Adam W.'s Profile
"Green College Grad"
Member since October, 2007
User stats
105 reviews
103 useful ratings
61 listings added
40 friends
Location
San Francisco, CA
My affiliations
SustainLane
Last great book or movie
Lamb
My Dream Product
Teleportation Device (powered by hydrogen)
How we'll get around in 20 years...
Hydrogen Cars
Offline, find me...
Underwater
My heroes
Teddy Roosevelt
My non-green guilty pleasure
My non-hydrogen (or electric or hybrid) car
No Love
I can see why people want Wal-Mart to go green. I understand the arguments. i understand that it means more people having the opportunity to buy organic food than ever before. I understand that Wal-Mart selling CFL light bulbs will mean less carbon for all of us.I understand it means an opportunity to make the largest change in the shortest amount of time. I agree with all of this.
What I don't agree with is that these benefits outweigh the negatives. The negatives are many. One at the top of the list is that Wal-Mart is now using it's mega lobbying power to try and water down the meaning of the word organic. That is a move that benefits only Wal-Mart. Additionally, by expending into this new market, Wal-Mart is trying to get people to ignore all of it's other problems, like the fact that it underpays workers and drives local businesses out of business. Plus, Wal-Mart by nature encourages mass consumption. That is exactly what we need to move away from in a more eco-friendly world. In my opinion, the very essence of what Wal-Mart is is not green, so no matter how many green initiatives it moves forward, we would be better of if it didn't exist at all.
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Farm Fresh to My Tummy
I love this farmers market. It's good on Tuesdays (not to crowded, still a great selection of produce) but it is AWESOME on Saturdays. So many foods to choose from. Incredible cheese stands, tons of local fruits for really decent prices, plus meats and fresh sauces and hummuses that you absolutely can't find anywhere else. I do as much shopping for the week as i can fit in my backpack for the bike ride back home.
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Fabulous Stuff
When my girlfriend and I first moved in together I insisted that we throw out all of our old cleaning products and buy new less toxic more eco-friendly ones. So we were at Bed Bath and Beyond buying all the random stuff you have to buy for a new apartment, and we saw a Mrs. Meyers cleaning kit. We were still pretty new to the whole less toxic cleaning stuff idea, and had no other idea of good cleaners to buy, so we figured at least this way we would have the whole kit and not have to buy things piecemeal, so we went ahead and bought it. What a fabulous purchase!
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Kimberley-Clark - Shame on You!
Most of us like to use disposable tissues. Some of us go all the way and get hankies. I can appreciate that, but I also understand why people find the convenience of not carrying around a soiled piece of fabric so appealing. I also understand people’s problem with buying recycled tissue. I don't agree with it, because I have found some very soft recycled tissues (Whole Foods 360 Brand is a good example), but I understand.
What I absolutely do not understand is why Kimberley-Clark and all of their affiliates need to cut down, not just virgin trees, but 500 year old virgin trees in the Boreal Forst region in Canada. There are plenty of places Kimberley-Clark could source their trees from where the trees grow fast (at least for a tree) and that have already been clear-cut. No. Kimberley-Clark seems to think that 500 year old trees that are part of a shrinking habitat make the best tissues. This absolutely disgusts me. PLEASE do not buy Kleenex brand tissues, or any other brand associated with Kimberly-Clark. I urge you to buy recycled, but if you can't at least buy a brand besides Kleenex. Other brands Kimberley-Clark owns are Kleenex, Scott, Viva, Cottonelle, Huggies, Kotex, Cottonelle Puppy, Andrex, Scottbrand, Hakle, Scottex. Please boycott these products! Keep untouched forest untouched!
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Kleenex is Clearcutting the Boreal Forest
Most of us like to use disposable tissues. Some of us go all the way and get hankies. I can appreciate that, but i also understand why people find the convenience of not carrying around a soiled piece of fabric so appealing. I also understand peoples problem with buying recycled tissue. I don't agree with it, because I have found some very soft recycled tissues (Whole Foods 360 Brand is a good example), but I understand. What I absolutely do not understand is why Kleenex needs to cut down, not just virgin trees, but 500 year old virgin trees in the Boreal. There are plenty of places Kleenex could source their trees from where the trees grow fast (at least for a tree) and that have already been clearcut. No Kleenex seems to think that 500 year old trees that are part of a shrinking habitat make the best tissues. This absolutely disgusts me. PLEASE do not buy Kleenex brand tissues, or any other brand associated with Kimberly-Clark. I urge you to buy recycled, but if you can't at least buy a brand besides Kleenex. Other brands Kimberley-Clark owns are Kleenex, Scott, Viva, Cottonelle, Huggies, Kotex. Please boycott these products! Keep untouched forest untouched!
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Dried Me Out
I have super dry skin, and I bought this product hoping that the coconut oil would clean my face without totally drying me out and making me break out. No such luck. Certainly better than some other products I tried, but I kept drying out in all those bad areas of the face (corner of the lips, sides of the nose) and then breaking out as my face tried to fix the balance. Oh well.
Also, this is from Alba's Organic line, and I think it's kind of weird that they actually print what percent of their product is organic on their labels. It's clearly good for us as consumers, by I question it as a marketer. For instance, this product it 80% organic. Thats great! I love to see someone making strides to make organic face and body products (especially since there is NO oversight of this process yet). However, are we as consumers really dumb enough to think that 80% organic covers it? Looking at the ingredient list, I see that the first three ingredients are organic juice extracts. Awesome. The question is though, what those other 20% of ingredients that I can't pronounce are. If you take 80% water (which is organic) and add 20% cyanide, you are going to have a really deadly mixture. Are we not getting this yet?
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If Only It Had Sunscreen
I love this lip balm - it smells so good i could eat it. Seriously. Don't put this stuff on a kid or they will just lick their lips all day and end up eating the entire stick (because I haven't done that...)! My only beef with this product is it has no sunscreen - wtf mate?
Great brand, all vegetarian, not animal tested. Lotsa natural botanicals, although it would be nice to see more organics.
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Biodegradable is Good...
I am a pretty intense person, and I like to get worked up about things I like/hate, but how excited can I get either way about a liquid hand soap? It works well (as in it cleans my hands) and it is biodegradable and not tested on animals. It does have some chemicals in it, but it's mostly natural and it doesn't have any of the real nasty stuff like bpa's. What else is there to say?
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Best Dish Soap Ever
When my girlfriend and I first moved in together I insisted that we throw out all of our old cleaning products and buy new less toxic more eco-friendly ones. So we were at Bed Bath and Beyond buying all the random stuff you have to buy for a new apartment, and we saw a Mrs. Meyers cleaning kit. We were still pretty new to the whole less toxic cleaning stuff idea, and had no other idea of good cleaners to buy, so we figured at least this way we would have the whole kit and not have to buy things piecemeal, so we went ahead and bought it. What a fabulous purchase!
My favorite part is this dish soap - we eat ate home at least 5 nights a week, and I have to do all of our dishes by hand in a single sink. This single bottle lasted us almost 5 months. It is that concentrated and has that much suds. Plus it cleaned so well! It almost melted grease off our pans etc. Not to mention it's biodegradable and cruelty free (no testing on animals). I recommend this product to anyone that cleans their dishes by hand (it might work well in a dishwasher too, I just can't speak to that). Rock on Mrs. Meyers!
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No Suds
I have the Next to Godliness mandarin version of this product, and I have to agree with the first reviewer - this dish soap has no suds! I have to use like 3-4 times as much soap to clean my dishes (I handwash my dishes) as with other eco-friendly dish soaps. I definitely like the fact that it's biodegradable which is huge, and I also love that it's cheap and available at my trader joes where I have to go roughly once a week anyway. All that being said, there are definitely better biodegradable dish soaps out there in my opinion.
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User Comments:
James E. says:
Hey Adam, I can appreciate your frustration. But consider this, EVERY MONTH 100 million shoppers go into Wal*Mart stores...a third of the population. The place isn't going away anytime soon. For better or worse, they are... more »