A Kinder, Gentler Blog - orig. 08/12/05

Here is a link to a kinder, gentler, environmental blog set up by a friend sustainablegirl.blogspot.com. Her post from August 12th has some great ideas as far as changes in personal living habits.

Another friend suggested starting to live more sustainably by purchasing eco-friendly toiletries. Although they are more expensive one doesn’t have to buy them as often as food so it puts less of a strain on the budget.

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Here’s a response I received from Organic Valley Family of Farms about packaging.

Thank you for contacting us.

Organic Valley is aware of concerns regarding paperboard milk cartons, but the quality of the milk must be our primary concern. Milk loses valuable nutrients and develops unpleasant flavors when exposed to light. Paperboard cartons protect the milk from 96% of this light. In these times, the majority of milk is purchased in well-lit stores where there can be a significant impact on quality and flavor. With paperboard cartons, our milk is the closest to farm-fresh flavor and nutrition as possible. Paper is a renewable resource, lightweight and inexpensive, thus making freight and packaging a small percentage of the final cost to the consumer. The paperboard cartons are recyclable and many communities now offer a recycling program for paperboard. Organic Valley is aware that not all areas provide recycling options for our paperboard cartons. Unfortunately, even though the plastic jugs are recyclable, the paperboard cartons are the better choice. Plastic jugs allow the milk to be exposed to light, which can derogate the nutrients. At this time we must use the paperboard cartons, as our first priority must be to the quality of the milk. We have hired a person now, who will do nothing but look at packaging options. Hopefully this person will be able to find a package that is both environmentally friendly and can protect the quality of the product.

We are attracted to the possibility of a reusable container. However, packaging in a glass or polycarbonate material like lexan still poses some negative environmental impact. The extra transportation costs, washing and production pollutants from manufacturing have to be explored and considered. As we continue this research, the quality of the milk received by the consumer will be of the utmost importance.

I cannot currently recycle paper milk cartons in my town through curbside recycling. I don’t know that I should be drinking milk anyway especially as I am encouraging people to stop eating beef.

You can see some of the issues involved. Organic Valley is still working on a fairly large scale so if they want to go to reusable packaging they have to look at collection, shipping and washing. They also mention the ecological impact of the manufacturing process in the creation of reusable packaging.

I was gratified to hear that they “...have hired a person now, who will do nothing but look at packaging options.”

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I sent an email to my friend Bayou with the URL to this blog. I wasn’t thinking about when I sent the email, but am very appreciative that she added a description and a link to this site from her blog aperfectanomaly.com.

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A friend, who lives up the street, brought me a big bag of apricots from the tree in his yard. Turns out, I like apricots.

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As long as we allow Corporations to be the dominant organizations in our society, they will continue to dominate us. Advertising is being used right now in an effort to try and control your mind. All the major media outlets are controlled by corporations. We are bombarded daily with messages pertaining to what we should think and feel and desire. If you don’t believe it take a second and think about all the things that you would like to buy if you could afford them. How many of those things do you need to survive? Will these items make you happier or more content in your life? What benefit do you expect to receive from these items? What are the things in your life that actually make you happy? (Not just give you a rush or get you high, but actually give you a sense of long term satisfaction.) I can’t answer these questions for you.

I can tell you that being introspective and focused on self has never brought me a sense of lasting fulfillment.

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I bought some groceries today. I didn’t purchase any dairy products. The small experiment within the larger experiment is to see if soy is a viable alternative to dairy.

The packaging issue is driving me a little bit crazy. The Nancy’s nondairy yogurt packaging says, “This sturdy HDPE#2 container can be reused again and again and again... and then recycled!” (If I go through a 32 oz of cultured soy a week I am going to end up with a lot of these containers.) Of course as we have found from Organic Valley the act of manufacturing the original packaging also has issues. It is nice that the body of the container is made out of plastic #2 which I can recycle. I am finding that the body of many plastic containers are made out of plastic #5. Of course the lids are inevitably a different material. For Nancy’s neither the seal nor the lid are recyclable. I still need to look into the repercussions of recycling.

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I have a friend and I think he is worried that my view of humanity has or will shift toward the negative. I don’t think that people are evil or bad. I do think that we are caught up in a paradigm that makes us believe that “created wants” are actually needs. I also think that in the course of human development we have and continue make short sighted decisions.

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People love to compete. They also seem to like hierarchical organizational structures and to make judgements about each other. I remember talking to a guy years ago who said he wanted a nice house and a fancy car because otherwise how would people know he was better than they were. If I stop by your house how do you think I'll judge your level of success? It ain’t gonna be based on how much you make a year or how nice a car you drive. I am also up for a little competition if you think you can keep up.