Friday, January 25, 2008

NOFA NY conference

I am at the NOFA NY conference in Saratoga Springs; well, actually in my hotel after day one of the conference. This is a meeting of organic growers, producers and tradesmen with classes and round table discussions about sustainability in agriculture. I am sad to say even in this group of greenies many just do not get the plastic thing.

There is a Chinese raffle, and most of the items are wrapped in plastic or have plastic bottles.

At the tea and coffee station there were Styrofoam cups, with the ceramic ones way in the back.

One grower of organic nuts and chocolates had everything in plastic containers.

All the dairies had cheese, yogurt and milk samples in plastic wrappers, tubs and bottles.

Many of the companies selling organic soil amendments had them in plastic bags or bottles.

I see a real need here for plastic education. I would not have thought this would be a group which needed it. Plastic is so ubiquitous that even environmentally sound people do not question its use.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, this group DOES need it. What can we do? I've posted before about plastic on the Organic Consumers web site but got very little response. I hope you can wake some people up this weekend.

Jen Kuhn said...

I am going to ask if I can place a clipboard on our table asking people if they would be interested in reducing their use of plastics. It would be a great was to gently nudge people into thinking of plastic, as well as collecting e-mails to start off our database project when it is up and running.