The personal debt of North Americans – both in Canada and the US is staggering. Oprah’s “O” magazine’s long-time financial advisor, Suze Orman, has published a great book on Women & Money that tells the reader how to track their personal spending. Apparently many North Americans can’t do this. Suze makes the link between the lack of basic awareness of where the money’s going and personal debt. The Certified General Accountants of Canada 2009 report, “Where has the money gone: The state of Canadian household debt in a stumbling economy“ makes this link eminently clear. At the same time, there are tons of tv shows and books on how to declutter your life. They draw a clear connection between personal stress and the accumulation of stuff – as in buying it from the mall. A search of chapters.indigo.ca available book titles with the keyword “Feng Shui” – which, in North America, is basically about getting harmony into your life by throwing out stuff, returned 606 titles.

This past Christmas, I was delighted to find a great range of cards from Pistachio (the latest project of Heather Reisman of Chapters-Indigo). They were “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” cards, which thereby extended the Christmas card-sending season to March.  Plus, they were FSC-branded, 100% post-consumer waste fibre, Soya Ink, powered by Green Energy – Mohawk, Made in Canada.  Yeh!! Every kind of serious sustainability logo, right there. My decade-long lack of enthusiasm for cards has largely been driven by concerns about ecological footprints, as well as time crunches associated with grading 100s of final exams and essays at Christmas and attending untold numbers of “festivals of lights” school celebrations. But, I acknowledge that cards are an important means of staying connected and serve an important social purpose.  These Pistachio cards allowed me to do that, and simultaneously underscore my sustainability message to friends and relatives.

Next time you’re buying fish at the supermarket, it would be a good idea to look for “MSC” on the label.

MSC stands for the Marine Stewardship Council, which has a certification program to identify sustainable fishing. So anything with the MSC label on it is recognized as eco-friendly fish.

Considering the amount of fish farming done which has been shown to not only be unsustainable, but unhealthy (see the Big Green Purse blogs for more info), you can help the environment by making informed decisions based on where your food is coming from.

To read more about this initiative visit http://www.msc.org/about-us

I’ve been doing some research on eco-friendly alternative packaging/cutlery/cups etc. to replace the paper and styrofoam we use here at York. My attention was directed to Bhumi Products.
On their website, they state, “Bhumi products is a Canadian company dedicated to promoting environmentally friendly products.”
Now this sounds like we’re on the right track right? a LOCAL company that provides nice biodegrable and compostable products. this is all good and well until you find out what their products are made of.
“Bhumi Products are made from 100% sugar cane fibers, which is a natural by product of the sugar refining industry.”
After hearing this, Tony Morris pointed out to me that sugar cane is not something that can be grown in Canada, and furthermore, sugar cane production has a high energy cost to produce.
It is important to keep in mind where the material comes from. Canadian company or not – sugar cane is not a local source.

The Healthy Butcher are two Toronto based organic and local meat shops, one on Eglinton West and the other on Queen St. West. While, specializing in local certified organic meat they are expanding to produce as well. In light of recent issues with processed meat and the always present concern over the ecological impacts of meat consumption and industrial agriculture, the Healthy Butcher offers an alternative to becoming a vegetarian. They are fundamentally committed to healthy, organic, and most importantly local meat. They buy directly from farmers and have extensive information on what certified organic means to them. For this company, organic meat means;

• Livestock must be fed 100% organic food;
• No use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers in the growing of the animals’ feed;
• No use of genetically modified organisms;
• No use of growth hormones;
• No use of drugs (such as antibiotics);
• No use of animal by-products for feed;
• Treating animals humanely (i.e.