Jon and I have gotten into the habit of not printing. I don’t look it as a scrafice and don’t miss reading printed material. We simply don’t find the need to do it. Kudos to the various businesses that have made printing unneccesary – Adobe, online statements, Blackberry (why print itineraries when I can sync to my calendar) etc etc

Realizing that I maybe print a page every month got me wondering if US paper consumption has gone down recently and the great effects of reducing paper usage.

The Good News:

• US Paper Consumption is flat or down from previous years according to this Britannica entry from 2007
• In 2007 56.1% of paper was recovered for recycling versus 38.7% in 1993 

A Bit of Shocking News:

• The average world office employee uses around 7 reams of copy paper or 3,500 pieces of paper each year. This fact has set the world’s average paper consumption at 123 pounds of paper per person each year.
• Between 1960 and 2008 the amount of waste each person creates has almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.5 pounds per day.

Of Course There is Hope….

According to James Derosa“If all 700 million Adobe Readers users decided not to print an article ten pages long each year, there would be 3 environmental effects:

1. Less waste due to 14 million reams of copy not used
2. 80,000 trees wouldn’t be cut down annually
3. 118,000 less tons of CO2 in atmosphere

(And no need to understand the language of printer jams:)

I opened a can of tuna on a backcountry camping trip a few years ago. As I went to drain the tuna juice from the can, a fellow hiker grabbed the can and proceeded to suck the tuna juice straight from it. “What are you doing?” he shrieked. “That’s perfectly good water. This world doesn’t have enough water that you can afford to just waste it like that.”

That’s extreme! Even for a highly environmentally conscious guy like myself.

We talk a lot at Abe’s Market about how to make going green fun. Richard posted on this recently.

I love this TreeHugger piece and short video on Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. The guy rides his bike to work every day. Because he’s a tuna-juice-sucking fanatic? No! His explanation: “I started biking to work for a bunch of different reasons. Ultimately, I bike now because I like it.”I love that simplicity!

Lately, I’ve been gratified to witness a recurring great example of recycle and reuse all in one. Obviously, we recycle everything in my house. We’ve been sending toilet paper rolls, empty boxes, etc. to my 4-year-old daughter’s preschool. Within days, those same items return home in the form of birdhouses, horns and more. It’s fun for us to watch that virtuous cycle in action.

I’ll add some more of my own family’s fun (and simple) green activities soon. For now, I’ll rely on this list from iVillage to get things going.

Do you do anything more than drink tuna juice to make going green fun?

I feel for people who dread Monday mornings. Would it help frustrated people everywhere if their workplace was more like Peaceful Mountain’s ? Just hitting 3 out of 5 of the descriptions below may forever change the acronym to TGIM…

1. Spend your day making something that helps people feel better.

2. You make a product that achieves its goals and possibly exceeds them.

3. Headquartered in a nature loving town like Boulder, CO – where casual Friday means wearing biking shorts instead of your trekking pants.

4. Make your product locally – feels right and means international trips are for pure pleasure and not for exchanging business cards.

5. 100% Alternative Energy Powered Business – Peaceful gets all of their energy from wind turbines. That is high on the bragging rights meter and is a highly visible reminder of a company that is acting on what they believe in.

What else are you looking for in a company?

Did you catch the commercial that Audi aired during the Superbowl? At $2.5 million an ad Audi is hoping to generate a whole lot of discussion and based on what I am reading it seems that they have been successful in doing so. Check out the teaser commercial introducing the Green Police. The campaign is both a satire of the pressure we feel to go green and yet flaunts their new environmentally friendly car, confusing message.

My thoughts are broken into two camps:

1. Audi did a stellar job capturing what many Americans must be feeling – the pressure of doing the right thing and the often cumbersome responsibility to do our part. They parleyed the negativity into the ultimate positive – having your cake and eating it too when you buy their car. Kudos to Audi and their advertising team on the creativity.

2. Is Green so ‘in-your-face’ that most people just want some space?  Do most people feel hampered by having to recycle? Is there a fear that Big Brother will soon enforce proper disposable of batteries?

3. How many products are jumping on the Green bandwagon?I immediately think of the  “We are Green” labels I saw at Banana Republic labels a few months ago. Those labels mean that the article of clothing consists of 5% organic cotton. Have we gone totally Green crazy that a measly 5% of the preferred cotton is enough to advertise a sweater as “eco-friendly”?

How do we get this movement under control?

Hey there, I’m Lisa.

I’m super excited to have an opportunity to reach out to you through my Abe’s Market Blog. If you are passionate about our Earth, living natural and enjoying personal care products then you and I have a lot in common.

I adore personal care products but I’m not a fan of artificial additives and toxic ingredients that are so commonly found in basic items today.

My goal with this blog (besides making new friends) is to introduce natural alternatives to luxurious products that make you feel pretty and fabulous.

I cringe at the thought of the thousands of beautiful ladies unknowingly applying Phosphates, Chlorhexidine, gluconate, Ethanol, Hydrogen peroxide and Methyl salicylate on their lips before their dates. Yes, those are just some of the ingredients found in popular lipsticks today. It’s a scary reality.

I love lipstick but refuse to ingest these toxins.  So, I’ve found a non-toxic alternative that looks fabulous and speaks my language of love, hope and compassion.

PeaceKeeper Cause-Metics is unlike most cosmetic companies available today. Their beauty philosophy is to not act like a cosmetic company but to act as a movement for humanity and to create a beautiful c a u s e. Inspired by truth, health and individual growth, each lipstick has simple mementos about freedom, joy, wisdom, voice and self-esteem. Their products are created with natural, pure ingredients like beeswax, grapeseed oil and vitamin E. It’s their dedication to the beauty world, and I am thankful for that.

My red favorite: Paint me Compassionate

Be sure to always wear with a smile. It looks good on ya!

A simple way to share the c a u s e: I like to buy two: 1 for myself and 1 for a girlfriend who is in the dark about lipstick toxins.