I could make a natural all purpose cleaner with Borax, vinegar and water. But I'm lazy.
Don't think I'm promoting (hehe), because I haven't tried these yet, but Clorox, yes Clorox, has just come out with a line of environmentally safe cleaning products called Green Works, derived from coconuts and lemon oil. What I'm happy about, besides being able to pick these up at Meijer when I do my regular grocery shopping, is that a major commercial brand has launched this, at last. Can others be far behind? I'm happy that the market is being driven toward environmentally safe and sustainable products.
Clorox bought Burt's Bees last November, and you have to wonder, along with the writer of this NYTimes article, if their all natural bent influenced the new owners. Mmmm, Burt's Bees lip balm, made with bees wax and almond oil. I love it. Some people got ticked off that Burt's Bees "sold out." I don't worry too much about that.
19 comments:
This is a realy interesting article, I tried all the links and was reading it all, I am glad the lip balm is 'kiss-proof' well at least it says so in the advertisiment..... I am nor sure about the green-works, we don't have that, I just use the cheapest vinegar with some water, that works perfect. I think it is good that the manufacterers are realising we need the stuff that is good for the environment, so Ruth you did very well to show us what are the alternatives.
To say that Burt's Bees sold out is to say one didn't like Ben & Jerry making corporate disty deals or Whole Foods rapaciously buying Wild Oats. Which on some level is true! Problem is, purists don't realize that no profit-making company can stay true to its home-spun, hippie-dippie, "first do no evil" roots when it does national or international distribution deals. It's gonna turn into a big bad transnational by size and presence alone - which Burt's did before Clorox bought it. Green purists are like the punk-rock/indie-rock purists who always scream about selling out to major labels. The real selling out took place before the bigger company came along, and it was a natural result of trying to get a bigger market presence.
If corporations did what was right for everyone, would they still be evil?
Welllll, I think Adam Smith was a pretty interesting guy, but I think that capitalism is inherently evil and can't help itself. And that applies to individuals engaging in the free market, as in real-estate deals, etc., as well as to corporations.
Smith may have been brilliant, but just like any brilliant thinking, the world has to change with its current circumstances. What would he spawn today? What is needed? If capitalism is ruining the world (I think it is), what model should replace it? Locally driven commerce, wouldn't that be lovely? Maybe this will be the fallout when our Empire collapses and the world markets have no US dollar or other reliable currency to thrive on. Unfortunately I am not hopeful that the desire for wealth and power, without consideration for the swath of casualties in its path, will ever go away. But who knows, maybe the Gates and Buffet and Larry Page will be the new leaders.
Astrid, you are my heroine, using vinegar and water. Thanks so much for your comment.
Ruth, we have to please ourselves with colour green. as i have been collecting details for my next post i am more and more convinced that i have no other option but to consume toxic food and become resistant to other poison.
People of third world countries are now considered as pests by the giant multinationals.
It's so true about the fall... will you be prepared to offer something to others in a local market? I know Uncle Don would have your farm up and running! Becoming resistant is a process, though, not something that will happen in our lifetime, but if we think of generations ahead of us, maybe consuming these poisons is doing them a favor? And, I absolutely despise the mentality of considering "stone-age people" as having nothing to offer and being pests. I just watched "1 Giant Leap" again tonight and there is a multinational idiot making this very claim. Have any of you out there seen this movie yet? It's one of my favorites.
About capitalism... yes, evil. But, if we can so easily identify what is evil, why is it so difficult to identify what is good? Can someone please articulate for me what would be a solution to all this madness? Does it get harder to tie down the answers because we are dealing with the world at large and not just the interests of one group within the whole?
rauf, I think your next post is going to be hard. I hope groups like Cultural Survival (see my side bar) will grow and keep fighting. I read about the Ngobe tribe in Panama that is being bulldozed out becoz they are in the way of a damn project, but CS is helping with attorneys to fight. (Like the Silent Valley dam project, eh?) The tribe is not used to fighting, and it takes a lot of encouragement and winning small battles to keep going. If you click on Cultural Survival I think it is on the first page: Action Alert: Panama.
Actually, rauf, what is to be learned from the Silent Valley dam project, becoz the battle against it was won? I don't remember how it got stopped.
Swedehart, if that happened, and we had to cultivate the farm for real, we'd probably expand the chickens Don just ordered to 100-200, for the eggs and poultry meat. On 5 acres we could probably also have a couple of milker cows and a couple for beef. We have 8 apple trees and one pear. We would plant the whole orchard with more fruit trees. We could make apple sauce, apple cider, etc. We have grapes and could plant another row of vines. We could plant a big veggie garden, and herbs. Wow, it would be a full time job for both of us. There is an excellent book by James Burke called "Connections" (from the 1970s) where he pictures all electrical power is gone and it doesn't come back. What would we do. And he traces the major inventions of history and what necessities invented them. We recommend it! It was also a late 1970s PBS series, which you can rent: Connections 1, 2 & 3, with several disks in each season.
Cool, no I have never heard of Connections. I'll see if our library has it. So, I take it you two have discussed this before:D You sound prepared.
Hehe, Swedehart, we discussed it as I typed the comment. :)
I feel so far behind, Ruth! :( BUT, I will look for Green Works. So glad we're moving in the right direction in more ways than one.
Boots, you've got far more important things to do than this, so I thank you for coming and leaving a message. Yes, maybe you can even take some Green Works back to AMS, although I'm guessing there are some good green cleaners on the market in Europe.
thanks for posting this! I was looking for something like this.
Oh, that's good, Mystic!
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