Coming soon.

Our mission is to promote organic agriculture and support organic farmers, to increase the diversity of crops and diets and to protect the heritage of a high quality, delicious ancient grain for the benefit of this and future generations. Khorasan wheat has been around for millennia and our company's #1 goal is to preserve it (throught he "KAMUT" Trademark) as it was without "improvements" from modern plant breeding. We are 31 years into Founder, Bob Quinn's, vision and have no intentions of slowing down now! Perfect as a substitute for modern wheat...try out this buttery, wholesome, versatile grain today!

Coming soon.

Give us your vision, we'll give you the plan. Bright Planning is a strategic marketing consultancy based in Asheville, North Carolina, serving a national clientele. We eat, think, and breathe strategy that will help get your brand's name in front of the right people. This isn't a full-service agency, because we don't believe in watering down what we do best. Our specialty is an easy-to-follow comprehensive marketing plan. This plan consists of proprietary "small data" investigations to unlock the real demographics and psychographics of your target market, research-backed strategies for launches or rebrands, and message development. Our clients are companies that offer organic, ethical or sustainable retail products and positive impact services. In other words: your business should be making the world a more beautiful, healthier, remarkable place to live. Director Catherine Campbell and her team have over a decade's worth of intense marketing experience, ranging from start-ups to multi-million-dollar corporations and global brands. Catherine's business advice has been featured in Harvard Business Review, CBS Small Business, Bloomberg and other outlets. At Bright Planning, we focus on scaling innovative small to medium-sized businesses (under 25 employees or $15 million in annual revenue) that are U.S.-based but may have global market share. Learn more on our website, and enjoy free actionable tips from our weekly blog and podcast (available on iTunes)!

CARS is a California-based non-profit owned by Jewish Family Services San Diego, a 4-star Charity Navigator rated organization. CARS helps more than 3,000 causes in the US and Canada increase fundraising and acquire new contributors through turn-key vehicle donation programs, including Purple Heart Foundation, Sierra Club Foundation, St Jude’s, Autism Speaks and nearly 200 local NPR and PBS member stations. CARS has returned more than $125-million to its nonprofit partners and reinvests in its community by providing tens of thousands of meals and transportation solutions to seniors each year throughout San Diego.

Coming soon.

Devine Gardens makes fantastic, clean, contaminant-free, microbe-rich, organic compost and vermicompost so gardeners can enjoy healthy, productive plants without the use of harmful chemicals. I supply gardeners with compost products they trust and share knowledge of soil health, gardening, use & preservation of fresh garden grown foods, and excite people about the thrills, joys, and benefits of gardening using regenerative techniques. I'm available to speak about vermiculture/worm bins, vermicompost, and composting.

The compost is made using manure from our farm animals and bedding. The mixed raw feedstock is put into aerated concrete bays where the air is blown up into the mix from underneath. After the temperature has reached over 131 degrees for a couple of weeks, it’s either fed to the worms or allowed to mature into finished compost undercover to protect from leaching away nutrients.

The workers of the farm, the worms, live in 4’ x 8’ beds inside of a pole barn. Starting in the spring they are fed and watered regularly. They love the warm weather and eat and multiply to their heart’s content during the summer. In late November as their activity decreases, they are fed extra and put down for a long winter’s nap.

We have a growing herd of Dexter cows. Dexter cows are a smaller breed originally from Ireland. They are a nice “old fashioned family cow” good for milking and for their beef. Most of them have friendly personalities and like a good back rub now and then. In the growing weather, the cows are rotated on pasture. During the winter season, they are fed hay and free choice minerals. We do feed grain if it’s very cold to give them extra energy, to coax them here or there and as a treat.

Devine Gardens is a 70-acre farm of which 20 acres are woods. We practice regenerative agriculture, always farming/gardening to improve the long-term health of people and the planet. We don’t use microbe harming chemicals on our land or animals.

Devine Gardens is located in the Town of Nelson between Cazenovia and Morrisville along beautiful Route 20. Please visit our website, call or email for more information.

Applied Culture Group works to transform the way individuals and societies address conflict, trauma and healing. We work alongside our local and global partners to pioneer innovative, immersive training programs that produce positive change through shared social action. Our focus areas include: Restorative Justice Initiatives; Community Dialogue Projects; Trauma Awareness and Response; Mindfulness and Healing; Youth Empowerment and Leadership. Applied Culture Group believes that diversity is strength. Our collaborative, customized programs promote self-discovery, shared wisdom and collective empowerment across all sectors of society.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

Soul Flower is an earth-loving clothing brand for you. Mindfully made with eco-friendly materials and heartfelt art, we design our organic clothing with kind vibes from start to finish. We seek inspiration in the simplicity of everyday life – in nature and in music, in free-spirited adventures and in like-minded souls. We create clothing in a way that supports our planet, spreads a positive message, and most importantly -- helps you express yourself. You can make a difference with what you wear, so share the vibe and let your Soul Flower.

Seattle Green Cleaner Awarded 2020 Best House Cleaning Service in Seattle

Established in 2007, Seattle Green Cleaner is the original, award-winning professional house cleaning company. We have been providing top-notch, ethical, environmentally friendly housecleaning services with integrity throughout Seattle for 14 years.

Best known for our white-glove cleaning and excellent customer service, our passion for environmental and social responsibility is contagious! 

Introducing our own of line green products!

As Seattle Green Cleaner's owner, I have spent years purchasing products at wholesale and then adjusting them to smell better, work better, have different dilutions for different purposes, etc., while always searching for the elusive perfect cleaning product.

I have created a line of minimalistic green cleaning products that are easy to use, truly work, smell great, and most importantly, are safe for the environment, children and pets. After a year of coming up with a signature scent, choosing simple ingredients, deciding on a manufacturer as well as a fulfillment/distribution center, I am very happy to introduce you to our line of products.

Thank you for being green!

Jennifer, Green Guru/President

Includes bottles, food packaging, paper, plastic

Company

Required:

• Business core purpose includes a “green” business function.
• Social and environmental mission and vision statement for your business on website.

Preferred:

• Banking with a community development, minority, or socially & environmentally responsible bank or credit union.
• Protocols in place (e.g., trainings, HR policies, support group(s), statement of commitment, accountability mechanisms, etc.) that advance justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) within the company.

Packaging Materials Used

Required:

• Made from materials that are substantially better for the environment than comparable ones OR with a process that saves a significant amount of water, heating or electricity.
• Products made in an efficient manner but from materials such as PVC, vinyl, non-recycled gold or silver, are not allowed for companies evaluated under this standard.
• If using plastic, material must be eligible for the lowest common- denominator municipal recycling program and language included in how to recycle.
• Packaging must be either returnable for disposal, recyclable, reusable or compostable.
• Local sourcing of components or supplies wherever possible.

Preferred:

• Ensure that all the packaging materials is itself 100% recyclable.

Manufacturing Of Products

Required:

• Commitment to sustainable labor practices and continuous improvement and transparency in the process.
• Country of manufacture disclosed on all products unless everything comes from one country and it is stated clearly on the front page of the website.
• Code of conduct in place that addresses social and environmental factory conditions with enforcement mechanism.
• Owned factories have an established worker representation mechanism.
• Owned factories pay a wage that ensures workers well-being.
• Commitment to a transparent supply chain including sub-contracting.
• Long-term contracts with contracted manufacturers.

Preferred:

• Owned and/or contracted factories are certified fair labor or fair trade.
• Owned/contracted factories are unionized.
• Disclosed factory list publicly available.
• Factory labor is paid a living a wage.

Product Shipping & Company Transportation

Required:

• Program in place to reduce emissions from company vehicles.
• Works with distributors that take steps to reduce emissions from vehicles and shipping.

Preferred:

• Company is an EPA SmartWay partner or affiliate.
• Company Works with distributors who are EPA SmartWay partners or affiliates.

Company Employment

Required:

• Employees have access to family friendly benefits including high-quality health insurance, sick days, paid parental leave and childcare help.
• Offer a flexible workplace culture that encourages work/life balance and makes reasonable accommodations for telecommuting and flex schedules.
• Pays a wage that ensures employees well-being.
• Has an established non-discrimination policy and procedure, and ensures an inclusive workplace culture.
• Governs fairly and in a transparent manner. Is open to employee input. Has a whistle blower protection policy in place.

Preferred:

• Living wage is paid.
• Has an established program that invests in employee growth and development.

Education

Required:

• Educates consumers on how to properly dispose of product at end of life-cycle (if applicable).
• Use transparent and truthful marketing.
• Advocate for green business practices in the packaging industry.
• Established program for receiving input from both internal and external stakeholders.

Preferred:

• Established take back program for end of product life-cycle.
• Actively seeks feedback from industry peers and participates in industry associations and mentor programs.

Green Office/Facility

Required:

• HVAC system well-maintained, building well-insulated, and smart and efficient climate control employed.
• System in place for reducing electricity consumption from lighting and electronics.
• Use of Energy Star rated appliances and CFL/LED light bulbs in office.
• Use of 100% post-consumer recycled, Chlorine Free paper in the office and in all envelopes, marketing, and print materials.
• Systems in place for reducing paper use such as electronic processes, printers set with double sided printing as the default, and more.
• Use of only non-toxic cleaning and pest control products.
• Maximum amount of waste is reused or recycled including paper, plastic, metals, glass, electronics, and printer ink cartridges.
• Action on clean energy such as purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) or use of on-site clean energy.
• Compost all food waste.
• Landscaping done with sustainability in mind, especially considering runoff and stormwater management.
• Only fair trade and USDA certified organic coffee and tea served in the office.
• Use of green or local caterers for events.
• Use of a certified E-Steward for electronics recycling.
• Proper disposal of hazardous materials (e.g., batteries, paint, motor oil, etc).
• Knowledge of recycling/composting guidelines at your local recycling/composting facility.

• Financial Planning
• Socially responsible investments
  • Custom-designed SRI portfolios for individuals
  • Small business retirement plans
• Member: Garret Planning Network and First Affirmative Financial Network, Member USSIF

As last April’s tragic Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh illustrated, worker exploitation and abuse is still happening around the world. More than 1,200 people lost their lives, most of them women sewing clothes for US companies like Walmart. The workers had been ordered back into the building to sew, despite police warnings that it wasn’t safe.

Many Americans believe that a similar tragedy couldn’t possibly happen here in the US, and it’s indeed unlikely that any domestic company could get away with sending employees into a condemned building. That said, several US industries have workers who toil in the shadows and are subject to horrific abuse—from employees in US clothing sweatshops to workers on American farms to people toiling alone as house or hotel cleaners, child care and car wash workers, and more. One group that gets hit the hardest is US immigrants, who are often subjected to the worst workplace abuses. In the midst of very real backlash against the recent immigration reform bills (S. 744/HR 547), what gets lost in the debate is the fact that many immigrants are lured to the US by unscrupulous American employers seeking vulnerable workers to underpay and exploit.

Sweatshop Conditions at Home

When Natalicia Tracy first came to the United States from Brazil, it was under a contract to work as a nanny for two years for a family in the Boston area. Excited by the prospect of seeing a new country, learning English, and making a good living, Tracy was in for a rude awakening. 

Though she’d expected to work hard, she’d also expected a respectful relationship with her employers. But it soon became clear that that wasn’t going to happen.

Upon arrival, rather than being given her own bedroom in the family’s spacious home, she was shown to their three-season porch, where she was to sleep on a futon on the floor, even during harsh Boston winters. 

“They had told me I was just supposed to nanny [for a regular 40-hour workweek] and help out a little bit, but before I knew it, I was supposed to do everything around the house,” she says. “I worked seven days a week and until 2 a.m. on the weekends.”

In addition to caring for the children, Tracy had running errands, cooking meals, and cleaning the family’s home added to her job. When the family told her to hand-scrub their white rugs with toxic cleaning products, she began having severe asthma attacks. 
“At night, I couldn’t breathe,” she says.

Instead of taking her to the doctor, the family told her to just take some of the medicine they had on hand for their asthmatic son—after she was finished giving him his nebulizer treatment. 

They only paid her $25 a week—not even close to a living wage, and certainly not enough for her to save and pay her way back to Brazil. Not that they would have let her go anyway.

“I lived in their home and didn’t have family close by and didn’t speak any English,” she says. “I was here alone. I didn’t have a place to go or friends. They wouldn’t let me use the phone to call someone to talk about what was going on. They wouldn’t let me put mail in the mailbox. It was a very traumatic experience.”

If it sounds like modern-day slavery, that’s because it is, and it’s shockingly common here in the US. 

“People talk about sex trafficking, but they don’t talk about the very prevalent problem of labor trafficking,” says Andrea Mercado, communications director for the National Domestic Worker Alliance. “There are many cases of people who were brought [to the US from other countries] to work. They’re promised they can learn English or even be able to go to college. Often we see situations where their passports are taken away, they’re taken from their family, paid very little if at all, subjected to horrible working conditions, and have no privacy or adequate sleeping conditions. Every month we learn of new cases across the country.” 

Immigrants: A Vulnerable Population

About 23.1 million immigrants work in the US, and only eight million are undocumented. Another 240,000 come here legally as temporary guest workers. Many of the most exploited workers on American soil come from this immigrant population, both those who are undocumented and those who are legal residents or recent citizens.

Because recent immigrants may still be learning English or may be unfamiliar with US labor laws, many are taken advantage of, says Rebecca Smith of the National Employment Law Project. 
As a result, immigrant workers are frequent victims of wage theft, dangerous conditions and uncompensated workplace injuries, discrimination, and even physical assaults, according to Smith. 

Though legal status doesn’t mean a worker is immune to abuses, the situation can be worse for workers who are undocumented. “Our broken immigration system has created an underclass of vulnerable workers in our country, easy prey to employer retaliation,” says Smith. “Across the country and across low-wage industries, employers use threats to expose workers’ immigration status as a cudgel to ensure that workers can’t complain about abusive conditions.”

A System Rooted in Slavery

Forty-six percent of US domestic workers—i.e. child and elder caregivers and housecleaners—are immigrants, and they’re particularly susceptible to abuse because they often operate in isolation. But domestic workers and farmworkers are also exploited because of an archaic rule that excludes them from important federal protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938.

FLSA was signed by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt and provided basic rights to US workers—a 44-hour maximum workweek, a national minimum wage, overtime pay, and a ban on child labor. But to get it passed through a divided Congress, Democrats bowed to pressure from Southern Republicans, who wanted farmworkers and domestic workers excluded from basic protections like the right to organize to overtime pay.

Those exclusions continue to this day.

“It’s the legacy of slavery,” says Mercado. “The Southern Congresspeople didn’t want domestic workers and farmworkers—who at that time were primarily African American—to have the right to organize.”

“Domestic and farm work are forgotten professions,” adds Tracy, who is now the executive director of the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston, MA. “Who did this work in 1938? African Americans, who back then weren’t thought of as real people. Because of that mentality, the US developed this invisible, dehumanized workforce that still makes the rest of the economy happen.”

In absence of a federal bill that would plug the domestic- and farmworker hole in FLSA, organizations like NDWA are campaigning for state laws to do so. So far, Hawaii and New York have passed state laws, with California and Massachusetts currently moving similar bills through their state legislatures.

Sweatshops of the Field

Immigrants make up 72 percent of US farmworkers, or those who labor on farms owned by others, according to the National Center for Farmworker Health. As noted above, because of their exclusion from FLSA, they often don’t make the minimum wage—legally. 

In fact, 30 percent of all US farmworkers had total family incomes below the poverty line ($22,050 for a family of four), according to the Department of Labor. Whether working in California’s garlic fields, Florida’s tomato farms, or Carolina blueberry fields, farmworkers are often victims of wage theft, where supervisors withhold or steal their pay, and legal oversight is often lax, says the National Farm Worker Ministry.

They’re also victims of other types of abuse. A 2012 report by Human Rights Watch found that women farmworkers face a very high risk of sexual harassment or abuse, including “rape, stalking, unwanted touching, exhibitionism, or vulgar language by supervisors, employers, and others in positions of power.” Most farmworkers interviewed for the report said they had not reported the abuse, fearing reprisals, including job loss.

Farmworkers Fight Back

One group of immigrant farmworkers in Florida has had such powerful results in their fight to change abusive working conditions that the Washington Post recently called them “one of the great human rights success stories of our day.”

In 1993, a group of mainly Latino and Haitian tomato pickers in Immokalee, FL, met to discuss that their wage of 50 cents per 32-pound bucket hadn’t increased in 30 years. This meant a worker had to pick nearly 2.5 tons of tomatoes per ten-hour day to earn the Florida minimum wage, notes Guadalupe Gonzalo, an Immokalee farmworker. 

“Physical abuse and sexual harassment were common,” says Gonzalo. “There were cases of modern-day slavery on farms,” which she says, means that farm owners would force workers to work overtime, threaten them with violence, and even “lock them in a box truck.” 

And so the pickers started the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to end abuse on Florida tomato farms. Since then, the CIW has achieved several victories, including pressuring 11 major US fast food and grocery chains to sign a groundbreaking agreement with the CIW called the Fair Food Program. The program includes independent monitoring of farms and worker protections in cases of wage theft, sexual harassment, and forced labor. It also mandates a penny-per-pound wage increase, which, Gonzalo says, may seem small but does add up to make a difference in their lives. 

In 2005, Taco Bell became the first to sign the agreement. Since then, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle, and others have followed suit.
 

Under the program, if a farm owner won’t take action to address worker complaints, the workers can go to the grocery and fast food companies themselves, which will pressure owners to make changes. If a farm continues to abuse workers, the corporations are legally obligated to stop purchasing from it—a significant threat that gets results. 

“Conditions [on FL farms] have changed in a major way since the Fair Food Program was enacted,” says Gonzalo. “Workers are calling it a new day for pickers in the fields.”

Today, the program has improved conditions for tomato pickers at 90 percent of Florida’s farms. CIW staff, including Gonzalo, focus on educating workers at those farms about their rights and on working to bring more retailers on board. They are currently targeting Wendy’s for its failure to sign the agreement. Wendy’s is the only prominent US fast food chain to not sign. 

“Wendy’s response is that it’s already purchasing from farms in the Fair Food Program, so it feels no need to join the program itself,” says Gonzalo. “But the program has teeth because of the companies that join—the farms know there will be market consequences if they violate the agreement. [By not joining], Wendy’s is not paying the penny-per-pound premium, and it doesn’t suspend farms that violate worker rights.” 

While the CIW has been a force for change in Florida, abuse still continues on farms in other parts of the country. But CIW workers are helping to spark change outside of their state.

“Workers in Immokalee are migrant farmworkers, so they’ll work in Florida for eight or nine months and then travel up to other states to pick other crops,” says Gonzalo. “CIW workers understand what rights they should have, and they [spread the word].”

Food for Thought

In the restaurant industry, one out of every ten workers is an immigrant, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Hispanic Center. That report found that 20 percent of cooks and 30 percent of dishwashers are undocumented immigrants.

“In many New York restaurants, the American waiters and hosts owe their jobs to the underpaid [undocumented] immigrants in the kitchen, whose low wages allow the restaurant to exist,” columnist Eduardo Porter wrote in the New York Times in 2012.

Saru Jayaruman, co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), stresses that the industry gets away with incredibly low wages across the board for immigrants and non-immigrants alike—and the ROC study Behind the Kitchen Door found that it’s race, not immigration status, that keeps most workers from moving up to higher-paying jobs in the industry. 

“But the industry uses fear to keep immigrants in the lowest-wage positions, like dishwashers,” she says, pointing out that employers can intimidate both documented and undocumented immigrant workers by threatening to use the federal eVerify system to prove whether an individual is legally able to work in the US. 

“eVerify is notoriously inaccurate, so employers can use it to keep [all immigrants] afraid and at the mercy of their employer,” she says. “This hurts all workers across the board, because they can pay low wages to immigrants, and that results in low wages for everyone.”

Cultural Exchanges Gone Wrong

Even foreign students who come to the US for a cultural exchange experience aren’t exempt from abuse. In March 2013, student guest workers at McDonald’s, who came from Latin America and Asia as part of a State Department-sponsored J-1 visa cultural exchange program, walked off the job amid allegations of wage theft and forced overtime. 

The students, who worked in central Pennsylvania, had been promised $3,000 to work full time at McDonald’s for a summer. Some received only a handful of hours, while others were forced to work 24-hour shifts with no overtime pay. They were housed in cramped basements owned by supervisors who took rent payments out of their paychecks, often bringing their net pay to zero, says the National Guestworker Alliance.

While the J-1 visa program is meant to provide foreign-born students with a meaningful cultural exchange, McDonald’s isn’t the only company to use it as a source for cheap, exploitable labor. In 2011, student guest workers at the Hershey chocolate factory in Hershey, PA, also went on strike, claiming that Hershey’s paid them only $40 to $140 per 40-hour workweek to toil in the factory. 

In 2012, the students won a settlement in which contractor companies in Hershey’s supply chain agreed to implement new labor protections and to pay $213,000 in unpaid wages and $143,000 for health and safety infractions.

“Not only is Hershey exploiting children on cocoa farms in West Africa, but it has even exploited student guests on American soil,” says Liz O’Connell, Green America’s Fair Trade director. “This is a company that really needs to clean up its act and treat all of its workers not just fairly, but humanely.”

And Then There’s Walmart

Walmart is infamous for alleged abuses against workers of all cultures across its supply chain, and its role in the Rana Plaza tragedy was only one example. It also stands accused of having sweatshop conditions in its US-based supply chain. In 2012, the National Guestworker Alliance found adult guestworkers, mainly from Mexico, being subjected to horrific abuses at CJ’s Seafood, a Walmart supplier in Breaux Bridge, LA. The workers reported that supervisors forced them to work 16- to 24-hour shifts, imprisoned them in the plant, and threatened them and their families. They were also subject to wage theft.

The Alliance’s work triggered federal investigations at CJ’s, and Walmart ultimately suspended the company. The Alliance also examined 18 more US-based Walmart seafood suppliers—and found over 200 labor and safety violations at 12 of those companies in the last five years. 

In addition, six lawsuits have been filed recently against Walmart warehouse contractors for wage theft—“workers not paid for all hours worked, not paid overtime, not paid the minimum wage, and not paid benefits they were owed,” says Leah Fried of Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ), a worker-run organization. WWJ has, to date, helped recover over $700,000 in stolen wages through the lawsuits, with more pending. 

The victims? Mainly people of color, says Fried, with an estimated one-third to one-half of them being immigrants.
 

WWJ is calling on Walmart to develop “a responsible contractor policy that allows for worker enforcement” at US warehouses doing business with Walmart, says Fried. “Its current system of monitoring has done nothing to end abuse in its US supply chain. As the largest importer of goods in the US, Walmart sets the standard for the entire distribution industry, but its layers upon layers of contractors have created an industry of poverty jobs with no job security or benefits. One thing is clear—wage theft and abuse is rampant [at Walmart-contracted warehouses].”

The US Economic Backbone

While the picture many anti-immigration pundits paint of foreign-born workers is that they’re illegally taking good jobs away from US citizens, many industries have come to rely on their labor—because they’re often more willing to accept temporary work and lower wages, often in difficult industries like farm work. 

In addition, a popular myth is that immigrant workers don’t pay taxes. A 2011 study by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants alone paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes in 2010. “Immigrants—even legal immigrants—are barred from most social services, meaning that they pay to support benefits they cannot receive,” notes the Center for American Progress, which points out that as a result, immigrants are a net positive to the country.

It’s important to note that while US immigrants are more likely to labor on farms, in back-of-the-restaurant jobs, and as housekeepers than native-born workers, they’re also more likely to work as physicians and surgeons, says the Brookings Institution. And studies by the George W. Bush Institute in partnership with the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce found that 40 percent of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or a child of an immigrant. Their research also found that although immigrants make up only 13 percent of the US population, they are 16 percent of the US labor force and in 2006 were responsible for nearly 25 percent of US patent applications.

A Richness of Experience

All of these facts only hint at the richness of experience a diverse immigrant population has to offer the country.

Natalicia Tracy is a prime example. She left the abusive Boston household when her two-year contract was up. For the next 13 years, she would take on other jobs as a caregiver for children and the elderly. 

As her confidence grew, so did her sense of social justice. She started volunteering at a homeless women’s shelter. She also put herself through college and is currently working on a Ph.D. in sociology. Her organizing abilities and passion for helping others caught the attention of the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston, MA. She became the executive director of the nonprofit, whose mission is to provide support for workers from the Brazilian and broader Latino community. Under her leadership, the Center expanded to include programs for domestic workers, to co-found the Massachusetts Domestic Workers Coalition, and to advocate for a state Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. 

“Having been a domestic myself, it was a very natural thing for me to do,” she says of the expansion. “I understand the issues, and now I’m in a position where I can do something about it and support women who are marginalized and exploited.”

Tracy is only one person who gave back to the US after coming to its shores from another. There are many more who could achieve their full potential and do the same, if only they weren’t trapped in hopeless working situations. 

The immigrant rights movement is not about handouts, but about ensuring that every US immigrant’s situation is handled fairly and with compassion—and that exploitation of this vulnerable worker population comes to an end. 

“Immigrants have always contributed to our country,” says Mercado. “They make it more diverse, play really critical roles in our economy. All of us are touched in some ways by the jobs they do. In a lot of ways, many do the work that makes everything else possible. They’re putting food on the table and taking care of our homes and loved ones so we can go to work in other professions every day. They’re our neighbors and our friends. And they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Four Ways to Fight for Immigrant Worker Rights

1. Reach out to immigrant workers in your community who may be laboring under abusive conditions. If you don’t share the same language, find someone who can interpret for you. Take extra care to find out what their situation is and whether they need help.

The following organizations welcome calls from people who want advice on how to best intervene in a potential abuse situation:

• The National Domestic Worker Alliance, 646/360-5806
• The Restaurant Opportunities Center, 212/243-6900
• Coalition of Immokalee Workers, 239/657-8311
• Warehouse Workers for Justice, 888/DIGNIDAD
• National Guestworker Alliance, 504/309-5165.

2. Have a conversation. “Talk to others about treating immigrant workers in low-wage jobs with respect and making sure they get fair pay and meet basic needs. Normalize the conditions of thinking of each of these workers as a person—one who is doing a real job,” says Natalicia Tracy of the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston, MA.

3. Support protections for whistleblowers. Immigrant workers may fear retaliation if they blow the whistle on abusive employers. Senator Richard Blumenthal had introduced an amendment to the Senate immigration reform bill that would have protected immigrant guest workers who alert authorities about abuse from retaliation, but the amendment didn’t make it into the final version of the bill. As the debate moves to the House, let your legislators know that you support whistleblower protections for all immigrant workers.

4. Buy green and fair. Get what you need from the truly green companies in the National Green Pages®, which are screened and certified by Green America, take extra care to ensure that all their workers earn a living wage and work in healthy conditions.

Plastic pervades all aspects of our lives – from the wrapping on the food we eat to the microfibers that wash out of the clothes we wear. We are producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year and more than 8 million tons end up in the ocean each year. These plastics break down into smaller pieces, which are then consumed by marine life and eventually us when we put seafood on our plates. The packaging industry is responsible for 40 percent of plastic pollution and represents one-third of all trash, most of which are one-time use items such as saran wrap, grocery bags, and plastic bottles, but there is a sustainable packaging movement on the rise.

Why plastic?

Plastic packaging is cheap, resilient, and versatile. This combination makes it appealing to businesses as it extends shelf life, is customizable, and production does not profoundly impact profits. A business’ packaging is often the first interaction a customer has with its brand, and with more customers interested in sustainable packaging practices when making purchasing choices, unsustainable packaging is simply no longer a wise option.

Sustainable packaging is the way to go

Since packaging is a large part of brand recognition, businesses that ideate green packaging solutions demonstrate that they value sustainability to every potential customer. Conscious consumerism shows that customers respond positively–52 percent of consumers willing to pay more than 10 percent more for products with sustainable packaging–so businesses that invest in sustainability goals are more likely to meet the bottom line.

These statistics show that sustainability in a business’s overall value proposition is not a trend. The Green Business Network’s certified green businesses make sustainability a crucial value in their models. With millennials twice as likely to pay more for green products than older generations, the future of businesses hinge on their green value propositions. Green America’s Green Business Certification requires our business members to account for their products and packaging beyond their end use—meaning a product does not end in a landfill, but can be returned, recycled, reused or composted. Green Business Network members like Salazar Packaging, Blue Sky Shipping, and Green Field Paper Company offer many sustainable packaging solutions.

Compared to five years ago, sustainable packaging is more important to half of all Americans, and consumers have become more interested in the life cycle of packaging than ever before. Although not all businesses package with sustainability in mind, the movement is gaining momentum as large corporations like FedEx and McDonalds transition to greener packages. It’s better for business, and better for people and the planet, too.

Thank you for joining thousands of people coast-to-coast to swarm Kroger stores the weeks surrounding Labor Day (August 26 – September 10) to urge Kroger to stop selling food grown with bee-killing pesticides.

We need your help to turn up the heat on Kroger by demonstrating how many sales they would lose if they don’t stop selling food grown with bee-killing pesticides. If Kroger doesn’t help combat pollinator decline, the retailer and its customers are going to lose the most delicious and nutritious foods that stock store shelves and make up a big chunk of Kroger’s bottom line!

We are talking about foods such as apples, strawberries, kidney beans, tomatoes, grapes (bye bye wine), and so many more. You can view the full list of foods pollinated by bees here.

We’re asking folks across the country to take two pictures of their grocery cart. One picture with all the food you’d purchase at Kroger pollinated by bees and one with only food not pollinated by bees!

This Kroger photo action is easy. Below are some tips to help. If you have any questions or need help preparing, please drop a line to our buddies at Friends of the Earth at beeaction@foe.org or call 202-222-0738 To learn more visit www.foe.org/beeaction.

I. Instructions for Kroger Photo Action:

1) Pick a day and time to go grocery shopping at one of Kroger’s supermarkets between August 26 and September 10 (work this into your Labor Day or normal weekly shopping!).

2) Find a Kroger store near you by entering your zip code into the following website:

• https://www.kroger.com/stores/storeLocator
• Note: Kroger operates under a lot of different brand names! Kroger’s brands include Delta, Dillon, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, Harris Teeter, Jay C, King Soopers, QFC, Ralph’s, Roundy’s and Smith’s.

3) Download and print the sign found below. Or get creative and make your own!

4) Bring the sign on your grocery-shopping trip.

5) Take two pictures with your sign that show Kroger what your cart would look like with and without pollinators!

• Below is a list of foods that require bees for pollination
• An easy way to do this is to shop for food that does not require bees first and take a picture of your cart. Then, fill your cart up with delicious produce and other foods, courtesy of bees, and take a picture of the huge difference!
• Try to position your cart near a Kroger logo and store sign to prove you’re in a Kroger store and make sure you include your printed sign!
• We took some example pictures for you below!

6) Ask to Speak to the Store Manager and show them your pictures. Use the sample script below!

7) Send your photo(s) to gmoinside@greenamerica.org and beeaction@foe.org and tell us how it went. We’ll post all of the photos we receive on our social media pages to create a buzz about the week of action and send a strong message to Kroger that people across the country want the company to stop selling food grown with bee-killing pesticides.

II. Talking Points and Tips

A. Tips for Talking with the store manager:

• Be Polite! Thank the manager for taking time to talk with you.
• Ask if they have heard about the campaign and direct them to the www.foe.org/beeactionwebsite if they haven’t.
• Tell your story! Explain why the need to protect bees matters to you as a customer and as a concerned citizen.

B. Sample Conversation:

Hi, my name is _______. I’m shopping here today to urge Kroger-owned stores to help protect bees, butterflies and other pollinators, upon which our food supply depends, by committing to establish a pollinator protection policy that includes the phase out of pollinator-toxic pesticides, including neonicotinoids and glyphosate, in your company’s supply chain and encourage suppliers to employ alternative pest management strategies. I also urge your company to increase its offerings of USDA organic food, prioritizing domestic, regional and local producers.”I took these pictures to show you and Kroger leadership the sales you would lose if you don’t stop selling food grown with bee-killing pesticides. As you can see, we rely on pollinators for some of the most delicious and nutritious food in your store. Can you contact Kroger headquarters and request that they implement a pollinator policy that reduced pollinator-toxic pesticides and increase offerings of domestic, organic food?III. Other ways to take action this week

A. Swarm the phone lines: Call Kroger’s Corporate Headquarters and deliver the following

message: Kroger: 800-576-4377

“Hi, my name is _______ and I’m a concerned Kroger customer in xxx city. I’m calling to urge Kroger to help protect bees, butterflies and other pollinators, upon which our food supply depends, by committing to establish a pollinator protection policy that includes the phase out of pollinator-toxic pesticides, including neonicotinoids and glyphosate, in your company’s supply chain and encourage suppliers to employ alternative pest management strategies. I also urge your company to increase its offerings of USDA organic food, prioritizing domestic, regional and local producers.”

B. Spread the Buzz on social media

1) Facebook: Post the statement below, along with the picture you took with your sign or the Facebook image below (also available at www.foe.org/beeaction), on Kroger’s Facebook Wall (https://www.facebook.com/Kroger/) and spread on your own page to spread awareness! Use the following message: Kroger: Stop selling food grown with bee-killing pesticides and increase offerings of organic bee-friendly food! www.foe.org/beeaction #SavetheBees”

2) Twitter: Tweet any of these tweets at Kroger’s Twitter account. Be sure to use this hashtag on any of your tweets: #SavetheBees

• @Kroger Stop selling food grown with bee-killing pesticides and increase USDA organic offerings! #SavetheBees
• @Kroger You'll lose the most delicious & nutritious food on your shelves if you keep selling food grown with bee-killing pesticides! #SavetheBees
• @Kroger Organic farmland supports 50% more pollinator species, increase USDA organic offerings free of bee-killing pesticides! #SavetheBeesSee the sign and an example of the action below!

V. Sign for Pictures/Social Graphic

Without Bees

With Bees!

It is great to see more clean products popping up on grocery store shelves. But many companies are making bold claims and not necessarily backing them up. A popular new protein bar, RXBAR, markets itself based on its bold claim that its product is clean. But that all depends on one’s definition of “clean.” Here at GMO Inside we believe clean should mean that a product is free from exposure to toxic chemicals, is a result of high animal welfare, and without GMOs in its supply chain.

Though RXBAR claims its products are clean, as long as its eggs, nuts, and fruit are coming from the conventional food supply they are bound to be laced with toxic chemicals and a result of concerning animal welfare practices. RXBAR’s eggs likely come from chickens raised in factory farms, a far cry from organic farming.

The reality is if eggs aren’t coming from organic pasture-raised production and/or certified by a transparent third-party organization, the chickens producing those eggs are exposed to very poor unhealthy conditions and are fed GMOs. These conditions aren’t just unhealthy for the animals, they are disastrous for the environment and those that live “downstream” of chicken operations.

Concerns about Eggs and CAFOs

Corporate and Geographic Consolidation

Gone are the days of pastures, barns, field crops, and farm animals. Eggs are produced in industrial operations with hundreds of thousands of laying hens in each facility, growing by nearly 25 percent from 1997 to 2007. Nearly half of egg production is concentrated in five states: Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, California, and Pennsylvania. Egg operations have grown by 50 percent in the same ten-year period, averaging 750,000 hens per factory farm.

Animal Welfare

The way laying hens are raised directly affects their well-being and health. Egg-laying hens are subjected to mutilation, confinement, and deprivation of the ability to live their lives as the active, social beings they are. More than 90 percent of eggs in the US are produced in confinement conditions. Welfare abuses run rampant in egg CAFOs including: killing male chicks upon hatching because they have no value to the egg industry, debeaking young female chicks causing severe pain, living in battery cages with the equivalent of less than a sheet of paper of floor size, being subjected to a process called “forced molting” where hens are starved and deprived of food for up to two weeks to shock their bodies into the next egg-laying cycle, and slaughtering them after their egg production declines in 1-2 years even though the lifespan of an industry chicken would be 5-8 years.

There is growing concern about the living conditions in which food animals are raised; however, there is little oversight when it comes to product labels. Most egg labels have no official standards or oversight or enforcement mechanisms, nor much relevance to animal welfare. Labels include cage-free, free-range, free-roaming, pasture-raised, certified organic, vegetarian-fed, and more. The highest-welfare eggs come pasture-raised with certification from Animal Welfare Approved. Unfortunately, few farms are certified to this standard. Though the state of California now requires chickens sold in the state to be raised cage-free this does not guarantee animals access to the outdoors and can mean the animals spend the vast majority of their lives in crowded chicken houses.

Even certified organic is not without flaws. According to a report by Cornucopia, industrial-scale organic egg producers, with facilities holding as many as 85,000 hens each, provide 80 percent of the organic eggs on the market. This means that less than half of a percent of egg-laying hens in this country are on pasture-based farms. Therefore, it is important to dig deeper and do research into the company. Local producers offer a shorter supply chain and more transparency.

Public and Environmental Health

Poor living conditions directly impact public and environmental health. Large-scale factory farm operations produce more than just eggs; they are also breeding grounds for disease and pollution.

Large hen facilities house hundreds of thousands of animals in each structure and result in Salmonella poisoning of eggs. Due to a Salmonella outbreak in 2010 where close to 2,000 cases in three months were reported, the US experienced the largest shell egg recall in history—half a billion eggs. While Salmonella rates are higher in battery cage systems, it is still a problem for cage-free facilities due to the sheer number of hens living in such close quarters.

As seen in other factory farm operations for pigs and cows, chicken CAFOs produce higher levels of waste that can be disposed of in a timely and environmentally responsible manner. The imbalance of a large number of animals in an increasingly smaller space causes mountains of fecal matter to pile up. Ammonia levels increase, negatively impacting air quality and water quality, running off into local streams and rivers. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), ammonia can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before returning to the ground and then into waterways. The nutrients in runoff from animal waste can then cause algal blooms, which use up the water’s oxygen supply killing all aquatic life, leading to “dead zones.” Dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico are growing larger every year, in addition to those along the East Coast.

In addition to having a devastating impact on aquatic life, industrial egg production also contributes to climate change. After assessing the life cycle of eggs from “cradle-to-grave” production, the Environmental Working Group reported that consuming two extra-large eggs is equivalent to driving a car more than one mile.

Concerns about GMOs

GMOs and growing herbicide resistance have increased the use of toxic chemicals on crops, polluting our soil and water and posing a significant negative environmental impact. Corporate control of GMOs hurts small farmers. The biotech and chemical corporations, such as Monsanto, spend millions to support anti-labeling efforts and keep consumers in the dark about their food. There are also health risks. Monsanto's GMOs are not yet proven safe for human health—the FDA does not require independent testing of GE foods, allowing for many of the studies on GMOs to be industry-funded and heavily biased. The vast majority of egg laying hens (egg-producing chickens) are fed Monsanto's GE corn and soy sprayed with Monsanto's Roundup.

Non-Organic Almonds & Fruit 

Conventionally grown almonds and fruit are often sprayed with toxic pesticides. Recently, nine different pesticide residues were found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program on conventionally grown almonds including one probable carcinogen, three neurotoxins, and four honeybee toxins. The most common pesticides used on dates include Roundup and Imidacloprid, a systemic neurotoxic insecticide. RXBAR's can't be considered "clean" while they continue to use non-organic ingredients.

What Next?

Eggs are part of many people’s daily lives and the choices we make around eggs and products containing eggs have a huge impact on people and the environment. We can all help by making informed and conscious choices when purchasing your eggs. Companies like RXBAR can make a difference by living up to their marketing claims and pushing the egg industry to change its ways, working to provide truly “clean” products for its customers.

Green America launched a new campaign Thursday urging AT&T and Verizon to publicly commit to fuel their operations with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. "AT&T and Verizon both recognize the urgency of climate change and the need for action, now we need to see that concern translate into commitments to purchase of wind and solar power,” Beth Porter, climate campaigns director at Green America, said in a statement. Both companies are currently using less than two percent renewable energy to power their massive servers, according to Green America.

University Testimonials for Recycled Paper

"When it came time to re-brand Berkeley Law's collateral, we re-strategized our thinking in regards to how each piece will be used, as well as how it will impact our environment, with much attention paid to minimizing waste. This thinking also enabled us to further align with the long-term sustainability goals of the UC. We revisited format, size, page counts, quantities, and of course, paper. New Leaf [Paper] was at the forefront of our minds when it came to selecting paper that was a perfect match to our objectives. Through making more thoughtful decisions around our choices, we felt that it was a no brainer and win-win all the way around."

"With the turn of each page, we wanted our viewbook not only to inform, but also to impart a full sense of the UT Tyler experience, including the park-like beauty of campus, which wraps around two lakes, surrounded by pine and oak forests. We chose bright-colored, uncoated New Leaf Ingenuity [100% post-consumer waste] paper, which holds the ink brilliantly and provides a rich look ant feel."

"At first, I thought it would take too much time and money to get the look right on recycled stock. Our printer was also worried - they thought it would rip on the press and be a nightmare - but the scenario couldn't have been better! We ended up having to make fewer adjustments than we did with our old stock. The printer was also very pleased with the outcome." 

Larry Clarke, Editor, Washington State University Magazine
on using Rolland paper
(see the full interview here)

"The Baylor Business Review (BBR) magazine is the flagship communication of Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business. The 100 percent post-consumer waste recycled paper selection allows the BBR to be environmentally friendly without sacrificing the high quality look and feel readers have come to expect from the award-winning magazine."

All of Ground for Change’s gourmet coffee is fair trade certified, organic certified and shade grown. Their carefully crafted blends and meticulously selected single-origins are roasted to order, offering a distinctive cup of coffee. Green Business Network members save 20% on their office’s fair trade, organic, shade grown, carbon free coffee from Grounds for Change.

Members of the Green Business Network can save up to 35% through the UPS® Savings Program. Whether you need your documents or packages to arrive the next day or are looking for the most affordable shipping option, UPS understands the importance of reliability, speed and cost.

Save on a broad portfolio of UPS shipping services, including:

• Up to 35% on UPS Air letters including UPS Next Day Air®*
• Up to 31% on UPS Air packages (1 lb.+)*
• Up to 33% on UPS International imports and exports
• Up to 19% on UPS Ground shipments
• Savings begin at 70% on UPS Freight LTL shipments over 150 lbs.
• You can receive these discounts even if you already have a UPS account. Plus, the more you ship, the more you can save with UPS.

Scott Pruitt’s EPA is taking aim at yet another Obama-era policy - the Clean Water Rule of 2015. This rule addressed the term "waters of the United States" as used in 1972’s Clean Water Act, and broadened the definition to include rivers, streams, and other small waterways which originally weren’t explicitly addressed in the Act. In fact, it protects about 60 percent of bodies of water in the country. 

When the Clean Water Rule was brought to public comment in 2015, 87 percent of the million people who commented showed support for the Rule. Clean water in big waterways and small, of course, is in everyone’s best interest. At a time when more and more people are concerned about the toxins in their drinking water, loosening regulations on polluters is clearly dangerous to human health. 

Now Pruitt wants to return to the 1972 terms of what the Clean Water Act and explicitly exclude the small waterways that had been protected in 2015. Large businesses, especially in the agriculture industry, argue that the rules constitute government overreach and cause economic harm. If the EPA leaves enforcement of environmental protections to individual State’s discretion, we will inevitably have less and less protection from polluting industries.  

This is just the first step in a large-scale assault on the Clean Water Act. We cannot allow this repeal of the Clean Water Rule to go through. Take action by submitting your comment to the EPA until Aug. 28th, 2017. Use this example comment if you like.

Dear Administrator Pruitt, 

I ___(name) stand firmly by the EPA's Clean Water Rule of 2015. In its current form, streams, rivers lakes and other wetlands are given the necessary protections, and any attempt to weaken these designations is against the spirit of the bipartisan Clean Water Act of 1972. I uphold the Clean Water Rule of 2015 because it ensures us 

clean water and viable habitats for people and animals. Any attempt to limit these protection to will lead industries to recklessly pollute waterways to the detriment of public health and safety. I oppose any and all efforts of the EPA to work against one of its central missions of providing Americans with clean and safe drinking water. 

Signed: ______(name) 

Date_______(today's date) 
 

This post is by Eleanor Greene and Mark Rakhmilevich.

BY EILLIE ANZILOTTI

Apart from the familial ties that I was born into, my relationship with Wells Fargo may have been one of the longest-standing of my life. Since I was 11 years old, I’ve had a savings account with the bank, linked to my parents’ finances. I don’t remember how old I was when I opened my first checking account, but I assume I was in high school. When I moved to New York three years ago, I set up my first credit card in a Wells Fargo branch office and felt very adult and also concerned about the streak of fiscal irresponsibility the new plastic might unleash in me. What company I banked with felt as inevitable as the family I was born into and the state in which I grew up. Putting my Wells card down on the table at dinner, I often felt a bizarre affection for how it identified me as a Californian.

But despite that sentimentality, Wells and I have parted ways. The decision was mine, and the idea to make it began to percolate earlier this year, as allegations of the bank’s financial investment in the Dakota Access Pipelinebegan to come out. That California-based sentimentality over my account had morphed into something more resembling nausea, knowing my money was funding something I didn’t believe in. But even so, it’s taken me until now (longer than it took the entire city of Seattle) to make a switch.

After I decided I wanted to pull my money from Wells, I had to confront the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. How would I go about finding a new bank I could trust? When should I move my money, and how? It took a series of conversations and months of thought and preparation, but I’m sharing what I learned here to make it clear that it’s not as overwhelming as it seems.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOUR BANK?

Where you bank is not fated; it’s a personal choice. Or rather, it should be, but the same forces of apathy, ignorance, trepidation, and laziness that were preventing me from taking my finances out of an institution with which I ethically disagreed prevent too many others from doing the same. When you’ve frequented the same ATMs and logged into the same online bank account for the majority of your life, a move away from that institution can feel rather like stepping off the edge of a cliff.

But it’s a cliff that’s proving increasingly intriguing for many young Americans, who have been losing faith in our large financial institutions. Wells Fargo is not alone in finding itself at the center of a scandal: In 2015, Citibank was ordered to pay back its customers a total of $700 million for misleading credit card marketing; Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is still at the helm of the company despite knowing of and ignoring to Bernie Madoff’s $64 billion Ponzi scheme, largely run through JPMorgan Chase account and considered the most fraudulent financial scheme of all time. Both institutions, along with Bank of America and Wells Fargo, were the engines that both created and punctured the housing bubble that precipitated the financial crisis of 2008. As Robert Jackson Jr., a law professor at Columbia University, told Quartz, “there’s no such thing as a ‘good’ big bank after the financial crisis.”

“Generally and broadly, there’s a lack of trust among millennials in the financial industry, and it’s deserved,” Ariel Anderson, a financial planner at Society of Grownups, a personal finance organization aimed at young people, tells Fast Company. “We constantly read headlines about the missteps of banks like Wells Fargo; we lived through the financial crisis,” she says. And large financial institutions are representative of the capitalist system, which, as Fast Company has reported, has fallen out of favor with more than 51% of the millennial demographic.

Various organizations have tapped into this trend: In 2011, during the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a group of organizers designated November 5th as Bank Transfer Day, and encouraged consumers to move their money into nonprofit credit unions or ethical financial institutions. This past year, Green America suggested that people funnel their Valentine’s Day discomfort into a breakup with their big bank. (Though there are no estimates as to how many people participated, Bank Transfer Day drew around 50,000 members to their Facebook page). Both organizations emphasized, however, that starting the process should not be confined to these designated days: You should begin to move your money whenever you feel ready and able to do so.

So that being said, here’s what I’ve learned from making the switch out of a big bank:

DO YOUR RESEARCH

Given that I parted ways will Wells Fargo over an ethical quandary, I wanted to find a new platform that wouldn’t compromise my values. Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) banks and credit unions, generally, target their investments more toward local investments and causes, rather than destructive projects like DAPL. Credit unions are highly localized, member-owned nonprofits that provide financial services to the communities in which they operate; CDFIs are private, for-profit institutions that make loans to underserved communities (read more about them here). The Harbor Bank of Maryland, for instance, recently made a loan to East Baltimore Development Inc. that has gone toward financing new science buildings for local schools. The Opportunity Finance Network, an umbrella organization for CDFIs, has a helpful search tool to use to locate nearby community development banks.

Ethical banks like Aspiration in the U.S. and Triodos in Europe, both of which boast sustainable and fossil-fuel-free investment portfolios, are another alternative. Though less hyperlocal than CDFI banks and credit unions, ethical banks are driven by good–Aspiration, for instance, devotes 10% of its revenue to charity, and charges customers only what they feel is fair to pay–and aim for institution-wide transparency to counteract the labyrinthine structures of big banks.

For the sake of disclosure, after a long and thorough search process, I opened an Aspiration account. Spring Bank, a New York-based CDFI, was a close contender, but another thing to consider about banking with a CDFI is that you ought to be firmly settled in your community to do so–I still have strong ties to the West Coast as well as New York, so I wanted a bank that would offer me more flexibility in terms of location (Aspiration is all online). But give me a few more years to become a a rooted New Yorker, and experienced bank switcher, and I can see myself opening another account with Spring Bank. Both Aspiration and Spring represent another bonus of ethical banking: They reimburse all ATM fees.

MAKE SOME (VERY CAREFUL) MOVES

Once you’ve analyzed your options and selected a new account that aligns with your ethics, now’s the time for the tricky part: Actually moving your money. This is best done very slowly (the whole process took me about two months). I talked to Andrei Cherny, CEO of Aspiration, after I decided to open an account with them, for some tips; here’s what he recommended.

If you have more than one account open with your big bank–I had two checking accounts and a savings account–consolidate your money into one account, then alert your bank that you will be closing the others. I communicated with Wells Fargo through email, which was surprisingly simple, but you can also visit a physical branch and meet with a representative who will walk you through the process. Then, open your new account–I transferred just $500 to begin with, and most banks will suggest a minimum deposit–and if you’ve been receiving direct deposits from your employer, talk to your HR representative to get a new form to route your checks into your new account. I recommend doing so immediately after receiving a paycheck, so there will be enough time in between checks to link the new account. For me, it took less than two weeks.

While you’re waiting for your new card to arrive in the mail, go through last month’s bank statement from your old account to identify and cancel automatic payments and recurring transfers (some examples: the amount I regularly moved into my savings account with each paycheck; my Optimum bill; my monthly Netflix payment). Then, go through your payments systems, like Venmo and Apple Pay, and make sure those are linked to your new account or card, when it arrives.

When it does, you can do a big transfer from your old account to your new one. To do so, you’ll need to link your old account with your new one. On your new bank’s website, find the “bank transfer” section, select your old bank from a list (you’ll see all the big ones–Wells, Bank Of America, Citi, and so on), and sign in. You’ll then select whatever account you want to link, and how much money to move to your new bank.

It’s best to keep some money in your old account if you’ve missed any automatic payments–you don’t want to be hit with an overdraft fee while you’re trying to financially liberate yourself. And it’s also best to keep that old account open with a small amount of cash in it for a couple of months after migrating, just in case of emergencies.

WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, FACE DOWN YOUR FINANCES

I expected to feel good about putting my money into an account that I chose, and I do. But the unexpected benefit to this whole, long process, was the opportunity to get up close and personal with my finances. In addition to a distrust of large financial institutions, JJ Ackles, the director of marketing for Long Game, a prize-linked savings account app, tells Fast Company that young people tend to get trapped in an avoidance cycle when it comes to their money. “It’s like: I feel shitty about my money, therefore I don’t want to look at it, therefore I don’t look at it, therefore I feel shitty about it,” Ackles says.

When you move all your money to a new account, you have to look at it. And that opens the door to considering new ways to handle it. There are apps like Long Game, which reward every time you move money into your savings account with the opportunity to play addicting, lottery-like games and potentially win more money; other savings platforms like Digit help you set up specific savings goals.

And it’s also, says Erin Lowry, blogger and author of Broke Millennial, not a bad time to consider investing, if you haven’t done so already. Though the financial industry has a history of making investing into an opaque endeavor, available only to those with substantial monetary worth and knowledge, that’s actually not the case. New tools now exist that both lower the financial bar to investing, and make it easier to tailor your investments to support causes you care about. Aspiration, for instance, manages two funds with a $100 minimum investment, both of which support only companies with solid environmental and ethical commitments. The startup OpenInvest has a $3,000 minimum investment, but takes the unique approach of asking you what you care about, whether it be climate change or low-income housing development, and builds out a portfolio unique to you. (Fast Company has done a thorough roundup of what you need to know to invest to fit your values.)

Taking your money out of a bank with which you clash ethically frees you to use your money to have the kind of impact you want on your life and on the planet. “People are looking for better tools and better ways to manage their money,” Ackles says. “We want to create a way for people to have a positive interaction with their money.”

And taking that step, Lowry says, will begin to put pressure on the big banks to reconsider their own ethics. “We need to educate ourselves and we need to stop putting our money in institutions that we feel are unethical,” Lowry says. “So many people don’t even bother to do the diligence and just stick with the status quo. That makes it easier for the old banks who have not changed their policies to behave in the way they have always done, just because they can.”

Equine Eco Green®, the equine environmental solution. Our patented technology produces dust, allergen and pathogen free animal bedding, nutrient rich compost, and reduces removal costs. We are the only patented process to separate waste, hay and shavings prior to washing, sanitizing, sterilization, drying, and bagging. Composition, functionality and aesthetics are restored and unchanged. The patented reprocessed bedding has been tested, and we bed our own horses on EEG™ reclaimed shavings. A perfect bedding choice for horses with sensitivities to dust and allergens. Veterinarian approved, we are the cleaner, safer, healthier, cost savings choice.

There are a lot of claims made about bioplastic products. Some are true, some are partly true, many are misleading, and most are unsubstantiated. It’s a bit of a Wild West scenario in the world of bioplastics: producers are trailblazing into new terrain in search of petrochemical plastic alternatives; everything from corn to mushrooms to poop is seen as a polymer source. Manufacturers and retailers are hot to tout what they see as “environmentally safe” plastic. Meanwhile, policymakers and regulators are scrambling to attach real definitions to the producers’ eco-fantastic labels.

There’s plenty to get excited about in terms of finding a good alternative to petrochemical-produced plastics, but we shouldn’t ride off into the sunset with bioplastics just yet.

What are bioplastics?

Bioplastics are, in simple terms, plastics made from renewable feedstocks, which can include corn, sugar cane, potatoes, coconuts, mushrooms, wheat, wood, or soy beans to name a few. (Conventional plastics are made from crude oil.) Like conventional petrochemical-produced plastics, there are several types of bioplastics: Some of the most common include poly lactic acid (PLA) derived from corn, wheat, or sugar cane, and labeled with a #7 resin recycling code; bio-polyethylene made from sugar cane or corn, with a #4 recycling code; polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) primarily derived from corn, with a #7 recycling code.

Bioplastics are used to make a lot of so-called “green” products like food containers, cutlery, bags, bottles, foams, electronics casings, medical supplies, and beyond. Many are compostable, a few might be biodegradable, and some are also recyclable.

Sounds great, doesn’t it—a naturally derived plastic from a renewable source that just melts back into the Earth when we’re done with it? We hate to break your bioplastic bubble, but not all of these biomass-produced polymers are environmentally innocent.  

Renewable Isn’t Always Green

You probably noticed that many of the renewable feedstocks used to make bioplastics are agricultural crops—corn, sugar cane, soy beans. Industry cowboys are quick to point that out, too. But what they aren’t so forthcoming about is that much of the corn used for bioplastics is a GM (genetically modified) crop, and that crop requires a lot of industrial fertilizers, pesticides, water, and land to produce. For example, NatureWorks, one of the largest manufacturers of PLA bioplastic in the US (a subsidiary of Cargill, one of the largest suppliers of genetically modified corn in the world), uses—you guessed it—GM corn.

Magnify this process to a global scale: GM crops expanding, huge swaths of land being converted to agriculture but not for food, more deforestation, more fertilizers and pesticides being used, food costs continuing to soar, and food shortages becoming even more of an issue. Suddenly, the scenario isn’t so Earth-friendly. Sure, the stuff isn’t made from crude oil, which decreases use of fossil fuel and the production of greenhouse gases, but it has negative consequences in other ways.

But not all bioplastics use genetically modified corn, or even corn, and innovations using more sustainable biomass, like algae and even chicken feathers, are already underway. There are promising results by a California-based start-up converting sewage into biodegradable bioplastic. There’s certainly no shortage of human waste! According to Heeral Bhalala, a research associate in sustainable plastics for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), even mega-companies like PepsiCo. are greening bioplastics: “[They] are already working on using the food scraps from their food production plant to create 100% biobased bottles for their beverages.”

That said, even if bioplastic companies start using abundant, low-impact materials for their products, we can’t neglect to consider the end-of-life cycle of many of the bioplastics—that is to say, their ability to biodegrade, compost, or recycle.

Beware of Biodegradability Claims

This is the category in which bioplastics theoretically have huge benefits. Bioplastic producers like to hoot and holler about their bioplastics being 100% biodegradable and/or compostable. Not every bioplastic is biodegradable (e.g., bio-polyethylene (#4) is only recyclable), and even those that do biodegrade may only do so in specific environments, if at all. ILSR’s Heeral Bhalala states that most product claims of biodegradability “are usually not true.”

Part of the problem is that there are loose standards for what qualifies as biodegradable, and there’s virtually no third-party verification of manufacturers’ biodegradability claims. The Federal Trade Commission “Green Guide” gives a broad definition for biodegradability for manufacturers to use a guide in terms of marketing, but the FTC is an agency built to protect consumers from deceptive advertising—it doesn’t make environmental policy or set the standards.

ASTM International, an organization that develops international standards across various industries, created pass/fail standards for biodegrading and composting that are generally accepted and trusted. Yet, know that these are voluntary standards; bioplastic products aren’t required to be tested, except in California.

In terms of specific legislation, California passed laws that require products with compostable or biodegradable labels pass ASTM standards. And the USDA’s Certified Biobased Product label, which verifies that a product contains a proven amount of renewable biological ingredients using ASTM standards, just went into effect in February of 2011. Further legislation for marketing claims and stricter definitions of terminology are sure to come either on a federal or state level, or both.

However, even biodegrading bioplastics that pass ASTM standards need to be looked at carefully. You have to ask what conditions are required for that biodegradation? By and large, the answer is an aerobic or oxygen-filled environment (a field, a forest, an ocean) with adequate microbes to start munching away at the stuff. Here’s the hitch: a lot of plastics (petrochemically produced or biomass produced) end up in landfills. The Environmental Protection Agency reports on its Web site that “only 7 percent of the total plastic waste generated in 2009 was recovered for recycling.”

Let’s be clear on this: landfills are designed to be as anaerobic (oxygen-void) as possible—the things are practically hermetically sealed to prevent as much decay as possible. Melissa Hockstad, Society of the Plastics Industry’s Vice President of Science, Technology and Regulatory Affairs and Director of the SPI Bioplastics Council, put it bluntly, “Bioplastics are not currently designed to degrade in a landfill.”

In short, even bioplastics from the most sustainable feedstocks aren’t going to benefit the environment any more than conventional plastics if they end up in landfills. They must be disposed of in a way that allows them to biodegrade or compost.

Coordinating Composting

A biodegrading product is not held to the same standards as a composting product; composting is a more strictly defined, standardized process of degrading. “Biodegradable” means a product will break down and return to the Earth in a “reasonably short time,” according to the FTC Green Guides. They may need the help of a municipal composter to do so.

Composting bioplastics shows a lot more promise than biodegrading. “Compostable,” according to the FTC, means the product will degrade into “useable, compost-humus-like material that enriches the soil and returns nutrients to the Earth.” According to the FTC, they are supposed to degrade just like leaves and food waste in a backyard composter, but due to a lack of oversight with this label, the fact is that many will still need a municipal composter to fully break down.

Right now, consumers probably should assume that current “biodegradable” and “compostable” bioplastics can only be composted in a commercial composting facility with controlled heat and moisture (i.e., generally not the backyard heap). Sadly, these composters are few and far between, the majority do not accept material from individuals, and some may ban bioplastics anyway, since many bioplastics are indiscernible from conventional plastics. A lot of progress still needs to be made simply in terms of public access.

On the bright side, detailed international standards for compostability already exist, and the noprofit Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) created a Compostable Label program that verifies company’s composting claims. Additionally, the Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative (SBC) created a set of guidelines and recognition levels for compostable biomass-based food serviceware called the BioSpecs, which take into account issues of environmental protection, health, social and economic justice, and material resources. Hopefully paving the way for more cities, San Francisco and Seattle implemented   city-wide compost curbside pick-up programs that accommodate compostable bioplastics; Seattle’s municipal composter, Cedar Grove, even has its own approval label on compostable products that reads “Cedar Grove Approved.”

For other ways to get your compostable bioplastics to a commercial composter, Heeral Bhalala of ILSR suggests seeking out the compostable bins at Whole Foods (not all stores have them) and other sustainably minded stores and restaurants, which often have compost-hauling services. And you can look up your nearest municipal composter and see if it’s one of the few that accept waste from individuals on the Web site findacomposter.com.

For home-composters willing to try it, Bhalala says “it’s good to test composting [bioplastic] products in your own backyard compost pile. They do require higher temperatures to compost and are slower to break down, so it helps to shred them to increase their surface area and to put them in the middle of the compost pile.”

Melissa Hockstad, of SPI, states that the US Composting Council is “… working on growing the composting industry in the US such that more people have more access to [commercial composting] facilities, which is beneficial for bioplastics such as PLA and PHA.” But until composting facilities are readily available and accessible, bioplastics could most often end up hauled off to landfills.

Recycling Bioplastics

Recycling bioplastics isn’t always an easy accomplishment. Recyclers fear that non-petroleum-based plastics will corrupt their streams (many bioplastics have lower heat resistance—and that whole biodegrading thing they might do is not desirable in the eyes of recycled plastics manufacturers for fear that the recycled plastic will degrade prematurely).

Most bioplastic manufacturers say recyclers’ concerns are unfounded.  In fact, bioplastics are recyclable; bio-polyethylene (given a #4 resin recycling code) is even accepted in many traditional recycling streams. As for bioplastics PLA and PHA (the #7s), they are generally not accepted by municipal recycling collections, but some manufacturers offer to take back their products for recycling. However, there is no infrastructure for individuals to collect and transport the plastics back to the manufacturers, so for those unwilling to mail their bioplastics back to the manufacturer, in the trash it goes!

In essence, current US recycling and composting facilities just haven’t caught up with bioplastics. And in order to give recyclers and composters the incentive to start to invest in accepting bioplastics in their streams or facilities, there needs to be a significantly larger volume of bioplastics to recycle or compost. Basically, the problem has to get worse before it will get better. The current and predicted growth rate for the bioplastics industry (estimated to be upwards of 40% in the next four years by some experts, like Melissa Hockstad), might make that happen sooner than later.

The Toxicity Question

As we reported in the Nov/Dec 2011 Green American, plastics are rarely just made out of oil—they’re mixed with a host of chemical additives to enhance their capabilities, i.e. make them more flexible or less flammable, to prevent them from degrading or to tint them pretty colors, write Mike Neal and Dr. Anthony Andrady in a 2009 research paper published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transitions B. The same holds true for bioplastics—they aren’t just made from plants. They may have the same toxicity issues that a conventional plastic does.

In October 2010, a team from the University of Pittsburgh released an analysis of both petro- and corn-based PLA bio-plastics for toxicity and environmental life-cycle impact (from cradle to end use, not including disposal), published in Environmental Science and Technology.  The bioplastics were more toxic than conventional plastics when it came to releasing ozone-depleting chemicals, carcinogens, acidification, eutrophication (contributing to dead zones in bodies of water, usually via fertilizer runoff) and eco-toxicity.

These impacts came largely from fertilizer and pesticide use associated with growing the corn feedstock for the bioplastics, say the researchers. And critics of the study note that it did not take bioplastics’ sustainability trump card—its ability to biodegrade or compost—into account at all in the lifecycle analyses, which may have put bioplastics far ahead of petro-plastics in more categories.

But analyzing the manufacturing of bio-based feedstock into plastics did contribute to the researchers’ toxicity rankings.

In addition to feedstocks, chemical additives and manufacturing processes will differ between manufacturers. Other, more responsible manufacturers not included in the University of Pittsburgh’s analysis have demonstrated far different results when it came to the toxicity of their products.

What consumers can learn from this study is that just because a plastic is plant-based doesn’t make it 100 percent nontoxic.

An Evolving Industry

Responsibly manufactured bioplastics make a lot of sense in many ways. At the most basic level, they aren’t derived from petroleum, and reducing dependence on oil is always a good thing. There’s no question that conventional plastics are an enormous problem for the environment on many levels, from their production to their disposal. Adding urgency to the matter are the expected continued growth of the use of plastics and dismal rate of plastics recycling. Secondly, based on the information we know now about bioplastics, they don’t stick around for hundreds of years, though they probably don’t degrade as quickly as most manufacturers claim—certainly not if they are in a landfill.

At this point, corn, sugar cane, or soy beans may not in sum be significantly better than petrochemicals as a source for plastics, but it’s a start. Bioplastics are still a new industry and it’s evolving almost daily. Nonprofit, watchdog groups (like BPI and SBC) are stepping in where state and federal laws and regulations lag, too. Companies that are using corn, even GM corn today, are already looking to other biomass to produce their bioplastics in the future.

Given enough pressure from consumers, environmental groups, and federal agencies on bioplastics manufacturers, recyclers, and composters to coordinate their efforts, improve accessibility, and become greener, we could end up with a truly biodegradable, compostable, recyclable bioplastic—and live happily ever after.

What to Look for in Bioplastics

In the meantime, the path of least impact is to use compostable bioplastics, especially if you’re able to compost them through a commercial composter or through trial and error in your own compost pile (remember it could take a long time to fully degrade). Heeral Bhalala of ILSR recommends seeking out bioplastics that meet as many of the following criteria as possible:

- Made from biomass, not a conventional plastic with biodegrading additives (e.g. BioGreen Bottles)

- Meets at least a SBC BioSpec Bronze level

- Meets ASTM (D6400 or D6868) or EN 13432 standards of compostability or displays BPI’s Compostable Label or Cedar Grove Approved logo (European companies Vinçotte and Din Certco also have compost labels)

- Made from as much biomass material as possible, preferably displays the USDA Certified Biobased Product label

- Made from GMO-free crops