A green shopper’s diary: please share if you care
Today was the day for going to top up on veg. I am so frustrated with the lack of green training of Shoprite staff so that I have to repeat at least four times that I don’t want any bags, with every purchase, I was looking forward to better treatment at Food Lover’s market, after all this is what they claim on their website : The next step in the evolution of Fruit & Veg City was to create a modern eatery where food aficionados could indulge in a range of gourmet foods. It was this vision that finally gave birth to the Food Lover’s Market, a theatre of food that was designed specifically with connoisseurs in mind. The Fruit & Veg City team crossed the globe in search of the hottest international trends in food. They visited the United States, Europe, Australia and the East, and then brought the best elements of what they saw in there back with them. The result is the stylish and modern food emporium called the Food Lover’s Market. At the Food Lover’s Market, we cater for the discerning customer, the connoisseurs, the professional ‘foodies’ and, of course, our regular customers who are used to the exceptional quality and variety on offer at Fruit & Veg City. These people went “all around the world” but somehow must have skipped Germany and didn’t pick up on the hot international food trend of green pracice, with its awareness of green shopping because they don’t seem to care or they certainly don’t train their staff to be prepared for a green shopper. This is what happened today: I took out my own little bag to weigh the peanuts. The guy at the scale goes… "what’s this"…. So I say; "I bring my own bags, its for the environment". So he thanks me, as if I had the bizarre inclination to bring my own bags to save Food Lover’s market the price of one bag. At the cash point, the cashier says ‘what’s this” so I go through the same spiel. The cashier is incredulous… “no man” she says with utter contempt and holds up my bag with the tips of her fingers. “yes man” I say, and go into my spiel about the mountain of garbage at Vissershok. I can see she understands what I’m saying, she’s just never ever heard of anything like this before. After I’ve paid I nail the office guy standing near the door to the office. He smiles and smiles and says its going to take a very long time. I’m just appalled and angry. At the very least, if they aren’t actually going to go green, they should educate their staff so that they aren’t caught completely off guard when a customer brings their own bags. Remember this is the same ownership as Woolworths, where everything, almost, is bagged in brown paper to look natural. So this greenness at Woolies is nothing but lip service and hollow pretense. In the parts of town where the yuppies don’t shop they don’t bother, and still generate all the garbage, in fact even more. This lip service to green customers in the shadow of the mountain, and the lack of any green consciousness in staff on the flats, this colossal apparent laziness and indifference by a food retailer, one of the biggest producers of the rubbish at Vissershok, I just find myself reacting with offense, it seems absolutely greedy, mercenary and shameful. Their pretense at elitism and fine food purveying appears to be utterly opportunistic and as false as any marketing spin I’ve ever heard in my life.
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there is nothing new under the sun, but sometimes we have to go back, cap in hand, to revisit the wisdom of our forefathers and their way of doing things, after learning the hard way
read more about the retail trend taking the rest of the world by storm... packaging-free shops, or rather bring-your-own-bags-and-don't-pay-for-anything-but-the-food shops on the link below http://www.greenidiom.com/zero-packaging.html the dangers of plastic based on writing by Paul Göttlich, see at
http://www.greenidiom.com/dangers-of-plastic.html this unsolicited pile of paper invades my home... read more on :
http://www.greenidiom.com/paper-waste.html see more pictures of the Goodwood Library Garden and my first sketches for a design on this website under different gardens
http://edenfound.weebly.com/goodwood-library-garden-design-project.html a new set of greenidiom articles on garbage is starting, here the first two:
http://www.greenidiom.com/waste.html http://www.greenidiom.com/consumer-education.html block 2 the ratio has gone from about a third of the trees missing, to over a half, see http://www.edenfound.weebly.com under garden diary, recording lost street trees in goodwood
I've started experimenting with sowing wild seeds to grow native trees and berries. My heart is so full
http://www.greenidiom.com/native-trees.html My main green project thus far (my backyard garden design) is drawing to a close and only needing maintenance (the weeds ...or are they really deserving of such dismissive terminology ?) and of course continued vegetable planting and perma-cultural additions here and there, more olive trees, summer greens and so forth. The library NPO project has hit a wall in terms of differing taste. I wanted to plant up the Goodwood library garden, a good 1000 meters square, as an educational garden, with as xerophyte, water-wise collection growing on the little 'mound', a food forest among the trees along the perimeter, a permaculture vegetable patch in the sunny low lying center, a local indigenous vegetable section close to the mound (they probably also have low water requirements, like succulents, because they are often succulents), a Fynbos herb and medicinal section along the library 'stoep' with fragrant Boegoe etc., a Sylvan meadow garden under the trees close to the building, with fallen logs to sit on, as an outdoor classroom and workshop space, and a nursery in one of the side alleys, and an organic compostery in the other. Ja, it appears that what is wanted is regular weed-eating and a budget for herbicide so we are a bit out of tune with each other and I'm getting tired of the effort I've invested making contacts (I know experts now on all these different types of garden whom I can consult) and drafting designs washing up on arid shores, though never was the need for an educational garden greater, if you get my driftwood, to continue with the oceanic metaphor. So I'm starting another project closer to home in many ways: learning how to culture indigenous forest trees, fruiting trees and medicinal plants. In preparation for acquiring a license to harvest seed, I'm washing these six-packs in a bleach solution, as taught at gardening school, and here they are drying on the back steps, and fulfilling my desire to make abstract art as they go.
the garden project can be seen at : http://www.greenidiom.com/design.html At the moment I have so much to write about, I'm floundering, don't know where to start and there is never enough time in a day...shall I start on German state regulation and the energy sector there, or biomimetics, or anaerobic composting ...or.... or ...?????? to me its all connected, but apparently to everyone else its all over the place |
Authordraftswoman, recent student of Linguistics, Jill of all trades, planner of green new world.. Archives
October 2017
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