It’s Easy Being Green
May 5th, 2008
Don’t be an eco-skeptic:
this tree-hugging ‘hood has it all
by Sivan Keren
Water: clean, simple, hydrating. On a sticky summer day, it’s the drink we’re hard-wired to crave in mass proportions. And although personal water bottles have been on many of our grab-on-the-way-out-the-door checklists for a while now, a new realization has come about in the realm of water-carriage: plastic is definitely “out.”
“They’ve been flying off the shelves,” says Emilie St-Hilare, of the coveted stainless steel Klean Kanteen water bottles. St-Hilare, who works at the eco-friendly Grassroots at Chester and Danforth, says that customers have been coming in droves for the environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional plastic bottles. The trend has picked up so quickly that the store has been back-ordering the bottles for months.
Rob Baker of the nearby The Big Carrot says he’s never encountered such great demand. Like Grassroots, the health food store has seen an enormous peak in sales for the alternative bottles. Baker attributes this surge to an article published in the Globe and Mail. The paper recently reported that outdoor products retailer Mountain Equipment Co-op was pulling the previously popular Nalgene plastic water bottles from its shelves, citing health and environmental concerns.
“There’s been about a 40 percent growth in alternative bottle sales since the article,” says Baker. He adds that though Siggs, a competitor of Klean Kanteen that comes in a variety of colours, have been marginally more popular than the slightly heavier Kanteen, sales numbers for both types of bottles have been “shooting through the roof” with no end in sight.
An Eco-friendly ‘hood
The 40 percent growth rate reflects an even greater trend: ecoholism. The term was coined by Torontonian and Ecoholic author Adria Vasil, and is reflected in the debates from Ottawa to your kitchen table.
“This is a tree-hugging neighbourhood,” says Janet McGregor, an employee of Ten Thousand Villages, a fair-trade and eco-friendly non-profit retailer on the Danforth strip. McGregor adds that people on the Danforth seem to have a stronger environmental conscience compared to other areas. “They come in and I ask, ‘Are you familiar with our store?’ But in this location, people pretty well already know.”
Unfortunately, many eco-friendly products come with a relatively hefty price tag. And for folks in this neighbourhood, especially for young families, price is certainly a concern. But the interest is definitely there: one Danforth resident tells me that if prices were more competitive, she’d buy all organic and eco-friendly products. Although the higher prices are often attributed to a number of factors from supply and demand to the cost of production, at the end of the day, for customers, cost is often the prevailing consideration.
Ecoholic Meets Eco-skeptic
Since nearly everyone I spoke to has encountered someone who thinks that green products just don’t work, I decided to leave the price debate aside for a while, setting out to assess how effective the green products on the Danforth really are. To account for any bias (as I’m a self-proclaimed ecoholic), I was joined by Lauren, an eco-skeptic member of our editorial staff. Our first item of business, as it should always be, was pizza.
Pizza: Delissio 4 Cheese Pizza (654 g, $5.99, Loblaws) vs. Life Choices OrganiCuisine Three Cheese Pizza (315 g, $9.79, The Big Carrot)
As much as I long, as the Life Choices pizza box says, “to secure a healthy future, free of synthetic pesticides and herbicides” for our planet, my colleague Lauren is right: it tastes like “cheese-on-bread-in-oven.” I told my boyfriend there was a slice left over, omitting the fact that it was eco-friendly. He took one bite and said, “This is pretty much the worst pizza I’ve ever tasted.”
Dandruff Shampoo: Head & Shoulders (200 mL, $5.96, Loblaws) vs. J-A-S-O-N Tea Tree Oil Shampoo (517 mL, $9.99, The Big Carrot)
Since many people get summer flakes from the sun, we thought it might be a good idea to check out dandruff shampoos. As it turns out, the flake-busters are the worst of the lot! Many brands of dandruff shampoo contain an anti-fungal compound called zinc pyrithione, which, according to the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (and pointed out by Adria Vasil in her book), can be deadly to fish: “If you put as little as 1/10000 tablespoon [of zinc pyrithione] in an aquarium containing 1000 litres of water, half the fish population will die in four days. A dose for hair wash . . . contains 88 mg.” So we checked out an eco-friendlier option. After a week of using J-A-S-O-N, most flakes were gone. What’s more, the herbal scent and creamy consistency beat out the synthetic smell and gumminess of Head & Shoulders.
Laundry Detergent: Sunlight Lemon Fresh (2.95 L, $8.99, Loblaws)Vs. Nature Clean All Natural Laundry (1.82 L, $8.25, Grassroots)
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it! We were immediately impressed with the price of the eco-friendly product. Even though you get less liquid for a similar cost, the number of loads (approximately 30) that you can get from each bottle is the same, because you can use much less Nature Clean for the same effect. While it lacked the citrus-yumminess of Sunlight Lemon, our clothes were effectively dirt-free. A warning about gym clothes, though: it might be a good idea to let them soak a bit longer.
It’s Not Too Late
If the Danforth tree-hugger in you is hesitant to come out this summer, don’t let the fear of defectiveness hold you back. In fact, the only disappointing product we tried was the pizza, which Baker admits isn’t the best The Big Carrot offers. He recommends the Amy’s brand, which he says is much easier on the palate. “You can get a crappy pizza from Loblaws too,” he adds. To keep costs down, Baker suggests that you get to work. As with non-eco-friendly items, pre-packaged, ready-made products are sure to make your eco-shopping more expensive than if you buy the ingredients whole and do it yourself. As for the future of affordability, Baker suggests, “the more people that support [the products] will simply mean in the future . . . the price will go down considerably.”
