Greening the Neighbourhood

I held a large family dinner last Saturday so I did a lot of shopping during the week and I had the opportunity to make a few observations about the greening of my neighbourhood. I shop the way my grandmother used to, going to specialty stores close to me rather than doing everything in one big grocery store as my parents did. We have a great organic butcher in Toronto and it's always busy on a Saturday, but on a sunny Thursday morning there was quite a line-up of people wanting certified organic meat. At the cash they asked if I wanted my purchase in a paper or a plastic bag, but I had my own cloth bag. Thursday afternoon my farmer's market was busy as more people (and more farmers) come each week as local produce starts to be available. A couple of years ago we had three farmer's markets in Toronto and now there are twenty.

Our provincial government owns the liquor stores in Ontario and last year on Earth Day they handed out reusable bags for free. This year they have banned plastic bags altogether. When I was getting the wine for my party I asked the clerk what the reaction from customers had been. She said they had expected some resistance, but that it turns out that everybody is pretty sanguine about it and cloth bags have been selling well. One of my neighbourhood grocery stores specializes in organic and local produce and I noticed at the checkout that every single person in line had brought their own bags. My daughter used to complain that when you brought your own bags the people at the checkout expected you to fill them yourself, but now they don't think anything about it, it is the norm.

When I went to the big grocery store for a couple of things I noticed that the buggy of the woman behind me looked like mine usually does, filled with organic milk, organic produce, and eco-friendly cleaning supplies that the store didn't even sell as little as six months ago. Last Saturday the City held it's spring clean-up day where people meet in local parks and go around the neighbourhood and pick up all the garbage. Next week the City has compost available to gardeners for free, made from the garden waste picked up through last year. My husband's local rowing club is starting up next week and they have banned the use of plastic water bottles.

In The New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan wrote an article entitled Why Bother? in which he says, "If you do bother, you will set an example for other people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change, markets for all manner of green products and alternative technologies will prosper and expand...Consciousness will be raised, perhaps even changed: new moral imperatives and new taboos might take root in the culture...And those who did change the way they live would acquire the moral standing to demand changes in behavior from others - from other people, other corporations, even other countries."I think Pollan is right and I think it's happening in my neighbourhood right now."