Cast Your Votes

A couple months ago I bought myself a new sports bottle. The bottle was made by Camelback, a company which you may have heard of -- they are a fairly well-known maker of sports bottles and other sports equipment and are sold at stores like REI. I loved the design of my new bottle and figured that, by refilling the same bottle all day long I would be better able to better gauge how much water I was drinking. Our nanny, Anne, agreed and bought one for herself as well.

Well, it's too bad I hadn't finished doing my research on plastics before she and I wasted our money! I checked the bottom of the bottle yesterday and within the chasing arrows symbol was the number 7. As I mentioned earlier, 7 is not one of the "safe" numbers for plastics. I was so discouraged!! I love this bottle! I carry it everywhere! I still couldn't believe that it could be harmful and so I called the manufacturer directly to see if maybe there was some mistake. I was hoping that, even though it was labeled 7, maybe the designers had figured out a way to make my beautiful, handy bottle without the toxic chemicals I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Not only was the bottle made using Bisphenol A, but the customer service rep acknowledged that the designers were aware that this is an issue. Why the heck did they make the product in the first place then??? Or, more importantly, why are they still selling it??

This is the part of business that I truly do not understand....How do companies get to the point that they justify continuing to make products even though they know that either the manufacturing process or the product itself will be harmful to people? Why aren't there more companies willing to say "Making products that are harmful to people or the environment are just not worth it. That is not what I want my company to stand for. No amount of profit is worth that price."?

There are obviously companies out there that have taken this stance: Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, Bert's Bees, and Aveda to name a few. And I applaud them with all my might! The world needs more companies like this. We -- as a generation facing an ridiculously overwhelming amount of toxins in our lives -- NEED companies like this. Why are there not more?

Capitalism is a complex issue -- more complex than I can cover in one blog entry while suffering the mind-dulling effect of chemo. But I think that the high level summary of why there are not more companies like this is, until consumers start demanding products that are made in an environmentally sensitive and sustainable way and that are not harmful to our bodies, companies will continue to cut corners in order to make a profit. I am completely confident that McDonald's would be the first to jump on the "grass-fed, organic beef hamburger on organic whole grain bun" bandwagon if they thought they could grow market share by doing so! Unfortunately, at this point, "industrial-raised feedlot beef on a cornstarch bun" is cheaper. And until customers start complaining or start shifting their purchases elsewhere, McDonald's has no incentive to change.

I bought a little pocket-sized book recently called The Better World Shopping Guide. It's a great little guide that ranks companies across a number of product categories based on their social and environmental responsibility. I found the introduction to the book to be a fascinating eye-opener:

Wherever large amounts of money collect, so also new centers of power form. As trillions of dollars accumulate in the corporate sphere, we witness the growing power of corporations to shape the world. These new power centers are not democracies. We don't vote for the CEO's or their policies (unless we are shareholders), yet our destinies are increasingly in their hands. As these power centers shift, we must shift our own voices if we wish to be heard. As citizens, on average, we might vote once every four years, if at all. As consumers, however, we vote every single day with the purest form of power...money. The average American family spends around $18,000 every year on goods and services. Think of this as casting 18,000 votes every year for the kind of world you want to live in.

So, before I hung up with the customer service rep at Camelback, I cast my vote! I told him to please relay to his Sr Executives that I was throwing away my Camelback sports bottle and would not be buying any more Camelback products until they make ones that are completely safe. I told him that I have cancer and that I am not taking any chances for myself or for my family. The crazy thing is, the customer service rep then confided, "I have a four-year-old daughter and I feel the same way."