I haven’t actually done this yet, but one of my favorite bloggers, Money Saving Mom, gives it the thumbs up.  If you decide you want to try this out, do me a favor and use my referal link, because I get extra cash for referrals.  Click here to try it out.  It’s a great way to snag some extra cash, and it’s a form of recycling!

Unsurprisingly, some of the brands that scored poorly are owned by large, national chains.  For example, at least two of the brands with a score of zero were owned or managed by Dean Foods.  Another dairy owned by Kraft Foods also scored zero points.  Large grocery chains Meijer and Kroger each scored very poorly, as did Target.  Ben & Jerry’s surprisingly scored 3 cows out of five, although this seems to be from a tight organic milk market rather than a desire to defraud customers (Ben & Jerry’s historically is a very honest, open, eco-conscious and reliable company).  Stonyfield Farm, one of the largest names in organic dairy products, scored 4 cows out of five for a rating of “excellent”, as did Whole Foods Market.  Several dairies earned a perfect score, although I was not familiar with any of them and they were all regional brands.   I would like to mention that full disclosure was an important criteria of these ratings, and many of the most poorly-scoring dairies failed to be completely open with those running the study (of course, that makes me wonder what they have to hide).

Although I don’t purchase organic cow milk ( I drink soy and it’s too expensive for my wife and son to drink), I found this study especially interesting because I believe it exemplifies one of the major problems facing the American, and global, food supply, namely, how can a consumer know exactly what they are purchasing.  Because many, many people are beginning to care about the food they eat and how and where it is produced, they are willing to pay a premium price for food that is grown organically and/or sustainably.  Of course, because of the immense profits to be made, large-scale producers want a piece of the action.  While this isn’t necessarily bad, the problems begin when large-scale producers want to market their products as organic or sustainable when they really differ very little from conventially produced items.

As I’ve said before, the best solution seems to be producing your own food, and when that isn’t possible or feasible, purchasing from local producers.  When you purchase from local producers, you not only have the opportunity to get to know someone new, you also usually have the opportunity to tour their farm and ensure the animals are well-treated.  But, if all else fails and you have to buy food at the supermarket, do some research first and find out which brands are truly organic.

I encourage you to sign the petition stating that you will give up bottled water in favor of tap water.  We use a Brita filter pitcher for our drinking water at home because we don’t like the taste of our municipal water.  Nearly everywhere I go, I take my Nalgene water bottle filled with water from home.  It costs us pennies to use, and there’s almost no waste.  Ideal Bite has some excellent information on choosing a safe water bottle.

If you want to sign the petition, here’s a link to the petition.  If you don’t read your local water quality report, I encourage you to do so.

To sum up, bottled water is a huge, and unnecessary waste of money and resources.  It is no safer than tap water (and 40% of bottled water is tap water!), its expensive, and wastes plastic.  Make the pledge to Break the Bottled Water Habit today!

Readers: I am interested in your opinions!  (I have my own ideas, but I will wait a few days to post them so I don’t influence anyone’s comments.)

A few guidelines:  any insults, flaming, trolling, etc. will not be tolerated.  This is a heated issue (that’s the second time I’ve used that adjective.  Get the joke?  Har!).  If you’re being a jerk, I will warn you.  After that, I will cavalierly and cheerfully delete your rudeness while drinking mint juleps and eating bon-bons.  (Ok, not really about the mint juleps and bon-bons part.  But I will TOTALLY delete any rudeness.  Seriously).

I look forward to your responses!

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So, we’ve already talked about what sweatshops are, and some ways to fight against them.  But Joe has another question:

“oooh…another has to do with the fact that greedy business people are slashing and burning the rainforest at an incredible rate so they can turn it into inexpensive grazing ground for beef.

In turn, countries off the coast of Africa are experiencing significantly increased drought conditions and thus poor harvest. As a Christian put here by God with part of my job being to have dominion over the earth, is this action right or wrong? Should I take a stand against it? Is there a balance, and if so, where is that balance?”

I think that we definitely have a responsibility, as Christians, to make sure that God’s Creation is being used responsibly.  In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14 - 28) Jesus makes it pretty clear that we are to use the gifts we are given wisely.  And we are also told that, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:34 -40).  So again, I think we have a moral imperative to safeguard God’s Creation while at the same time ensuring to the best of our ability that all people are treated well.

Now, what are some other ways we can help?  By shopping with responsible retailers, we can, in a sense, “vote with our dollars”.  By supporting retailers that employ responsible business practices, we are taking revenue from those business that exploit their workers and the environment.  If enough consumers do thisthose businesses will be hurting, and will have to change their practices to stay in business.

For more information, Co-op America has some great resources for battling sweatshops.  Click here for their excellent guide to sweatshops.

By understanding our buying choices, and how those choices can adversely affect people living in other countries, we can take small steps toward ensuring fair treatment for workers.  And many small steps put together can equal great change.

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In yesterday’s post, we had an introduction to what sweatshops are and why they exist.  Today I’m going to talk a bit about reader Joe’s comments and questions.

Joe said:

“ok, here’s a thought that has been troubling me for sometime:
I am a sting [sic] supporter of fair treatment of worker’s rights in
the Third World. However, when a company runs a sweat shop it provides
indigenous people with jobs and income that they would otherwise
not have, even if it is an unfair wage or poor working conditions.

If I fight against such an atrocity, and the company reacts by closing
the sweat shop, then my attempt to help has really caused more harm
than good…

So, do I choose the lesser of two evils, or are there other options?”

Joe asks some excellent questions.  But  I think that he’s making a very common mistake about third-world countries:  imposing his own views of what a successful society looks like onto a completely different society.  The first question we need to ask about a sweatshop in Honduras, for example, is this:  What does the sweatshop represent?

I think it represents a move to further industrialization, and a move further away from traditional ways of life.  And a Western-Industrialized culture is not necessarily the epitome of civilization (quite the opposite, in my opinion).  So, we need to ask “what benefit do the workers gain from having this income, no matter how small?”  Does it improve the quality of life?  Are the people healthier and happier this way?  Or are there better ways to give them opportunities to improve the quality of life (which may mean something different to others than it does to us)?

The answer is that yes, there are better options.  First, much of the reason indigenous peoples need an income is because their society has already been invaded by Western ideas about money and profit.  Second, instead of exploiting them (every time we purchase an item that has been produced unfairly, we take a hand in exploiting the worker!), we can help them break the cycle of poverty.  A great way to do this is through micro-lending.  Micro-loans are small loans given to people in developing nations for education, start-up capital for a small business, or capital to expand a small business.  Most micro-lenders have stipulations on the loan such as required attendance at financial management classes or training opportunities to ensure the success of the borrower.  Kiva is one that I really like, because you get to choose to whom you lend.  Then you get email updates on the status of the loan, and how the borrower is progressing in his or her business or education.  I really like this because it adds a personal dimension to the process.  Here is an article from the New York Times about micro-lending.  Another option is Microplace.com, which is owned by eBay.  The concept is the same, but lenders can earn interest through this site.  Currently, you cannot with Kiva (due to complex SEC regulations).

So there is one way to fight back against sweatshops.  On Monday, we’ll look at some more ways, and address another of Joe’s questions.  Thanks for reading!

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed., 2004) a sweatshop is, “ A shop or factory in which employees work long hours at low wages under poor conditions.”

So, a sweatshop is a place where the workers are forced to endure terrible working conditions for ridiculously low pay, often for less than a dollar per hour.  Some of these terrible conditions include:  sexual assault, especially on young women, including gang-rape; very short or non-existent breaks; not being allowed to use a restroom for an entire shift; long shifts up to 17 hours; and all for less money than most of us would find under our couch cushions.

Why are there sweatshops?  I believe there are two main reasons:  greedy companies and greedy, lazy consumers.   The greedy companies want to make the maximum profit possible, even if they have to abuse their workers to do it.   By paying their workers very little, forcing them to work long shifts under horrific conditions, these companies save money on their overhead while still allowing them to undercut prices of items that were produced responsibly.  Wal-Mart (which I term “The Evil Empire”) is one of the worst offenders.  Click here to go to Wal-Mart Watch, a non-profit group that seeks to hold Wal-Mart accountable for it’s business practices.  But massive (and not-so-massive) companies are not the only problem.  The other half of the equation is us.

Most Americans have such a consumption-minded mindset.  Rather than repair or re-use something, we throw it out and go buy a new one.  Or instead of spending $30 for a quality shirt that will last several years, we spend $10 for a junk one that wears out in six months.  Rather than support responsible businesses, who buy their products from fair-trade (fair-trade means that it was produced according to ethical standards) factories, we buy everything from these huge companies because they have the lowest prices.  But price isn’t the only factor in determining the cost of an item.  We have to think of the cost to the worker who made it.

Hopefully, this post has given you some idea of what a sweatshop is and why it’s such a terrible thing, both for the workers and those who buy the products.  Especially as Christians, we need to think long and hard about where we buy products, and how we use them, because the world is watching.  And they will judge Christ by His followers.

In the next post, I’ll actually address some of Joe’s comments, and give some concrete tips that we can all do to make sweatshops a thing of the past.

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.“  Edward Everett Hale

I have some ideas for stuff I’d like to write about, but I’d also like your input.  What kinds of things would you like to see here?

I’ve recently found a new love.  If you’ve never looked at a Foxfire anthology, you are missing out.  Foxfire was a magazine started by a high school English class in Southern Appalachia in 1966.  The magazine began when high school teacher Elliot Wiggington was almost ready to give up on his first semester teaching.  The students were unruly and uninterested in learning.  But rather than resort to punishments and insults to force the students into obedience, he decided to try something different.  By offering the students the opportunity to choose a project to work on, Wiggington was able to generate interest and give the students the chance to learn what he needed to teach while also learning leadership and other skills.  The Foxfire Project was a smashing success.  You can read the full story of how it got started by clicking here.

Many of the articles in the anthologies are how-tos about lost skills, such as log cabin building, hog butchering, and other things related to self-sufficiency (which is itself a lost art).  But there are also many human interest articles, and these shatter the myth that the people of Appalachia are nothing more than crude, uncivilized, inbred freaks.  Sure, they speak with a different dialect than many of us, they may have less education than some of us, but they are every bit as human, every bit as intelligent, and every bit as compassionate (in some cases, more) as we are.  But most of all, the image gained from these articles are of a people with a rich, deep, though difficult, life spent living close to the land.

I believe these books are relevant to the mission of this site, namely exploring a sustainable, biblically based lifestyle, for several reasons.  First, these books can teach skills that will enable us to make or find many items that we currently purchase, thus saving money and reducing the amount of resources used in manufacturing.  Second, the lifestyle of the people of the region, though difficult, has much to teach us about cooperating to help each other.  Neighbors share food, share work, and share fun times much more than those of us who sit at home each night, glued to our computers or television sets.  Third, the simplicity of their lives has much to teach those of us who are engaged in a quest for more money, more stuff, rather than the truly important things like quality relationships and healthy lives.

So, like I said, I highly recommend these anthologies.  They are available at amazon.com (search for “Foxfire”) which is great because you can purchase books that are used, thus getting more use out of resources and preventing more landfill waste, or you can purchase them directly from the Foxfire Fund (click here for their online storefront), which is great because your purchase supports the Foxfire Fund directly.  Or, you can simply get borrow them from your local library.  Whichever way you choose, I hope you enjoy them, and learn as much from them as I have!