With the complete abandonment by the Bush administration
of any pretext of creating a sustainable society, it is more
important than ever that private businesses and individuals do
whatever we can to pass a healthy Earth to future generations.
Buying sustainable products is one way for us to do our part.
New
Products
We've been adding more products since you last heard
from us. Most of them strengthen us in the direction of sustainability;
many are quite useful, some are fun and some are just pretty
to look at.
Marbles
Made from recycled glass, we've included shooters,
bags and a book with 22 games.
Tin Can Lanterns
These are great for summer nights out in the back
yard. Using a torch, the artist makes decorative cuts in the
can that illuminate beautifully with a candle. Available in four
sizes.
Recycled Paper Products
We've been building up our paper product selections, concentrating
on the highest percentage post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled
content we can find. We've added:
- 24# Paper, 100% (PCW), process chlorine -free (PCF)
(we also have 20# PCW, PCF paper).
- 9" x 12" Mailing Envelopes, 100% PCW, PCF.
- Legal Size Tablets, 100% recycled, 70% PCW.
- Manila File Folders, 100% recycled, 30% PCW.
Clothes Lines
We're now offering four options of retractable clothes
lines for either indoor or outdoor air drying. Two are single
lines, one goes out to 8' and the other to 40'. Two others have
5 lines, offering either 61' of drying space or 170'. We've used
one outdoors before and liked the fact that you can retract it
when not in use. Oh, and we've got the clothes pins, too (wooden,
of course).
Environné
Cleaning Products
We are now carrying natural laundry detergent, dish
washing soap, stain remover and vegetable wash from Environné,
based in Bandon, Oregon. This company was started by an environmental
science teacher working with disabled children. She learned of
the suspected relationship between pesticides and serious childhood
illness and dedicated herself to finding ways to reduce people's
exposure to pesticides. Her first product, Environné Fruit
and Vegetable Wash, came from a scientist who had developed a
formula that removed pesticides from fruits and vegetables. Omega
Juicers now features this product in their line of support products.
Environné cleaning products contain some of the highest
concentration of quality cleaning agents found in natural cleaning
products today. They out-perform leading competitors in blind
tests and are made without phosphates, dyes, optical brighteners
or synthetic fragrances and are, of course, biodegradable.
Cotton Bags & More
We've been carrying organic cotton tote and string
bags for shopping. We've added some more products from the same
company, Eco-Bags. They are all unbleached cotton and address
different needs we have in our lives.
- Lunch Bag is a basic cotton lunch sack that is rugged
and roomy with a velcro close.
- Produce & Grain Bags in 2 sizes to replace plastic
bags from the grocery store.
- Soap Bag takes your bar of soap and makes it into
a scrubby bar for the bath.
- Cosmetic Bag is useful for travel or storage around
the home.
- Spa Bag is handy way beyond use at a spa. It has
a draw string top and pockets around the sides to keep necessities
handy. It could be used for travel, child care, dorm living,
etc.
L'Equip Juicer
and Food Dehydrator
We are excited to offer a new juicer and new food
dehydrator. The L'Equip Juicer Model 110.5 is a centrifugal juicer
with a pulp ejector, which allows continuous juicing. It also
features a stainless steel bowl, blade and basket, a 10,000 RPM
motor and a six-year warranty. Its compact design requires less
counter space than most juicers, perfect for space-challenged
kitchens. We've decided to carry this juicer in place of the
Omega 1000 due to its compact size, pulp-ejection capability
and low price. At $129, it is very affordable.
The L'Equip Food Dehydrator features a computer-controlled heat
sensor which guarantees accurate temperatures. The warm air is
forced through the center of the dehydrator and delivered to
each tray, which means more even drying. It comes with five trays;
extra trays are available (up to 20 trays can be used with good
results). With all this plus a 12 year warranty and $160 price
tag, this dehydrator competes favorably with the Excalibur.
ViewPoint
ViewPoint is a regular column in which we discuss
Mirador's relationship to our lives, to our community's life
and to the life of the wider community of the city, state, nation
and world in which we live.
It's Hormonal!
I've just finished reading a book that has had a strong impact
on me: Hormone Deception: How Everyday Foods &
Products Are Disrupting Your Hormones & How To Protect Yourself
& Your Family, by D. Lindsey Berkson.
Berkson's area of concern is hormone disrupters. These molecules,
either human-created or natural, can fit into your bodies receptor
sites for hormones, fooling your body into accepting these foreign
molecules as its own. Whether natural or synthetic, these molecules
are capable of altering the endocrine system.
Examples of natural hormone disrupters are phytoestrogens, such
as soy. Phytoestrogens are generally positive, but synthetic
hormone disrupters are not so benign. We've heard about the young
ages at which girls start their menstruation, how some male animals
have small penises and the falling fertility rates in people.
These all result from hormone disruption and are just the tip
of the iceberg of the negative effects.
Berkson contends that the greatest threat of exposure is not
at the toxic waste dump but in our very homes, with an estimated
80% of exposure occurring there from pesticides, cleaning products,
beauty aids. Take those toilet and bathroom deodorizers that
are in 70% of homes. One of the components of these products
is a moth repellent pesticide which has been demonstrated in
tests by the US National Toxicology Program to cause cancers
in rats and mice. A lot to risk for a "scent", especially
when there are some many natural ways to go instead.
This information, while alarming, can inspire us to make rather
simple changes in how we function in our homes and avoid compromising
our health and polluting the planet. Berkson takes us on a room
by room tour of a typical home and steers us toward natural replacements
for problematic products and practices. It is an area where we
have control and power.
The impact of hormone disrupters doesn't stop with the threat
to health and home. Contraceptives, painkillers, insecticides,
beauty aids, cleaning products and more get flushed or rinsed
down the drain and enter our waterways. According to an article
in the 3/13/02 Oregonian, scientists say that the problem with
these substances is that they largely escape regulation and defy
sewage treatment. They fear that exposure can result in cumulative
risks, especially when the chemicals combine in new ways.
I am glad our book distributor carries Hormone Deception
in paperback so we can also; it is also available at the library.
Another useful read is Clean & Green by Annie Berthold-Bond,
also available at Mirador and the library. This book offers 485
ways to perform safe housekeeping as advocated by Hormone
Deception.
Our lives are made up of mostly small actions that add up to
large results. This is an area where we can make small changes
and reap the benefits for our health, and the health of the Earth.
Lynn
Honest Business
In preparing to create Mirador, we read several books
on business. We wanted to do business in a way that felt good
to our souls as well as in a way that could support us (getting
rich was not and is not one of our goals). We knew in our hearts
that this was possible and reading these books gave us ideas
on how to do it and inspiration to make it happen.
First on the list was Paul Hawken's Growing a Business.
In this book he talks about his efforts to create honest businesses,
mistakes he made and what he learned. Many of his ideas run counter
to accepted business practices; but accepted business practices
have given us companies like Enron... We found his ideas made
it much less scary to try our own business and let us see that
it is possible to run a business that is responsible to the Earth,
to people and to us, the owners.
Next was Marketing Without Advertising by Michael Philips
and Salli Raspberry. These two individuals helped start a network
of alternative businesses in the San Francisco area called Briarpatch.
Many of the lessons they learned about how to attract and keep
customers with minimal advertising expense are in this book and
continue to guide the way we present ourselves to the community.
Last read (though not necessarily last in importance) is Honest
Business, also by Michael Philips and Salli Raspberry. This
book let us see that our intuition that "honest business"
is not an oxymoron was true and showed us the kinds of things
we could do to implement our vision of this type of business.
One of the principles in Honest Business is the concept
of open books. This means that a business should allow
anyone vendors, customers, employees, curious bystanders
look at its business records, especially financial statements.
While this idea horrifies typical businesses, in reality it has
helped many struggling businesses by showing customers and vendors
a real need for support or more time to pay bills. In future
issues we will discuss our finances and other business-related
subjects.
Compost Happens
Materials around us are continually decomposing. By
composting, we take advantage of this natural process in our
yards and neighborhoods, and reap numerous benefits: reduced
trash, water preservation, reduced erosion and fantastic free
soil amendment.
One of the main components to yard composting is a pile or bin
where the kitchen scraps, grass clippings, leaves etc. go to
react together and compost. The outdoor bin makes having a kitchen
compost pail a real handy item to have. Over a few days, our
spent egg shells, tea leaves and vegetable scraps fill up and
one of us takes it out to the "Earth Machine" we bought
from Metro several years ago. In they go with the garden debris
that is appropriate; the same materials that went in some months
ago are available at the bottom now as compost.
We currently have two products that can be used for the counter
top collection of kitchen scraps:
- A one gallon ceramic crock with lid. Ideal for sauerkraut
making, it also works great for a kitchen compost collector.
$26.00
- A one gallon stainless steel compost pail with handle,
lid & filters. This item was made for composting and comes
with two sets of charcoal filters. $48.00
In late spring we will have a simple plastic pail
with lid and handle, 2.4 gallon capacity, that will sell for
$10.00. We are also hoping to carry a worm composting system,
which we will talk about in the next issue.
To learn more about composting, we carry a book called Backyard
Composting. Just under 100 pages, it will get you off and
running. $6.95.
We have been composting at home for about seven years. Composting
puts you right there with the cycle of life, breaking down and
building up our gardens love it!
Personnel Changes
at Mirador
Meet Matt
If you come to Mirador on Thursday afternoon or Sunday, you
are sure to meet Matt Pipes who joined us in February. Matt is
a self-described retail junkie and indeed, we hooked up with
him after he browsed here for a couple of hours. Matt spends
most of his time with Ladybug Theater; he not only acts in this
organization geared to children but he helps operate it. His
mother, Michelle Earley, has been running Ladybug for many years
and it wound up being a career for Matt also.
Matt has already made himself a part of Mirador by his willingness
to rearrange displays. He is now learning to make signs on the
computer (no easy task) and we hope he will get involved even
further in the business aspect of things. He has also allowed
us to take a little more (badly needed) time off. We know you'll
appreciate his friendliness and help when you come in.
Good-bye and Good Luck to Jolyn
Many thanks to Jolyn Fry who left us in February to prepare
for the birth of her baby. Jolyn had a son named Hazel on March
20. Congratulations to Jolyn, her partner Miles and their daughter
Sorrel. As well as caring for two children, Jolyn is looking
forward to spending more time on her painting career. We miss
her and wish her luck!
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