When we go grocery shopping here in St Louis (or anywhere else, of course) we are confronted with many choices: Where will we shop? What will we buy? How much of it will we buy? Each choice has a significant environmental impact. Will we walk, bike, or drive to the store? How often will we return in a week or a month? Will we support local farmers? Will we support organic, sustainable farming practices? Will we purchase recycled paper products? When given the choice between like items will we choose the one with the least amount of packaging? Will we eat farm raised or wild caught fish? Free range or factory raised meat? Rechargeable or single use batteries? Paper or plastic?

Even if you’ve never thought of the aforementioned choices it’s unlikely that you’ve never considered the last one. We are dutifully asked each time we check out at a grocery store whether we would prefer paper or plastic bags. Most of us make a choice based on convenience-Well I could ... Read more