelopes are thrown away in the trash every MONTH because those companies refuse to develop a re-usable solution and practically nobody recycles FedEx boxes. MILLIONS are tossed in the trash (and thus landfills) every MONTH!
i’m in my 50’s so i’m not into the light-up shave gel (i’m probably not their target customer), but even if i’m not going to buy it (either) i believe that you are so sadly mis-guided and dramatic and just plain silly to be losing sleep or blogging or even writing about the silly shave gel when there are SO MANY worse things going on in the world. i lived in southern Africa for about a year and have a different perspective than most people. but i can say with confidence that you are sadly wasting your time on some small, basically non-issue when there are much bigger problems in the world. i know you mean well…but i think you may have lost focus. i’m certain of it actually.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:55 am
good news.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I love this site!! in science class my teacher is making my science class look at this site.I find it very interesting and now im going to think twice b
May 4th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
So I was thinking. Why do we need to have containers for everything? Boxes, bottles etc. Why don’t we (Companys and Consumers) design a system that doesn’t require containers. Where we the consumer supply our own containers for food for example. Lets look at coffee. You can fill up your bag with beans from a dispeser. What about everything else. Where we just fill up our “own” reusable “containers” for the food we need. Juice, Milk. Bring your own bottles and filler up. Now I know it sounds crazy, but think about it. If we had a system of distribution and consumption that did not use all this waste. Didn’t they use to do that in the old days at the local food store. Just an idea I had to get off my mind.
May 4th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
One more thing. Stop complaining and start thinking. Build our future. Brainstorm people. Brainstorm.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:55 am
I’m not sure the packaging is necessarily a bad thing. It depends on if the batteries, electronics and extra plastic leave more of an environmental impact than all of the people’s food, electricity, paper and other such things those people consume as a result of their labor as well as their paycheck for advertising. According to the money they cut by not advertising (assuming they didn’t lie in the article and using the general rule of thumb that money = materials or services) they actually reduced their environmental impact. Paper is one of the worst things for the environment, much more than batteries. Hope this isn’t too wordy, good luck in making America more attentive to their waste.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:08 am
On more thing… I think paul, #19, was way too harsh. I wish we had more people who were as together as Annie. I’ll admit the biggest issue isn’t the producers or their products. It’s actually the consumers. That and their obedience to everything. Three things that truely drive me insane… 3/4 full bags of food in the garbage, people obediently supporting commercials, save for the geiko commercials which are rather amusing and people who dress according to stereotype, i.e. Hot Topic and Abercrombie and Finch.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
To Paul, who says that Annie has “lost focus” — have you even watched all of the StoryOfStuff video? It covers a wide range of things, especially recycling and packaging!
You can’t choose what you dream about unless you’re having one of those rare “lucid” dreams; but that’s beside the point as surely it is important for those who are involved in the marketing of such a stupid product, to realise just how damaging they can be.
But of course, some people seem to be hung up on the “greed is good” mentality; that anyone who thinks differently is unpatriotic or communist (I’m glad I didn’t live through MacArthey but history keeps repeating itself it seems), or just crazy.
More to the point, why the bloody hell should we have to shave every damn day anyway?! I shave when I feel like it, which tends to be about once a month or so — it gets about 1cm long so I have to use hair clippers rather than razors — and I’m not really embarrassed about it, but every time someone mentions the word “hippie” or whatever I have to resign myself to the fact that it’s just so “scruffy” or “lazy” or “unemployable” to have any facial hair whatsoever! And I can’t even use religion as an excuse, as I have none and can’t keep a secret…
May 29th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Finally, I followed up the claim that it’s “safe” to simply “trash” most household batteries, and it seems to have improved following regulation — but why do that when you can often recycle them instead?
From http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/12-21/battery-recycling-article.htm
Today’s standard household batteries—the AA’s, AAA’s, C’s, D’s, and 9-volts that you pick up at the supermarket or drug store—have been re-engineered so that the components in them are of low toxicity, making them safe to dispose of with your normal trash. (But consider this: If you’re using more than a dozen or so disposable batteries per year, your can probably save a lot of money by going to rechargeables.)
There is one caveat regarding tossing dead household batteries in the trash. If you’re rooting around in a closet, drawer, or storage bin and happen upon old batteries recycling symbol that might have been manufactured prior to 1997—that is, prior to passage of the (gulp) “Mercury-Containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act of 1996,” which began the phase-out of mercury-based household batteries—then they likely contain mercury, should be considered toxic waste, and should be recycled. Contact your county or municipal government to determine how best to dispose of them.
And even if the products end up in clearance houses because of commercial demise, a lot of energy and resources were involved in their manufacture, just like the FedEx boxes you (Paul) got so passionate about. I don’t know why you’re being so selective about what packaging you think about — it all matters…
May 29th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Ah, so the NYT article gets worse…
When brands get creative with packaging, the innovations are usually a one-two punch combined with advertising. That’s what Coors Light did with its labels that turn blue when properly chilled, and what Huggies did with a children’s hand soap that has a built-in light that flashes for the recommended hand-washing duration of 20 seconds.
But Mr. Leventhal believes the packaging of NXT (pronounced “next”) is powerful enough to speak for itself.
*sighs, imagines the children pining for their soap to have “pretty lights” — and/or silly parents thinking that it’s the “only” way to teach their kids about good hygiene…*
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Per the NXT website, “For a limited time, only some of our products contain LED lighting in the base. Grab ‘em while you can!…”
Lifted from David M. Ewalt (blogs.forbes.com):
UPDATE:
An NXT spokesperson responds with the following points:
• “All NXT skincare products are designed for sensitive skin, however the company has chosen the term “light” to describe its products as it feels “light” is not simply cooler than “sensitive”… but also the theory behind “light skincare” is that ones skin doesn’t actually have to be sensitive for them to prefer non-irritating products. As a means to reinforce this new notion of “light” the bottles light up… the lighting in the bottles is only available for a limited time. The lighting is part of our launch strategy and is not part of any long- or medium-term marketing plan.”
• “All NXT bottles have engravings permanently molded onto the bottom of each bottle requesting the consumer to please recycle… and explaining to them that they can peel away the product wrapper to disassemble the parts for recycling. We have found (from listening to our customers) that many of our young, male consumers are recycling the plastic parts and keeping the lighting device (replacing the batteries when necessary) and using it for various purposes… We don’t believe that we are being at all wasteful.”
• “The battery compartment is completely separate from the actual bottle and the entire device is reliably sealed in a wrap that makes it virtually impossible for the batteries to leak into the product. We also use very high quality alkaline batteries as opposed to cheaper, heavy-duty batteries so it is highly unlikely that a leak would occur in the first place…and even if it were to leak it would be completely contained within the battery compartment and would not mingle with the product itself.”
June 6th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I bought the shave gel to try it out. You tree loving hippies should research stuff before you rant and rave on it. The LED’s are a marketing gimmic and are only for a LIMITE TIME. These won’t be lighting up the shelves forever. They use the word “Light” instead of “Refresh” so the LED was a clever marketing idea. I thought it was fun and the gel works fine. If you’re concerned with the environment, then stop driving your 1970 Hippy Van pushing more exhaust in the air than todays SUV.
Peace!
June 20th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Paul – I have to disagree with you here. Change has to start on some level. If we all took the time to voice our opinions to manufacturers who produce these ridiculously wasteful products, we would start to see a difference in what is offered to us as consumers.
You made some great points about UPS and Fed-Ex. That’s another place to start. What won’t help is to just complain about it – we all have to take action in our own way. And what REALLY won’t help is to criticize people like Annie who are doing their part more than most people. We’re all on the same team and it’s important to encourage, not discourage.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:31 am
07/11/2008
I live in Bedford,Indiana.I’m 52.The city turned an old train station into the Lawrence County Waste Management & Recycling.You can take magazines,card
board,& paint..to the center. They empty our home bins,once a week. The county went from dumpster sites,which use to attract rats & people dumping furniture,to manned compacter sites.I
went from a years,delivering buses,to
receiving Social Security so,I’m not that much of a consumer.The price of gas,$4.17/9 a gallon,has limited my driving also.I drive a 2002 Ford Focus SE,(no other on or offroad vehicles)that gets 35 MPG,highway. My parents also, drive 02 5 speed manual & 07 auto
matic Focuses.If I had the money,I would build me a electric or hydrogen powered two seater car.I’m so glad that we have a big city parks with grass & trees.I enjoy walking around there.Thank you for The Story Of Stuff
Video.
July 15th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
The problem isn’t with things being made. The problem is with people buying stuff they don’t use. I’ve got no problem with products of adornment, creativity or beauty, which some might call frivilous. After all, these qualities are in the eye of the beholder. Also, these objects can present opportunities for people to exercise creativity. But I do have a problem with people buying stuff and never using it. If everyone only bought stuff they used, there would likely not be a market for lightup shave containers.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Simply This: The environment is in a constant linear decline. It is at emergency levels. When the world consumes at the rate of Americans, we will need 5 Earths to supply the resources.
Thomas Edison understood and tried to stop Ford to release the gas consuming internal combustion engine. Now, here we are.
Think, consume, design, VOTE, TEACH EFFICIENCY and CLOSED LOOP ACTIONS.
See, http://www.naturalstep.org. Become a SYSTEMS THINKER, DOER, DESIGNER.
————————————————-
So, What Is Ecofeminism?
By
Peter W. Earley
Written: November, 1993
Ecofeminism is a confusing label placed upon a base of philosophy. The “feel” of the word makes some, in fact many, automatically conclude that it is about the radical feminist movement. It must be about extremist environmentalists. You know, it must be about those “tree huggers.” It’s got to be trouble though it is not clear why. What it actually is about is a spirit of thought, not about suffragettes. The spirit of thought is simply about calling for the rights of the Earth’s Ecology.
To those steeped in the outlook of the industrial age, this philosophy is silly. It even appears to be Outlandish! To others, the concepts are just not understandable because the language of thought is too foreign. Yes, backlashes are happening, but slowly the awakening is taking place.
This discussion must begin with an awareness that our vocabulary of thought has been built from a foundation of images created by our educational systems, socialization and lifestyles. Here in the early 21st century, we are a society that learns and communicates through images. These are images of lifestyles, images put in place through policy actions in industry, commerce, the media and even the government and the military. Images, of course, are mental pictures. And these powerful sources of influence have created our mental pictures of how things should be.
These mental pictures, our image vocabulary have been built by our various leaders, business advertisers, the media and even schools. These forces of influence have become and remain our guiding references. They have become and remain our educators. Ecofeminism is a philosophy that offers perspective on the influence of our vocabulary of thought, which does lead to action.
Think of the images created by our mass media. Particularly television, Hollywood and the irresponsible press have created irresponsible representations of technoviolence, aberrant sexual behavior, purposefully sensationalized news and irresponsible uses of business, political and even religious powers. These images help to stimulate and motivate the acting out of what is originally seen and absorbed from a 2-dimensional format. It says what “is” or “what should be” real life. The entire setting of our society is magnified by these media images. Next, society literally begins to act out this magnification in real life. Then, a newer, grander magnification comes through the media, which stimulates an eruption of more explosive behavior and on goes the cycle. This phenomenon no longer is new to us, but the cycle continues to expand, to spin and to twist.
This image factory strongly influences how our society is taught to think. How we think dictates how we live out our lives. The lack of human values seems to be easily cited and it is important to cite this numbing malaise. Our universal need is to re-establish our social and private awareness of life through a new vocabulary of positive images. This is a new way to look at ourselves and out neighborhoods, our nation and our place in Nature.
Ecofeminism really begins with the observance that there are two energy centers that exist on Earth. The Far East sees them as the Yin and the Yang. They are Male and Female energies that affect the natural events on our Earth. These are energies, not necessarily about individual people. Certain energies are found in humans in varying concentrations. The Male energy is described by words like; aggressive, war-like, competitive, power-loving, controlling, given to linear thinking and reasoning. Male Energy is “left brained” in quality and sort term goal oriented.
The Male energy looks to be very negative, yet it serves a necessary purpose in our human history. Philosophically, the need to compete and clash was needed for the first periods of human history. There was expressed a genetic need to compete and conduct warfare as the seeds to create scientific thought, world exploration, industrialization and even religion. These are activities that did help advance dimensions of the human species.
Female energy is given to qualities such as nurturing, loving, mothering, and holistic in approach, genetically in need of maintenance and repairing, long term goal oriented. The Female energy has acquiesced to softness, to subservience. Yet, in the last few decades a more cohesive force has led the beginning of a female emergence on many levels. The Feminist Movement began this century and strengthened in the last few decades showing that this Female energy is coming alive and gaining strength. There has been male oriented backlash in response, yet the rebuttal of the Female energy will not work. There is a New World Order and it is shifting from the Male to the Female emphasis.
We are now at the end of and past the 20th Century. It is the century that gave birth to a period of exponential growths in scientific technologies and massive, uncontrolled destruction. Of course, as we entered into the 20th century, we created the Industrial and the Atomic Age. Advanced industrial production and military armament build-up have created inordinate nuclear wastes, hazardous wastes and just garbage. The alarming result has been of the entire planetary environment. Only in this last decade has there risen a global cry to stop this unchecked, irresponsible, destructive behavior. The aggressive male oriented rush to have the biggest and the best nuclear weapons, the biggest industrial complexes and “damn, who cares where the waste goes” mentality is ending.
What is taking place is a global unification to stop destroying our home. Arising is the call for ecological values and for accountability to be exercised for this massive abuse. Environmental abusers are not subject to litigation and fines as well as to environmental legislation that will simply force new ways of conducting business. In fact, the greatest environmental battles will be won and lost here at the turn into the 21st century.
“The only new idea that could save humanity in the 21st Century is for women to take over the management of the world. I believe that male hegemony has squandered an opportunity of 10,000 years. We have belittled and ridiculed feminine intuition and on the other hand, we have historically sanctified our ideologues, almost absurd or abominable. The masculine power structure has proved that it cannot impede the destruction of the environment, because it is incapable of overcoming its own interests. For women, on the other hand, preservation of the environment is a genetic vocation. The reversals of power are a matter of life.” . . . Gabriel Garcia Marquez
From a broader view, it can be said that a new human perspective is now taking hold. Philosophically, it is labeled Ecofeminism. It is now time to re-create our images; the images used as the reference guide for our conduct as individuals and as a global society. Ecofeminism has evolved from the concepts of the Feminist Movement, but it is NOT the Feminist Movement. It is about the plea that places the roots of oppression of Women, Minorities and the oppression of Nature as one in the same. Women, Minorities and Nature are interlinked. When one is freed they all are free. Women, Minorities and Nature are one. Ecofeminism is a philosophy that calls for the reorganization of methods and thinking. The core premise is that there are other ways to understand and respond to organizations, problems, challenges and images about what life can be. As Indira Ghandi put it, “It is a requirement, not a luxury to protect our environment.”
There is coming validation of Natural Knowledge that is a validation of intuitions as a viable force driving this broad based re-establishment. This comes from a value system of ethics. Ethical conduct is critical to the action one takes in life situations, and most assuredly, it is critical to the philosophical outlook of Ecofeminism.
Regarding values and ethics, a new “3 R’s” can be suggested. At the foundation of our social learning needs to be the teaching of Respect, Responsibility and Reuse. Giving respect to others, including to Nature is critical. We all feel that we will be held responsible for the effects of our actions. Reuse as many materials as we can to avoid waste and abuse of resources.
Ecofeminism is based on ideas that call for ethical thinking. It says our social fabric, our economic and political institutions need a new orientation in order to discover new, positive values, values that see the values of community (values of quality) vs. individualism (values of quantity and competition). It looks at and questions the things our society produces, how they are produced and how these things are distributed. Ecofeminism does not want to throw out capitalism. The desire is to think about human values in concert with economic values. It calls for a study of the economic scale, human values and justice. It is a self critical view. Thoughts that reflect this inner conflict come paraphrased from Aldo Leopold, “He who has environmental awareness is condemned to a life of wounds.”
Let’s look at different schools of Ecological Thinking. The central question of this school of thought is the primary need to answer, “Who speaks for the land?” There are two primary schools of thought labeled as Deep and Shallow Ecology. Shallow Ecology deals with popular ideas. It has created Green Washing (Marketing). This is about creating new product imaging without really creating an environmentally friendly improvement. The Hefty Trash Bag, claiming to be biodegradable all the while knowing that trash bags are buried in landfills and are not given the chance to biodegrade, is an easy example. The main point is that people’s fundamental relationship with nature is not changed with this outlook. The philosophical concern created about Shallow Ecology is the core attitude . . . “Is there a sustainable environmental value system in place here? Without this establishment, no success is achieved or sustainable.”
Deep Ecology looks at the Earth Systems this way. The Earth itself does not produce. However, the Subsystems of the Earth are alive. They do produce. The Earth does behave like it is a huge, living cell. See, http://www.naturalstep.org . . . an international pedagogy of learning and knowing the Earth’s Four Natural Systems Conditions. 1) Resources cannot be extracted from the Earth’s core and crust to be deposited in the Biosphere faster that Nature can take it back; ie. fossil fuels. 2) Man -Made substances cannot be deposited in Earth’s Biosphere faster than Nature can receive and adjust to it. 3) Earth’s systems cannot be removed or destroyed faster that Nature can rebuild and replace it ie; clear cut foresting, industrial fishing, etc. 4) ALL Earth’s Resources must be used in a Just and Efficient Manner for ALL HUMAN NEEDS.
This knowledge is acknowledged by Nobel Laureates and taught to large multinational companies and organizations as well to regional and local private and public organizations. Examples are: Electrolux, Scandic Hotels, IKEA Furniture-Sweden, McDonald’s-Sweden, Cargill Dow, Shell Oil-U.S., the U.S Congress under the directive guidance of Al Gore, Co-President of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development with John Anderson, the CEO of multi-national manufacturer, Interface, Inc. Office Systems, the other Co-President of PCSD with Gore.
Environmental Activists justify their actions based on Deep Ecology Analysis. They argue for the rights of Nature itself. Activists argue that these portions of the Earth have the same rights as minorities (ie. women, children and the disenfranchised). It also challenges the view of Private Property Rights set up in society. It asks the question, “Do you have the right to destroy land because you say you own it?”
Know that the CEO of Green Peace, the Natural Step (naturalstep.org) and others support business. What they urgently strive to do is to teach higher efficiency of creating, making and distributing products and services in concert with Earth’s 4 Systems Conditions. Companies who are beginning to embrace and manage the change of their infrastructures are realizing higher profits and making less of an Ecological Footprint on the Earth! See the books, “Natural Capitalism”, “The Ecology of Commerce”, “BioMimicry” and “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”, “Plan B”, and web search for the companies gaining an ISO 14000 certification (highest efficiency) label. See the Earthwatch Institute’s quarterly magazine. The CIA uses them for national strategy and security studies as the CIA sees direct links to global resources and environmental health and our American strength and peace.
Harvard Ph.D., E.O. Wilson proclaims that our 100 to 200 years of unchecked consumption of Earth’s resources has deeply threatened the Earth’s living systems. If all 6.3 billion people (and growing) on Earth consumed as Americans consume, we would need 5 Planet Earths to supply the resources necessary to produce the things we consume on a daily basis.
Ideas, philosophies images have been shared here. These have been words wanting to create new images in our society. New images held in our mental and philosophical core would create new ways of thinking and doing things. New images create new potentiality. Words and images without deeds are empty and without lasting meaning. Ecofeminism calls for new values, new ethics, new actions, a new vocabulary for the issues at hand, issues that cannot be denied.
Nature is a language, and every new fact that we learn is a word; but rightly taken all together, it is merely a language put together into the most significant and universal book.” . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Ecofeminism is a base of philosophy that calls for a unilateral freedom of the rights for the ecology and for women and minorities. This philosophy states they are one in the same. It is not against men. It does call for the lifting of harsh oppression. Ecofeminism encourages economic advancement in industry, yet it calls for new integrity, ethics, new knowledge and new, innovative processes. There is no more room for unethical, environmental oppression.
A concise summation by Baba Dioum serves powerfully to clarify a view of our core of philosophy that needs to be our daily thought and our daily action plan; “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand and we will understand what we are taught,” Ecofeminsim calls for a new way to understand and a new way to love.
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to ALL living things man himself will not find peace.
. . . Albert Schweitzer
THOMAS EDISON’S 1906 INVENTION DICTATES PLACED ON THE DOORS,WALLS AND HALLS OF HIS MENLO PARK, NJ INVENTION LABS:
Always work to improve your invention.
Always work to reduce the energy required by your invention.
Always work to reduce the toxics created by your invention.
Always work to reduce the negative impacts of your invention on the Air, Earth and Water.
Edison was “best buddies” with Henry Ford. They liked “hanging out” in Florida together. As Edison drove up and down Daytona Beach in his electric car, he asked, pleaded, insisted, ranted that Ford not release the internal combustion engine (Model T and tractors) to the world. This technology would spew plumes of toxic pollution, dark clouds of smoke that would screen out the sun and it would create health problems and diseases yet to be seen and understood by humans. We now know that Edison was right 100 + years ago.
September 8th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I can’t believe that paul (comment 19) is serious! How can he be so wrong in his response and so inappropriate in his understanding of the whole picture?
Absolutely clearly, Annie’s response to this new product is a “straw breaking the camel’s back” thing. She is drawing attention to a particularly mad, more insane and irresponsible piece of marketing than usual.
BLINDINGLY OBVIOUSLY, she cares about “SO MANY worse things going on in the world” – what on Earth did you think the “Story of Stuff meant? Did you not pay attention to the words? How could you come out with your totally ridiculous post – it defies belief. Please write a retraction
September 11th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Grady…
One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result and the knowledge of the value of the result …
November 14th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I like it.
I’m using it.
Pretty, pretty bottle. Don’t worry, They won’t sell too much of it. The world is safe.
(and I am a friend to the enviornment, I’m just not going to freak out over evey LITTLE thing that comes along.)
You all sound a little too silly to be taken seriously, and that hurts you and us on issues that really matter. And THAT’S how we lose the important battles, ladies and gentlemen.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:12 am
I loved your video. I first watched it in Portuguese. It was e-mailed by my cousin from Brazil. I then Google it and found your video in other languages (French, Spanish) at Utube. Excellent work! I already passed it along to all my friends requesting their help to save the planet after watching your movie. I know that your comments about the creation of NXT product are just an example of a “planned obsolescence”. And whoever buys NXT shower gel or shaving cream is just making a “perceived obsolescence”. So, I know this is not the point. Environmental sustainability, recycling and social justice are the fact of the matter. You got an activist.
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Well, having just read the comments, I find that the two naysayers are missing the point of the glowing shower gel. Annie is clearly not disregarding the billions of water bottles and trillions of plastic bags now crowding our landfills (remember. her video is about these very types of problems). She is pointing out that advertising and clever marketing schemes are keeping us caught in this cycle of consumeristic waste, and further adding unnecessarily to these landfills. Annie’s not the one who has lost focus. She’s the one connecting the dots.
Thanks for great work. I’m sharing this video with everyone I know. Look forward to keeping up with your work!
January 10th, 2009 at 10:09 am
My son’s 7th grade class saw your video this week and it is all he has been talking about since. He insisted his dad and I watch it and we are happy we did. I am impressed that his school had the children watch this informative movie and hope they get the lesson to reduce consumption and save our resources.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Annie, I thoroughly enjoyed your movie and am taken by the cause. It sums much of what I have been feeling for the past several years – consumption, consumerism, spend and waste. I find myself actively considering these things as I go about my daily activities now, more than ever.
I’m posting this comment under your “What’s NXT” topic because I wanted to post a link to a similar example – this time, involving a (disposable) mascara applicator that spins( https://www.spinlash.com/ver6/index.asp ), apparently targeted to those who lack thumbs and/or the manual dexterity to spin the applicator themselves??
March 9th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
One other thing you didn’t mention during the recycling bit was that the distribution centers could care less about recycling.
I work at Peet’s coffee and tea, ALL of our “waste” is cardboard boxes, paper, receipts, plastic bags, tins from tea, and paper or plastic milk cartons, which my coworkers constantly are chucking in the trash, then they complain about taking it out.
It seams like some times all I’m doing at work is pulling stuff out of the trash and putting it in the recycling. the only thing that we actually would be throwing away is coffee grounds and food that was dropped on the floor.
This is a small store that could recycle if it actually tried but the problem is people are lazy. and not only that but the company thinks that the time lost from making a decision to put in a recycling bin or actually putting the brain and body effort to recycle is not worth the money they would spend paying us to do it or to educate us to do it.
There are only a few companys that actually recycle. for instance I worked at hot dog on a stick, and if you got caught throwing a cardboard box in the trash you got written up. although it was just cardboard boxes, It was better than nothing, and at the mall we were located at they didn’t even have a place for us to recycle anything else.
I think sadly what it will take is a $$ incentive to drive corporations to want to recycle. but for now.. Its always waste.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Saw your video. My mother taught our family to recycle and compost. That was in the 1960’s. We had a huge garden and my parents never used pesticides or herbicides. My mother also limited the cleaning products we used (Thanks to Phil Donahue’s show “For Our Kids.” We also traveled the country to see many of the national parks. It gave us an appreciation of nature and the beauty of our country. I try to do the same with my children. We recycle and compost.
Craigslist is a great way to pass things on that you would otherwise throw out – such as children’s toys, bikes, swing sets, clothing. I give everything I don’t want to either Goodwill or list it for free on Craigslist. We hardly throw away anything. Also, many school groups take things for yardsales for fundraising. Blankets and sheets can be given to shelters, even shelters for animals.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Clever merchandising tricks drive a huge amount of consumer waste. When you look into an industrial kitchen environment like a fast food restaurant(a disgusting experience) you see boring packages that FIT everywhere. Liquids, solids, whatever are all stored in ways that maximize space efficiency and that measure to an exact set of pours (for instance) to a given recipe. All of this is for maximizing PROFIT.
I really appreciate “cradle to cradle” but I think the key to making consumer packaging work is incredibly tough and reusable packages in standard sizes. These would be packages designed to last at least 10 years – think Mason Jars. As many goods as possible would be shipped in bulk and part of the function of a grocery store (for instance) would be to package (or enable the consumer to package) into these standard containers.
The environmental impact of producing these containers would be kind of high. They might be Pyrex or stainless steel or ceramic – things that are inert, can be dropped from at least 4 feet without breaking and can be denatured a few million times without significant wear. There should be enough to handle at least 50% of the consumer food stuffs, household cleaners, toiletries, etc…
The three Rs are reduce, reuse, recycle IN THAT ORDER. This type of container would achieve the first two Rs. It would reduce the use of disposable packaging by displacing its use. And in being reusable itself it would achieve the second and do so FOR A REALLY LONG TIME.
So many new houses have been built in the US in the last decade that the package could use the most popular existing cabinetry dimensions (and refrigerator dimensions) as references for exterior dimensions of the package.
Merchandisers could get their sales jones on with labeling (all the containers would have a spot where a label could be slipped in… There could be coupons, prizes… Whatever visitation from advertising hell that the machine can dream up. These would be recyclable (or reusable).
The packages would be discarded into a “recycling” container in a special bag that is either delivered back to the store or set aside at the recycling center for pickup by Joe Packaging Incorporated. OR they could be returned using the bottle deposit method. In fact, there’s a perfect business model built into the bottle deposit method since it would provide a significant pile of floating cash to the package manager.
The design would be an open standard. The manufacture and management could be strait widget capitalism.
I think this beats the hell out of most biodegradable alternatives with the possible exception of compost-able materials.
May 31st, 2009 at 9:53 am
Hi,
Along the lines of too much packaging.
Is it possible for soap manufacturers to NOT put in a plastic cup in each laundry detergent powder?.
how can we demand that simple thing?.
Love your webpage and thoughtfulness.
Sayi.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Watch The Goode Family on Fox and lighten up. Waste, as Peter Huber might say, is good. Recycling should be an economic decision only, not a moral one. Meaning, recycling should be judged by what resources are consumed to recycle something, and how they are priced, and not on the mere act of throwing something in the bin. How much recycling is in fact more wasteful and resource intensive than just burying the trash and making new stuff? I like to think of landfills as the mines of the future; someday that stuff will come out of the ground again, when a way is found to economically recover it. Maybe I’ll have to play moth and buy the pretty blue bottle just to make my contribution.
September 17th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Please, do forgive me for the mistakes I’ll surely be making in the next paragraphs… I don’t have opportunities to put into practise the English language that I have learned so many years ago. But I still keep the basic knowledge that I’ll never forget fortunately.
I need to tell you what I feel, what I think, what I FEAR for our own future, for the future of our little ones. It´s not enough to change “some” things in this “necrotic” system… We have to change most EVERYTHING if we wish a better future for our own children… please…!!! In the U.S.A. as in Canada, Europe, Japan, China and all the developed countries, the present culture of ilimited consuming habits has to be radically changed to the opposite culture of total AUSTERITY.
I think it’s time for all humankind to be conscious about reality. It’s not possible to go on with this irrational level of industrialization.
Humankind MUST STOP making so many frivolous and unnecessary luxurious products, all dispensable in this necrotic system of ilimited consumption. Our very toxic and contaminating garbage is growing in exponential degree, as well as human population does. Neverending contamination…!!!
Natural resources will soon be exhausted, so the logical reaction SHOULD BE to walk back the same way that brought us all up to this irrational point of neverending consumption.
DECREASE IS one of the two alternatives we have, but the ONLY LOGICAL ALTERNATIVE that IS LEFT in this PATHETIC REALITY that INVOLVES US ALL. The another one is to go on in the same very dramatically wrong way we are since ever.
Industrialization has to DIMINISH to the minimun necessary and vital level.
It’s needed a radical change in all steps of Education to provide the technical, mechanical, manual knowledge to go back to our grandparents’ times or to the style of the Amish people, in order to prepare our children to be able to get their own daily sustenance from mother earth, taking care of it naturally and without agrotoxical and chemical industrialized products. Familiar or community farms, with agricultural cooperatives in small communities should be encouraged to be done elsewhere for the self-sufficiency of goods and supplies. Recycling, restoration, recovering, reparing activities with manual and handicraft labours should be the alternative jobs in the near future for our children, activities of minimum fossil fuels requiry.
Please, do all what is possible for you to encourage the whole World to STOP PRODUCING cars, electronical supplies incompatible with new ones that forces people all around the world to buy new elements instead, luxurious materials, most everything no biodegradable and with very toxic components, etc.etc.etc. Industrialization should be diminished to its minimun necessary level!!!!!
Instead, it has to be produced all types of spare parts to recycle, restore, repare, recover, etc., all types of manual and mechanical elements for all jobs and labours of minimum fossil fuels requiry.
WE HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THE LITTLE NATURAL RESOURCES THAT ARE STILL LEFT…
NO other alternative energy will be able to sustaine this irrational level of neverending consumption. It’s not enough to go on studying other alternative energies in this irrational and neverending necrotic system of insatiable industrialization.
We are all destroying our unique Planet, we are destroying LIFE elsewhere, contaminating water, air, soil, and intoxicating PEOPLE with MINING and AGRIBUSINESS activities.
Latinamerican people, the poor people in this part of the Third World or of this Latinamerican Developing Countries are suffering since ever in many ways because of long-term unemployment, intoxication, contamination, physical attacks to push them out of their ancestral lands and to be left excluded in poorer areas. All of our communities in Argentina are suffering the consequences of contamination of our soil, air, water natural resources with mining and agribusiness activities of multinational monopolies. The Economic Power of the First World is taking out all our natural resources and destroying our ecosystems, killing LIFE in the vulnerable biodiversity, contaminating our water natural resources, our soil, intoxicating our people, etc.etc.etc.
GREED, SELFISHNESS, LIES, HYPOCRISY, are the values and principles that push people of economic power in the First World since ever.
This is the only truth that explains everything pretty much.
Whoever doesn’t want to see or understand this… it’s simply because he or she feels the same and shares with them the same purposes: to earn more and more BLOODSTAINED MONEY, to hoard PROPERTIES insatiably, etc.etc.etc.
We need to multiplicate our voices exponentially. We have to awaken more and more people all around the world from the basis of this feudal social pyramid. We need to be more and more people all around the World to take notice of this dramatic situation, that makes us feel this same anguish and distress in order to try to change this suicidal way straight to an abyss without return…
Please, you have to visit these other web sites for more information given by suitable professionals of all around the world.
http://www.crisisenergetica.org/
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/
http://oilsmokeandmirrors.com/
WE HAVE TO , WE NEED TO CHANGE THIS SUICIDAL WAY STRAIGHT TO AN ABYSS WITHOUT RETURN…!!!
September 28th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Keep up the good work. The buzz-word for what students need to learn is “Source Separation”. When they become adults and parents the process will no longer be an issue, it will have become a habit. Therefore, what you are doing in schools is absolutely essential!
My niche is medium-sized vermiculture. It applies to composting the organic wastes in school lunchrooms. I have written a book, “Beyond Compost” (shameless promo) and it links to my (free) blog (more shamelessness) where readers can ask or tell.
60% of school waste is paper waste. Since vermicomposting requires a Carbon to Nitrogen ratio of 20:1, a school is ideal for producing humus for gardening…and hence returning nutrients to depleted soils.
September 29th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I can’t believe how gullable shoppers can be, with so many useless products out there. They must realize how much impact their buying habits are to this environment, but maybe many of them are misinformed and just simply too vain to worry about their decisions as they do have the power, to change their daily destructive attitudes on this planet. Keep up the good work. We have to get back to basics, and keep things in check. These companies will do anything to sell, money is the bottom line. Education is key to help people realize ways to recycle their waste, and quit buying unwarranted merchandise.