Should You Hold a Green Grudge?

Airing Dirty Laundry Alert: I ran into my parents the other day at the grocery store and, as I talked with them at their car, I glanced in the back seat and saw . . . plastic bags. My heart sank for a second and then I got mad. Well, I got pissed.

You all know by now that I run EcoVixen (www.ecovixen.com) and that I’ve been passionate about using cloth bags for the past 18 years, since I was still a young kid living with my parents. To give them credit, they do typically use cloth bags—my Dad is a proud “Man of the Cloth Bag”—but I was still surprised to see so much plastic. And I was hurt.

In my pissed-off state, I wasn’t exactly nice to them. In the days since, I can’t stop thinking about the interaction. Should I have been upset? Or should I have just bit my tongue and looked the other way?

Here’s what I’ve come up with—if your passion is something personal (like photography) it can stay personal, but if your passion extends beyond you (e.g. those of us who care about the environment know everybody has to step up and do their part because it impacts all of us) then you should be able to say something to encourage others to see the light—in the case of the environment, I guess we want them to see the green light.

Here’s what I’ve also come up with—you should always be nice as you try to enlighten and encourage others, especially to those you love.

Question of the blog: Do you agree it’s fair for those of us with a green conscious to impose that conscious on those without it?

Is Anything Ever Perfect?

I’m a perfectionist, which is really difficult to be. I’m hard on everyone but most especially myself. I have the highest standards and, when they’re not met, I can be terribly disappointed . . . and not all that fun to be around.

Recently, I picked up my latest shipment of eco-friendly cloth bags for my company, EcoVixen (http://www.ecovixen.com/), and the copy on one side of one design is fuzzy. I thought, for sure, that the company who prints and sews the bags for me would apologize profusely and redo the bags.

I was wrong.

They claim the bags meet their high standards and that, in essence, I am too much of a perfectionist. Huh? I want my contribution to the green movement to be right—if “right” means “perfect” well then that's what I want. But they won’t budge and won’t take the bags back, which leaves me in a terrible predicament.

I’ve decided to sell the bags as 1/3-off seconds; this cuts into my already-small profit margin, of course, but I can’t stand behind the bags as first-quality products. I’m actually shocked at my bag company’s reaction and may not ever work with them in the future, at least not in terms of printing.

Here’s the twist to this story: I’ve suffered two losses in the last two weeks and am trying to keep this entire thing in perspective. Is anything ever perfect? And is it worth trying to attain perfection at every turn? Is good enough actually good enough?

Question of the blog: What’s your take on perfection?

When is a Reusable Bag NOT Green?

Recently, a friend gave me a copy of a popular style magazine that includes an article about how celebrities like Jessica Biel, Vanessa Minnillo, Rachel Bilson, and Hillary Swank are getting a grip “on reusable, eco-friendly (and wallet-friendly) shopping bags.”

As someone who cringes at the thought of using a plastic bag, the article pleased me . . . until I took a closer look. The bags featured are certainly reusable and wallet-friendly (they range in price from $5 to $19) but the question is: Are they really eco-friendly?

I run a company called EcoVixen (http://www.ecovixen.com/) that creates cool cloth bags for men and women. All of my earth-friendly canvas bags are produced in the United States and made of 100 percent recyclable cotton. The soon-to-be-released “Karma” bag – in which EcoVixen joined forces with positive apparel company Karma Threads (http://www.karmathreads.com/) – is not only produced in my home state but is made of 80 percent recycled cotton and 20 percent recycled plastic bottles.

In other words, EcoVixen cloth totes are reusable and eco-friendly. At $30, they are still wallet-friendly, although they aren’t cheap. But you get what you pay for and, for 30 bucks, you’re getting a green bag that has a green pedigree.

Coincidentally, a few months ago I received one of the celeb-approved bags featured in the article as a gift from a friend. The bag has a "Made in China" tag along with a certain sheen that indicates a chemical cocktail was probably used in its creation. Certainly, anytime you pass up a plastic bag – which the EPA says takes up to 1,000 years to decompose – in favor of a reusable bag, you’re doing a good thing . . . but I think it’s just as important to read the bag’s tag to ensure you're buying a product that's green inside and out.

Question of the blog: When you buy a reusable bag, is its green pedigree important to you?