Paper or Plastic? How about neither?

The Orlando Sentinal has a good article on the use of reusable bags over the plastic ones at grocery stores. If you are not doing this now you're going to have to soon - Whole Foods will stop offering plastic bags all together on April 22 - Earth Day. Thanks to Cool Dad & Mum we now have some sweet reusable ones - we just have to remember to bring them. What do you think?- what do you use?

Photo Copyright: www.keetsa.com

CLEAN Clothes

In response to my two previous posts - here & here - where fair trade and safe working conditions were topics of interest and ones that should be considered when we are shopping, I have done some research and come up with the following lists:

List of Non-Clean Clothes Providers:
http://www.sweatfree.org/hallofshame

Clean Clothes Providers:
Clean Clothes Connection
SweatX
American Apparel
No Sweat Apparel
Kumba Clothing
Maggies Clean Clothes
UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees)
Justice Clothing

Clean Clothes Organizations:
SweatFree Communities
PICA - Peace through Interamerican Community Action
The National Labor Committee (NLC)
United Students Against Sweatshops
The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)
The Campaign for the Abolition of Sweatshops and Child Labor
The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN)
The Union Label and Service Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Behind the Label
National Mobilization Against Sweatshops
Slaves To Fashion
The Garment Worker Center
Sweatshop Watch
The Clean Clothes Campaign
Students for Labor Justice
The Clean Clothes Connection
The InterReligious Task Force on Central America
Kav La'Oved

Please have a look, add your own, and pass this along so that we can be informed - the more who read and get involved the faster we can make a difference.
I am still looking for one that provides information on popular brands like Nike, Burberry, etc. as well as Brands sold at Target - i.e. Mossimo, Etc.

WARNING: Fall and tip over hazards can result from improper behavior

Those are good words to live by. So a funny thing happened the other day. Don't you love it when stories start out like that! Well it was funny - just not for me - or apparently my buddy Brad, who was so 'worried' about me that he couldn't laugh. The same cannot be said for all others who witnessed my near Cirque du Soleil act. OK - so it went like this...

Our small group went shopping for a family at our church at our local Target. We all had a great time. After we checked out we were pushing our three carts back to our cars. That is when it happened. I looked over from my cart and there was my good pal JC 'Flying' on his cart. I thought, "Hey, that looks like fun." So I tried it - and it was. Then I thought, "Hey I bet you I can get horizontal on this bad boy." So I tried it - and I could! I was kicking the Flying Squirrel on top of my shopping cart. The thing is - it only lasted for .5 seconds before I was lying face first on the concrete with all the gifts we had just purchased on top of me. Luckily I didn't hurt anything (other than my pride) and allowed joyous laughter for the majority of our group. I guess there really is a good reason that they put those warnings on the shopping carts. Perhaps they should include adults too - not just children.