Eco-Mamas

Little Me Fighting our Disposable Culture

A few weeks ago I took my laptop to a major electronics chain for repair. The woman at the service desk suggested that I purchase a new AC adapter, see if it solved the problem and return it for a full refund if it didn't. Sounded easy enough.

It turned out not to be the AC adapter and I went back to the store to get my refund. With the adapter on the counter, my newly-found green conscious prompted me to ask the cashier what would happen to the perfectly good piece of electronics sitting before us.

"Just tell me it won't just end up in the trash, that it will be repackaged (it came in one of those plastic containers that you have to cut to get open) and re-sold--it's perfectly good," I studdered.

"It'll go back to the vender, and they'll throw it away," she spat.

So now what? Write a letter to the chain? Boycott the store? Suck it up and accept it? Anyone....?

A few weeks ago I took my laptop to a major electronics chain for repair. The woman at the service desk suggested that I purchase a new AC adapter, see if it solved the problem and return it for a full refund if it didn't. Sounded easy enough.

It turned out not to be the AC adapter and I went back to the store to get my refund. With the adapter on the counter, my newly-found green conscious prompted me to ask the cashier what would happen to the perfectly good piece of electronics sitting before us.

"Just tell me it won't just end up in the trash, that it will be repackaged (it came in one of those plastic containers that you have to cut to get open) and re-sold--it's perfectly good," I studdered.

"It'll go back to the vender, and they'll throw it away," she spat.

So now what? Write a letter to the chain? Boycott the store? Suck it up and accept it? Anyone....?

The Story of Stuff---Must See!

To view the rest of this incredible video with Annie Leonard, visit www.StoryofStuff.com.

The Devil Wears Lip Balm

Who am I to scorn Treehugger for selling out to Discovery or look down my nose at Bear Naked and Kashi giving in to Kellogg? After all, I'm only a working mother of two whose hard-earned money helped fatten their sacrificial lamb.

Sure I was bummed that I could no longer purchase my favorite cereal or Toms of Maine feeling good about voting for a greener economy with my dollars, but Clorox purchasing Burts Bees for $913 million in November has officially tipped my needle from mild disappointment to despair.

And just to add insult to injury, this article in the  New York Times reports that Clorox plans to turn Burt's Bees into a mainstream American brand that's sold in big-box stores like Wal-Mart.

I don't know about you, but when I find a good brand, a brand that is what it says it is and does what it says it does...and is good for the planet, I stick to it like glue. But as Christine Arena talks about in this video from Re:VisionTV, we see that a lack of transparency in large corporations allows for toxic products to remain on the shelves.

That's what worries me about these mergers...Instead of the authetically green companies rising to the top on their own, they're being taken over by the very corporations who got the planet in the state it's in.