Photo by Viva Terra

At the Union Square farmers’ market on Saturday, I saw a couple breeze through the crowd while carrying a basket much like the one by Viva Terra pictured above—incredibly stylish; far chicer than the medley of plastic bags the hordes of produce hunters were clutching. I found some really fetching fair-trade African baskets here, as well as a large assortment of styles handwoven by a woman in Vermont.

Tip: When buying bread from your farmers’ market, take with you a used bread bag (from your previous supermarket loaf) so you can save some extra plastic.

Related posts:
1. Big Brown Bags
2. Neither Paper Nor Plastic: An Ecological Intervention
3. Plastic Bag Ban: Friend or Faux Pas?

Poster for Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox

Genius or madman? The late great Dr. Emanuel Bronner, a chemist and third-generation master soapmaker from an orthodox Jewish family in Germany, was likely a little bit of both. In 1947, after escaping from a Chicago mental institution to California, Bronner created the formula for “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap,” a peppermint-infused, all-natural liquid soap with myriad applications—from lathering up in the shower to washing your floors to, according to one customer, self-administering enemas—that was quickly embraced by the flower children of the free-love generation.

Around the same time, the self-declared rabbi (and alleged nephew of Albert Einstein) developed an ever-evolving philosophy—or a trippy set of hectoring and often nonsensical-sounding rants, depending on how you saw them—known as “The Moral ABCs,” the text of which he inserted onto the label of each bottle of his soap, with the goal of “uniting Spaceship Earth.” Waking up people to the fact that we were children of the same divine source and that we were “All-One!” proved, however, more important than his children, who were shuttled through more than 15 orphanages and foster homes, while their father passionately barreled forth on an unending mission to preach his gospel of cleanliness and intergalactic love.

An entertaining and edifying film about the man behind one of the most environmentally friendly and socially responsible businesses in operation, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox leads us on a journey of perseverance, obsession, heartbreak, and faith. Seventy percent of the profits from Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, made from organic and fair-trade ingredients, go toward humanitarian and environmental causes; the top executives of the firm, including Bronner’s son and grandsons, even capped their salaries to never exceed five times the earnings of their lowest-wage workers.

The hub and I—both fans of the good doctor’s lavender bar soap—caught Dr. Bronner’s by chance when we flipped over to Sundance Channel’s The Green, but the film is also screening in theaters nationwide. Check the movie’s Web site for listings. (You can also watch a clip here.)

Spaceship Earth is lifting off—and how.

The North Carolina coffee mavericks of Larry’s Beans sent over a couple of bags of its organic, fair-trade java. After grinding up the beans in our hand-cranked coffee mill, I consulted our resident coffee expert (read: the hub).

A note: You won’t find the little fair-trade dude on the packaging; Larry’s Beans, along with Just Coffee, Dean’s Beans, and Cafe Campesino, split from Transfair USA in 2004, because it felt that the fair-trade movement was being “watered down” under the “increasingly corporate-friendly” Transfair system. Now part of a co-op of fair-trade, green roasters known as Cooperative Coffee, Larry’s Beans is audited by the international Fair Trade Labeling Organization, which ensures that payments are fairly distributed to each individual farmer—you can even track the origin of each bag of coffee, as well as how much each farmers’ coop was paid, by checking the bag’s lot number against the Larry’s Beans Web site. (How about those transparency cojones, Starbucks?)

All of Larry’s Beans coffee is shade-grown and certified organic (or transitional organic); 97 percent is fair trade, while the remaining 3 percent is the company’s Kauai Blend from Hawaii, where it says there is no need for fair trade.

Costa Lil Ricky
($9.95 per lb)

A mug of Larry’s Beans Costa Lil Ricky has a full taste that’s neither sharp nor overly bitter. Its nice aroma makes for a comforting blend—the perfect partner for an afternoon’s lounging—and its light, smooth feel makes repeated cups welcome in each sitting.

The Grand Turk
($10.85 per lb)

This dark blend by Larry’s Beans carries an enticing aroma in both bean and ground form that permeates a small apartment to make an effective lure to start your morning. The end result after brewing is a tasty mug that makes for a strong wakeup call for the senses. A little goes a long way for this blend, however, as I find repeated cups in a sitting can yield a caffeine overkill.

We also dug the fact that the bags (with designs that rocked my illustration-loving socks off) were resealable—a minor, oft-overlooked detail, but one that enables the packaging to be reused, even long after the last cup of coffee has been drained.

Related articles:
1. Gorilla Coffee
2. Hub’s Guest Review: Black Gold
3. Starbucks Keeps Ethiopian Growers Humble

WW@TH: Green Mountain Coffee + Jane Goodall = Happy Chimps

Photo by Old Navy

Wendy Richardson needs to blog more often. How else would I have found the U.K.-based Environmental Justice Foundation’s 2007 report, The Deadly Chemicals in Cotton? It’s a 40-pager, which may require more dedication than you currently have, but here is a sampling of the salient points, as outlined in the report’s Executive Summary. (Those two pages very worth a read-through in their entirety.) Global consumption of cotton, by the by, has doubled in the past 30 years.

• Cotton is the world’s most important non-food agricultural commodity, yet it is responsible for the release of US$2 billion of chemical pesticides each year, within which at least US$819 million are considered toxic enough to be classified as hazardous by the World Health Organisation. Cotton accounts for 16% of global insecticide releases—more than any other single crop. Almost 1.0 kilogram of hazardous pesticides is applied for every hectare under cotton.

• Between 1 and 3% of agricultural workers worldwide suffer from acute pesticide poisoning with at least 1 million requiring hospitalization each year, according to a report prepared jointly for the FAO, UNEP, and WHO. These figures equate to between 25 million and 77 million agricultural workers worldwide.

• A single drop of the pesticide aldicarb, absorbed through the skin can kill an adult. Aldicarb is commonly used in cotton production and in 2003 almost 1 million kilos was applied to cotton grown in the USA. Aldicarb is also applied to cotton in 25 other countries worldwide.

• Despite being particularly vulnerable to poisoning, child labourers throughout the world risk exposure to hazardous pesticides through participation in cotton production. In India and Uzbekistan children are directly involved in cotton pesticide application. While in Pakistan, Egypt, and Central Asia child labourers work in cotton fields either during or following the spraying season. Children are also often the first victims of pesticide poisonings, even if they do not participate to spraying, due to the proximity of their homes to cotton fields, or because of the re-use of empty pesticide containers.

• Hazardous pesticides associated with global cotton production represent a substantial threat to global freshwater resources. Hazardous cotton pesticides are now known to contaminate rivers in USA, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Australia, Greece and West Africa. In Brazil, the world’s 4th largest consumer of agrochemicals, researchers tested rainwater for the presence of pesticides. 19 different chemicals were identified of which 12 were applied to cotton within the study area.

(Emphasis is mine.)

Click here for more »

Photo by Llamajamas

You guys are going to love this one. Llamajamas is a family-owned purveyor of “pure, natural” wool that includes alpaca and merino. I’m particularly drawn to its line of organically dyed merino and their vibrant, earthy hues.

According to Llamajamas:

These yarns have been naturally dyed using time honored recipes and locally available materials. We roast plants, bark, nuts, and other natural materials over open fires for many hours to create the rich, natural dyes.

Spun by artisan women in Ecuador, Llamajama’s yarns are fairly traded. The company pledges to “pay a fair wage, engage in environmentally sustainable practices, build long-term relationships, and insist on healthy and safe working conditions.”

Also available—though it’s currently listed as out of stock—is a wool wash made with organic coconut, olive, and jojoba oils, and imbued with the natural antibacterial and antifungal properties of tea-tree oil.

There are some really darling knitting patterns for sale, as well, but if you’re not of the knitting temperament, Llamajamas also sells ready-to-wear slippers, soakers, pants, and blankets.

Patterns, yarns, and a small cache of that wool wash can also be found at Kpixie.

Graphic by Zhena’s Gypsy Tea

Although purchased primarily for my then-visiting (and English Breakfast-loving) father-in-law, Zhena’s Gypsy Tea’s Breakfast Bliss, a black tea from India and Sri Lanka, had me at first sip with its robust and full-bodied flavor.

Not only is Zhena’s a woman-owned business—she started out pedaling from a cart—but its teas are also organic- and fair-trade certified. The Ojai, Calif.-based company buys wind power through the purchase of green tags to offset its carbon footprint. And the reusable, refillable, and recyclable tins, which are made in a fair-trade facility in China, are absolutely luscious to behold. I want to hoard them like dragon treasure and secrets. Available in loose leaf and unbleached sachets. (From $5.99, Zhena’s Gypsy Tea and most natural-food stores)

Learn more about how these shorts were made, and the company that created them, here. (Note: the fair-trade symbol you’ll see in the films are the U.K’s version of our little farmer dude.) Speaking of the U.K., fair trade has really taken off across the pond. Yay, Britain!

My new guilty indulgence: Stonyfield Farm’s certified-organic vanilla chai ice cream, made with certified-fair-trade and -organic Kashmiri chai from Honest Tea. See that diffuse glow surrounding my tub of ice cream? That’s because it was made by angels.