ottawa foodies

zymurgist's comment about Bridgehead double-cupping their coffee reminded me of something I noticed last time I visited a Tim Hortons restaurant. Their paper cups say "Please recycle" on them but they don't offer anywhere to dispose of it other than the landfill garbage! They have recycling bins for bottles but nothing at all for cardboard. How does this make sense?

Has anyone noticed any other false nods to eco-friendliness?

The Timmies at work (Nortel) has bins. But then there is the whole fact that their contest is "roll up the rim", so anyone who is conscious about that sort of thing cannot participate because they'd have to use a disposable cup. Thank goodness I equate their coffee with stomach bile anyway.

There was a just a big study released on this a few weeks ago. Something like 97% of all eco-claims are in some way misleading. If you check CBC news or some other similar websites I bet you'll find it pretty quickly. I've gotta run right now so cannot.

Here it is : www.canada.com

They call it "Greenwashing", and it's actually 99% not 97%

Which really should not be surprising because any company trading publicly on the stock market is basically not allowed to be green for it's own sake - part of the rules of trading on the stock market. Just like they are not allowed to be ethical.

Begs the question .... What does it mean to be "Green" or "Eco-Friendly".

"Corporations undertake greening their products only when they see a market share advantage...". I agree with the David Suzuki Foundation, on this one.

All our (human) activity leaves a 'foot print' on the planet. Some larger and deeper than others.

Even the back-to-the-earth hermit got his axe blade somewhere, even if smelted the ore himself.

Having said that, I guess "Green" means a smaller footprint than non-"Green".





PS: I'm so glad I held back on responding to this post when I first read it. I'd be very busy typing out tons of "Greenwashing" examples.

PPS: 'Greenwashing' is my favorite new word. Can't wait to try it out on my mass consuming, so called, 'Green' friends.

Let's start a list anyway, Caper :-)

One of my favorites is "made from recycled paper". The problem is that if it does not say "post-consumer" then it's not at all what you'd think. When paper gets made, it gets made into huge rolls. If the factory cannot sell all the rolls to people who will use it as-is, they can sometimes sell the remainders to someone who will 'recycle' it into something else. So it's not at all recycled in the sense that most people would think when using the word.

Ok Zy ... I'll add one (or two) to the list.

I used to work for the largest Inkjet Printer manufacturer in the world, during the mid 90's. This was a time when "Greenwashing" got started. It was hip to be eco-friendly and encourage recycling.

The company had a take back program. The consumer could get rid of his old printer, (why ?... to buy the latest and greatest ?... or was it due to the 'built in obsolesence'?) by bringing it to the local sales office.

There, they where shipped (using fossil fuel) to a central facility, then off to China(more fossil fuel). See the picture of what happened to them in China. Pennies a day to strip the gold and other valuable stuff out. The non- valuable stuff went back in the ground.


Yeeesh. I was soooo ashamed of what was going on.... and would be given the boot out the door if I spoke up. Staying quiet caused me more shame and guilt.
A co-worker kept telling me "We live so well, because they live so poorly". Again, Yeeesh.

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from being 'Green"... I'm way more of a cynic. Webster says a cynic is "a faultfinding captious critic; especially : one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest". Sounds a bit Ayn Rand-ish.



Ref: www.greenpeace.org



PS: My next "Eco-Friendly" gripe will be food relaated. I promise.

Ok ... here's my food related ecogripe. (Do ya like my new word ... ecogripe ?)

THE GREENING OF BLA-BLA's

I'll let my references speak for me:

www.treehugger.com

And more scholarly (with less hype and spin), from a researcher at Mount Allison University, NB.

www.mta.ca

They talk the talk but don't walk the walk !!


A closer to home ecogripe on BlaBla's. Locals fought the big box Loblaws going into Westboro. Old trees removed... too big for neighboughhood etc.

www.cbc.ca

Blabla's promised the community high paying union jobs where cashiers can actually make a living, just above the poverty line. Half way through construction the "Future Home of Loblaws" signs went down and up came "Future Home of Real Canadian Superstore" ... a non-union shop. Gone were the decent paying jobs. Those b*ggers !!
Needless to say, I go there once in a while for some of the PC products I like. Or to try new ones. Even if I have to walk through all the kids clothing and BBQ's and pool toys and home decorations just to get to the milk. Am I a hippocrite ? ... maybe... but I like the term cynic better.


Speaking of President Choice Products, Dave Nichol's (The creator and marketer of President Choice line)resigned from Loblaws after turning Loblaws from a passive distribution channel to a brand building power house. Loblaws had 35% market share, in Ontario, in 1990. Word on the street, was Dave resigned after a spat with the REAL President of Loblaws , Mr. Weston. Seems Mr. Weston did not like the publics view of Dave. Most people looked at the President's Choice flyers (with Dave's picture on the front cover) and thought Dave WAS the president of Loblaws. Envy can be a powerful motivator... like greed.

Ecogripe now turned off.

Speaking of green hypocrisy...

A few months ago Loblaws was trying to tout itself as some kind of environmental leader (reusable bags, "green" products, etc). But if you walked in the Westboro location a couple of months ago, right by the front door they had big bins FULL of styrofoam cups and plates! Understandable that they do sell these products, since people do use them from time to time. However, it sends mixed messages if you have them prominently displayed as soon as you walk in the door.

I've got to say it, I hate seeing Galen Weston's smug Gen X face, touting how green and wonderful they are. It reminds me of the Smug Alert episode of South Park, download it now. I also hate that he tells me what burgers I should be eating. What a smug turd!

LOL, Chimichimi ... well said.

Hear hear Chimichin !!

This only adds to the credibility of my story about Dave Nichols and Mr. Weston (in the pic).

not sure if they still do it but it used to drive me crazy at the loblaws in westboro when they would espouse all things green and then have 22! TV's turned on in their av department. when I spoke to the manager he consistently said they would turn them off when told to do so by Onatrio hydro!?

That whole westboro superstore saga really sticks in my craw still. And yes, I do consider myself somewhat of a hippocrit for shopping there. But honestly, where else am I going to shop? Loblaw's owns Loeb and YIG. The only really option for that type of store is Sobey's but that's all the way in Kanata. I guess Farm Boy on Merivale but it's far off as well.

The trees are what gets me. Those were so huge and beautiful! And there was no need to cut them down for goodness sakes!

Though these days we keep our Loblaws shopping to a minimum. We get a lot of stuff at Costco (yeah, not really any better, nor is Sobey's for that matter), all our produce either from our CSA in the summer, or from Produce Depot. And we are members of the Ontario Natural Foods Coop.

Mostly the Superstore is for juice and a few other things like that.

Bottom line is as stated : if a company is publicly traded, then they are not allowed to be green nor ethical. It's in the rules of the stock market. Yes, it's really true.

not exactly on-topic, but Zym. -- how about Produce Depot on Carling as an alternative to Loblaws? Depending on where you live, it might be closer than Farm Boy / Merivale. PD has better / more varied produce options in a smaller space than Loblaws. Combined w/ the Filipino store across the street (and the beer store next to it), you can get most of your staples there.

Erm, re-read what I wrote up there - already mentioned that we go to Produce Depot (yes, on Carling) :-)

Zy.... the big trees on the old R.L Crain property (home of the new Stuper-Store in Wesboro), are truly missed.

If memory serves me right, Many were located along (or close to) Byron. Now they put in grass and small trees there. Huh ?? Why ?, oh Why ??

Looks like it all falls into the company policy... strip out the old growth, so they can plant grass and small trees. I'ts kinda like saying "Wake up Mr. Jones !!! It's time to take your sleeping pill".

I love all this Blah-Blah's and Stuper-Store bashing !! hehehe

oops, don't know how that double post sneaked in (15 minutes later??). Sorry, missed the PD reference in your post Zym (kinda distracted, obviously). :)

[EDIT: I removed the duplicate - FF]

chimichimi - excellent parallels there between Galen Weston and "Smug Alert". Great episode!

zymurgist - it's funny you mention public companies being green & ethical. i'm an equity trader for a brokerage & investment bank, and Loblaws stock is horribly out of favour right now. it's dropped almost 50% since august because of the company's guidance and poor outlook on declining profit margins. perhaps their new eco-friendly ideas and "Walmart" approach is taking it's toll?

Not to be devils advocate about the tree discussion (ok.. yes I am..) but it is actually not easy to keep trees on a site when you are developing over top. Basically, if you are keeping trees, you need to 'NOT DIG' anywhere under the canopy, and if they are really tall, you need to extend that a bit further. So that means, for a line of full grown trees that stretches maybe 500 feet, you also need maybe 100 or 150 feet of undisturbed band to make sure you don't kill them by the destruction of their root system. Alas, not many developers are willing to make such a sacrifice....

I'm just posting that I'm rather skeptical of the claims above about a spat between Dave Nichol and Galen Weston. Wikipedia says they were room mates in university and Weston asked Nichol to come aboard Loblaw AS PRESIDENT (contrary to above claims). And apparently he was president of Loblaws for 10 years, then for several more years president of a new product development division of Weston Foods.

So I'm just putting the official "sounds like urban legand" tag on those comments :-)

Loblaws does not own Loeb. Loeb is owned by Metro.

Loeb was formerly owned by Provigo, which was purchased by Loblaws. However, Loblaws was forced to sell Loeb due to competition concerns.

Another option for you, zymurgist, is Food Basics at Hampton Park, which is also owned by Metro.

Aha, thanks for clearing that up w.r.t. Loeb! I knew they were purchased but I obviously missed that particular part. And yes, we have Loeb very close here.

Surprised that nobody seems irritated by my pet peeve. Consumers are being told to conserve energy and buy more eco-friendly products(fair enough). Grocery stores often turn off some of their lights etc during summer heat waves are causing high electricity demands etc and all sell affordable reusable bags.
I don't see much happening at the manufacturing level...they still package 8 or 10 pieces of gum in blister packs to make it look like there is more product than is actually in the package, they still put packaged cookies in plastic pull out trays instead of the corrugated paper dividers they used to use....all to disguise that there is less product in the bag. Does this fool anybody? I always look at the weight of what I buy. When are they going to stop doing this? And don't get me started on the obscene overpackaging that goes on with childrens toys...it does bad things to my blood pressure.

A couple of other things....
plastic bags are annoying, but I think it isn't necessary to ban them. If stores were required to charge for them (as they do at Food Basics) a lot less people would use them. I shop at Food Basics a lot and don't see many people opting for the plastic bags...I have seen fights nearly break out over the cardboard boxes on the weekend when they are in short supply.
Also, for a while the Natural Food Pantry was giving out a raffle ticket for a $50 gift certificate to everyone that did not need a plastic bag. If a small 4 store chain can do that, surely Loeb, Loblaws etc which have much deeper pockets could do a promotion like that to encourage the people who don't use reusable bags to start.

Mousseline, I partly share your pet peeve, but my peevishness is aimed not as much at the manufacturers, but at the government. I make no assumptions that the plastic pull tray in a bag of cookies is more or less eco-friendly than other packaging, as it is VERY hard to rate these things in total eco-footprint. Perhaps the cookies with the plastic tray can be shipped in smaller less sturdy shipping boxes, since they are less likely to cause broken product? Perhaps the larger/stronger shipping containers needed to house weaker, paper only packaging offsets the eco-savings of not using plastic trays? Frankly, I don't know. What I think the government should do, is create a simple, standardized eco-footprint rating system for products, that includes everything, including 'grams of packaging per gram of product' or the footprint based on how far it had to be shipped, or even the footprint of the types of materials used in packaging, and materials used in shipping(boxes). Then, we would have good information about what we should and should not be doing. I remember a dispute in University, where the student centre removed foam cups for coffee from their store, instead selling plastic reusable mugs. A diligent chemistry student took on the project of measuring relative eco-footprint, and his/her research showed that the extra footprint of the bigger reusable plastic mug, and the energy needed to create it, and to wash it, and the detergents that would be used to wash it, was at least as eco-unfriendly, as using, and throwing out the foam cups. (I assume there was an 'assumed lifetime' of the mug.. and that it wasn't just 'forever'.)

Devil's advocate mode, ON:

While I agree that all of that packaging in such a large box with so few cookies makes absolutely no ecological sense, I'm fairly certain that it's done in order to preserve them during shipping. Otherwise they'd all get smooshed!

(I don't see why they don't switch over to cardboard inserts that do the same protective job, though.)

Gum's ridiculous though, I agree.

If everyone could just accept the idea that a cookie doesn't need to be whole/perfectly round...but in a crushed state, poured from the bag and eaten with a spoon.
Heh, wait a minute ~ that's most of the cereal aisle now.

If everyone could just accept the idea that cereal should be whole! Then we could have each little pocket in its own individual plastic cart—what were we talking about again?