Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Eco Hottie of the Week #4

Mr. Guillermo PayetWhew! It's been a few weeks and now it's time to get back on track. This week's eco-hottie is a "regular" person, but I'd say there's nothing regular about him.

Who: Guillermo Payet

What: Founder of LocalHarvest

Why: Although I must admit, I have certain prejudices against LocalHarvest only because it directly competes with my project Puget Sound Fresh on a local level (okay, so it's not exactly my project, but I've worked on it for seven years). Anyway a little competition is good, no? But I digress. El Sr. Payet muy guapo es el fundador del sitio web que promueve comprando alimento de granjas locales.

Sr. Guillermo PayetLocalHarvest is America's #1 organic and local food website. They maintain a public nationwide directory of small farms, farmers markets, and other local food sources.

Their search engine helps people find products from family farms, local sources of sustainably grown food, and encourages them to establish direct contact with small farms in their local area. Their online store helps small farms develop markets for some of their products beyond their local area.

Quotable: "I wash my hair with handmade soap. Sometimes I even brush my teeth with it. I like to keep chemicals away from my body."

"I've had girlfriends who wear a pair of jeans once and wash them immediately. I'm like 'You're polluting the water and wasting electricity.'"



Who knew that imports from Peru could be so tasty? No carbon food miles here!

If you would like to nominate someone as an Eco Hottie, email me.

8 comments:

Creative Life Studio said...

Hello there, CC. :)

I've been visiting your blog off and on for over a year and hadn't been by in a little while.

I saw your Extreme Eco Challenge and I have a sincere question, since I've been thinking about signing on. I'm not in a position to go without any car, but there were a number of other things I think our family could try, as I'm always looking for ways to step things up in our simple/green lifestyle.

So, I was thinking about the plastic. This seems like such a simplistic question, but as I was looking around at some of the things I would not be purchasing anymore, I looked at my bottle of Seventh Generation dish soap sitting at the sink. I really am wondering what I would be able to get or use instead? If I didn't use electricity to run the dishwasher with the powdered dish soap that comes in a paperboard box, what could I use to wash my dishes? Anyone have any ideas? What do you do?

Sincerely,
Nicole

Lynnet said...

Local Harvest is the greatest! I handle veggie shares for a local CSA. More than half of our new members come direct from the Local Harvest site. This is phenomenal.

We're close to selling out our summer shares already, in April, and we added 50% more this year. A lot of it is due to Local Harvest. We sent them a nice donation this year. They do more to support local food than anybody in the U.S.

Claire said...

Hi Nicole--

I was thinking about the same thing concerning the plastics. Some health food stores have bulk sections where you can "fill up" on liquid soaps, lotions, shampoos. You could bring your own bottles to fill.

The other option is making your own soap-- liquid soap usually requires castille soap (again, often available in bulk areas of health food stores). If your only option is to buy a big plastic jug of it, then do it before the extreme eco challenge officially begins! ;)

(I have also heard some people swear by cleaning dishes with a solution of vinegar and water and rinsing in very hot water--I may try this...)

Does anyone else have any suggestions about soaps and other cleansing agents?
--Claire

Anonymous said...

Nicole -- Is there a co-op or natural foods grocery store anywhere in your area? You can often get both powdered and liquid dish soap in bulk at places like that. I have an old dish soap bottle full of bulk Dr. Bronner's for dishes (and another one for the shower). I'm not counting re-used plastic for the challenge. I mean, I could move it to a glass container instead, but why? Soap, also, is pretty much soap if you don't mind a little extra scrubbing. If you dissolved some bar soap in water, it would probably be good for dish soap, especially with a bit of extra baking soda thrown in. (Or you could always just use the bar of soap, but that sounds unweildily slippery).

blepharisma said...

Does anyone know of a local produce search engine like that for Canada?

Creative Life Studio said...

Thanks for the suggestions! :) We have a Whole Foods and a couple of natural foods stores where I live, but none supply soap in bulk (boo! :( )

I was reading on Life Less Plastic's blog about how she uses bar soap and that is working well for her. For greasy things, others on her post recommended adding the vinegar to the water. I think I'll be trying these when my SG runs out.

Now I'm wondering about my contacts and solution. I already have enough purchased to get me through the challenge, but I wonder about afterwards. I'm not ready to switch to wearing my glasses full time - which is equal parts vanity and convenience, if the truth be told. I'll be giving this some more thought.

homebrewlibrarian said...

When I moved back to Alaska last year, Local Harvest was one of the first places I checked for local food offerings. That's how I found the CSA I'm now a member of. I've used Local Harvest to help one of my sisters find local organic foods in Florida. It's a terrific resource!

mrs. pivec - I'm with you about contact solution. I have managed to get away from solutions that contain chlorhexidine and thimerosal but they still come in individual plastic (the company claims the bottles can be recycled but there's no recycle symbol or number on them) bottles. The stuff I'm using is Clear Conscience. Given the sterile nature of contact solution, it's highly unlikely they'll ever be made available as a "bulk" item. I did send a question to the company concerning recyclability so we'll see what they say.

Kerri in AK

Dana Seilhan said...

If I may suggest something obvious, there's always switching back to glasses. They need a lot less inputs as far as time and cleaning and chemicals are concerned.