P’lovers the Environmental Store (Port Perry)

My daughter has been making overtures for quite some time that a “big girl needs her own room”. And who can blame her? She and her brother have been sharing – in relative harmony for almost 7 years. Enough is enough … for both of them.

This change, when it soon takes effect, essentially means that I lose my second story home office with a nice view of our tree-lined street. While our basement is lovely and all, I wanted to investigate a laptop to save me from the necessity of spending endless hours there.

Thanks to Mark Kett and my friends at The Source in Port Perry, my search started and ended with the ASUS eeepc – a super light-weight, sub-compact, ultra energy efficient, internet mobile device. Wireless internet enabled, pre-loaded with all the productivity software I need, a super fast Linux OS (saving me from all the Windows overhead and security issues), this is the perfect device for getting me out of the basement!

In fact, I’m putting it to it’s first big test. Here I sit at WestJet’s Gate C40 waiting for my flight to P’lovers in Halifax, blogging happily away. They just called my flight… talk to you soon!

-Steve

The title of this post, Unoriginally Speaking, is in reference to a smashingly brilliant, late teacher of mine (Rev. Roger McComb) who, amongst many incredible accomplishments, wrote a weekly newspaper column by this name. Which brings me to this post…

Betty Zyvatkauskas of Metroland Publishing and author of the Explore Durham Blog, stopped into P’lovers a couple of months ago for a browse. Here is her lovely account of this visit.

-Steve

I just had a massive epiphany. I discovered the most innovative product EVER…!

SERIOUSLY.

Rain Barrels.

Ho Hum right?

NO. I came into P’lovers early one morning a week or so ago and ran into a dirty, dusty Steve as well as Sean from Arbour, unloading a massive trailer of rain barrels. The poor guy had been caught in a HUGE storm on the way to Port Perry that morning. Rather ironic that he was carting a truck full of rain barrels.

I knew I had to get to know the barrel on its most intimate level as I know that I would be asked every question under the sun.

So I have spent the last 1/2 hour or so, reading Arbour’s instructions and googling the skinny on rain barrels.

And Heeeellllooooooo, who the heck came up with THIS idea because it INGENIOUS. And here I thought rain barrels were boring, run of the mill and one of ‘those’ things.

Why is this not a staple in EVERY house???? Water your plants with rain water. Collecting what you don’t need so its available for when you need it. No more small sink holes from downspouts during rain storms. No more flooded foundations. And rain water, unlike water from the garden hose, is free!

As well, you can connect one of those hoses with the holes all around it (a soaker hose) to get a rain like sprinkling.

This is by far the coolest most practical thing in the store. (And honestly…I am glad to see that we’re selling the good ones. teehee. Equally perfect, Arbour its a SMALL family business founded simply because of their strong eco conscious values)

To learn more about the P’lovers Arbour Rain Barrel specs, check out the blog Steve did aways back on them.

Also a little tip, you can buy a thing called a Rain Drain from most hardware stores or dryer tubing to help direct the rain from an ackward placed drain spout (i.e a tight corner) to your barrel, more effectively.

-Colleen

You’d think that someone with 15+ years of experience in marketing and communications wouldn’t drop the marketing ball when things got too busy! Yet that is exactly what’s happened over the past couple of months.

Life just happens sometimes and occasionally, as you can appreciate, it happens with a little more enthusiasm.

The months of April and May, despite the cold, wet, lousy weather, were the crazy busiest in P’lovers six year history. On the personal front, dozens of hours were spent stage managing High School Musical with our fabulous youth theatre group in Port Perry. And the obligatory, much, much more..

As a result, all those things I absolutely love to do — blogging, creating our Healthy Planet Newsflash email bulletin, web design, special marketing projects — all the good stuff was on a little hiatus. Until now, that is.

I’m back; hiatus over; giddy up!

-Steve

Recently at a staff meeting we were discussing greenwashing. It got me thinking…and that can be a dangerous thing; Jude thinking.

It brought me to this point on a dull Monday morning, what exactly is greenwashing and who is guilty of practising it?

Greenwashing, the act of painting a ‘green facade’ on something to prevent us from seeing what is underneath. It allows companies and corporations to portray themselves as environmentally conscious and responsible. It is put in place to fool us, to pull the wool (or organic cotton) over our eyes.

And I hate to admit; but it works, it works because we get tired of thinking all the time and trying so hard to sort out what is good and what is not, what we can consume and what we can’t, what we can wear, what we can’t, what we can clean with and what will cause us irreversible damage. I am here to help…

How are we able to tell if a green company’s promises are true?

• -the claims are vague and are not backed up with facts. “natural” “environmentally friendly” “good for the planet”
• -the product is billed as having ‘NO environmental impact’, this is pretty much impossible.
• -the company might just state that by purchasing their product you are ’saving the earth’.
• -the claims are not verified by a third party.
• -the green products represent a very miniscule portion of the comany’s business.
• -the company does not respond to enquiries regarding their green-ness.

So, basically we come back to Buyer Beware! We have to be aware of what we are buying, we must pay due diligence before we put our money down on the counter.

Last week a young man entered the store and approached the counter to purchase an Efforts Hemp T Shirt. Before he completed the transaction he asked some important questions about the product: where it was made and how it was transported to P’Lovers and he then asked to see the company’s website. I was pleased to answer his questions and told him it was great to have customers who care, who have that need to know what they are buying and from whom. He left the store with T Shirt in hand (he refused a bag!) and I was left with a good feeling, he went the extra mile as I did as well.

I can assure the consumer at P’Lovers that we pay close attention so that you don’t have to, but if you have any questions or curiousity about the origin or ingredients in our products, please ask, we love to chat and share our knowledge.

-Jude

Editors Note: Check out the Six Sins of Green Washing by TerraChoice for further exploration of this topic!

We also encourage customers to help educate us by referring us to resources and sharing thoughts on our products!

I asked my daughter what she wanted to do for the hour that my wife and son were in karate class.  Expecting to read books, play in the yard, or ride bikes, I was surprised when she said “Let’s go to the waterfront and pick-up garbage, Daddy.”

So that’s exactly what we did!  Armed with gardening gloves and a large (recycled plastic) garbage bag, we dropped the ‘karate kids’ off at their class and headed for Joe Fowler Park, on the shore of Lake Scugog.  Since this lovely, naturalized shoreline trail and park was established several years ago, the kids and I have spent dozens of hours enjoying nature in the heart of our bustling little community. 

One this day, however, our little oasis in Port Perry was anything but.  In fact, with the amount of garbage thoughtlessly strewn everywhere, it looked more vandalized than naturalized.  It took Elora and I exactly 34 minutes to completely fill our garbage bag to overflowing and I would estimate we didn’t have to walk more than 50 feet from our car to do it!

A rather unscientific garbage audit revealed that the vast majority of the garbage came from the three fast food restaurants within close proximity to the park — Tim Horton’s, Wendy’s, and Dairy Queen — with loads of water bottles, beer bottles (several broken), and cigarette packs thrown in for good measure. 

While I was silently appalled at the mentality of the person who would toss their refuse amidst the bushes and perennials, my 6-year old was a shade more vocal in her opinion.  “These people are slobs!” perfectly captured the essence of the moment.

This, unfortunately, is only the tip of the proverbial ‘garbage iceberg’ that is threatening to overwhelm our society.  It did get me thinking a little more about Extended Product Responsibility, the fancy term for requiring garbage-makers to be financially and/or physically responsible for the products and packaging they produce. 

If the immense and very real cost of dealing with the garbage generated were actually factored into the cost of that blizzard, take-out coffee, or cheeseburger, would consumers take an extra moment to re-think their purchasing choices?  Would producers use their immense purchasing power and invest in more sustainable, biodegradable packaging options that will ultimately benefit everyone? 

Admittedly, with trees to climb, a small “forest” to explore, and birds to watch (four male red-wing blackbirds were putting on a stunning display as they competed for the attention of a lone female), I decided solving our society’s garbage problem will have to wait for another day.

Happy Earth Day!

-Steve 

Woot!  Spring makes me wanna pppAArty. Brings out the ol’ college girl in me I think. Makes one lust for lazy sunny days on a patio, sunning in the backyard or strolling the shops. Port Perry is definitely bustling the past few days of sun and warmth.

We’ve propped the door at P’lovers. In wafts the customer from the street…..as well as the smoke.
BLECH.

And so sadly, with Spring comes the stink…of cigarettes.

And the butts.

Speaking of butts….there’s a certain restaurant gracing our lovely Port Perry waterfront. Whilst out for our evening walk the other night, I saw a sight that made me want to vomit. Seriously!

The ground on the other side of the patio ‘fence’ was COVERED, I mean INCHES COVERED in stanky butts. INCHES.  As though the sky had fallen and brought down a hellfire of wiggly little cigarettes worms.  It is truly repulsing…and borderline fascinating….perhaps we can make it a tourist attraction…..cause it’s definitely a sight to behold..

As the smoker tosses their butt to the ground, I IMPLORE them: SEE that you are littering.

Contrary to unfounded beliefs of the littering smoker or the marketing cig companies: cigarette filters ARE not biodegradable. It is hypothesized that it will take 12 years for a butt to break down.

So where are they going then? How are we not swimming in a sea of butts as we wade the sidewalks? (except for the exceptional ‘feast’ for the eyes outside our local watering hole)

They get swept up, they roll down the hill and into the lake. They blow in the wind to the grassy patches.

Where subsequently, my young child playing for his first summer in the park, thinks it’s something fun to either nibble upon or roll in his fingers.

Or if having landed in the lake, the fishes (what fishes are alive in our beloved lake) think it’s the edible kind of yummy worm to nibble upon.

Or all of the toxins that the smoker made the conscious decision to introduce into their body, as the hopefully informed adult they are: letches into the ground, into the water…affecting the rest of us, who have made the educated and conscious decision to not include cigarettes in our lives and family.

Smoke responsibly, take control of your litter.

-Colleen 

Some resources:

ButtsOut Canada

CigaretteLitter.org

Green-wash (green’wash’, -wôsh’) – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

Simply that..that’s ALL I gotta say. Reflect on that for a bit.

“Six Sins of Greenwashing” A Study of Environmental Marketing in North American Markets (TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, November 2007)

-Colleen

Editor’s Note: Definitely take a few moments to read the TerraChoice study - it will be time well spent.  Then let us know what you think.  Is this even an issue?  Are there examples of greenwashing that drive you crazy?  What do you think of, say, Hybrid SUVs?  Ethanol gas?  Wal-Mart’s “we are so green” commercials?  We’d love to hear from you!

Personal Reflection
Ever see that Young and the Restless storyline featuring a scandel with poisonness dangerous chemicals in a face cream being sold from Jabbot Cosmetics? And someone died and was horribly disfigured etc etc.

Perhaps this isn’t too far from the truth in real life!

I came across a fantastic resource a few months ago: The Cosmetics Database c/o Skin Deep. I think its worth a gander. Skin Deep provides the skinny on MANY, MANY products and their ingredients. I’ve shared below the press release signaling Skin Deep’s re-launch.

A comprehensive resource in listing ingredients that are often hard to find on purpose, for many of our once beloved products. It’s getting harder and harder these days to tell what’s what and manufacturers are hinging on that.

-Colleen

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