Sponsored Post – from the Austin Earth Day Festival

This series introduces the sponsors of Austin Earth Day Festival in the weeks leading up to our April 23rd event. It’s great to be able to feature these businesses and organizations that are helping to make Austin more sustainable.

Written by Janis Bookout, Outreach Manager for the Austin Earth Day Festival

There you are at a food truck, hungry and transfixed by yummy smells, and then they hand you your food in a Styrofoam clamshell. You walk away with a sinking feeling, knowing that your lack of consciousness and desire for convenience just won — again. I know it’s a small moment, but those are the moments when our battle for protecting the environment really takes shape. For those who care, the work to do in that moment is to deal with what got in the way and resolve to make a different choice next time. But the problem, obviously, is bigger than that.

Why does convenience win so often? Why aren’t we all making better choices, and why aren’t better choices more easily available to us? Recently, as I prepared for Earth Day, I went to talk to a potential food vendor to make sure he wouldn’t use Styrofoam, and he told me, ‘but Styrofoam is cheaper and it works better.’

Cheaper for who? Certainly still cheaper for the vendor (at least that will be true until Styrofoam is universally banned). But not cheaper for my children who will have to deal with the transferred costs, both economic and experiential, of environmental degradation over the next 50 years.

And what about the statement that “it works better” – does it, really? I question that statement, but even if it is better for keeping hot things hot, it absolutely does not work better for our ecosystems. If you want to know more about that, check out Harvard’s fact sheet.

So how do we ensure that the products available to us are the products that protect our future?

It’s pretty simple, really. But the solution rests in the hands of the early adopter–the one who is willing to make choices based on being true to themselves rather than following the masses. Eventually, the masses will follow them.

Alfred Achar is one such early adopter. Owner of Nature House Green Products, Alfred offers compostable and biodegradable alternatives to food vendors, restaurants, schools, corporate break rooms, Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability-LOHAS consumers, and special events such as birthdays, weddings, graduations, barbecues & more. He is sponsoring Earth Day this year to help create more awareness of the availability of compostable food packaging products, and hopefully to break into the Austin market.

NatureHouse® Green Products is a Houston-based, minority business enterprise that manufactures and distributes sustainable food packaging products from natural and renewable resources, or from recycled and post-consumer fibers. Their mission is “to be a sustainable products company recognized for its people, environmental stewardship, social responsibility and performance.” If you want to know more about his products, read this very informative article.

As an early adopter myself, I claim it as my responsibility to do everything I can to improve my city’s readiness for change. As I sit back and consider what that would look like, I’m thinking — wouldn’t it be great if food vendors posted on their storefront, nice and clear – “We reward re-use! We use compostables! We compost and recycle!” That way before you get in line and place your order, you know what you are getting. I know which line I would stand in.

My son likes to say, “Don’t eat the environment, or it will eat you!” I have to admit, I’m not sure exactly what he means. But I definitely get the gist of it, and so do you. Environmental stewardship isn’t just right, it’s smart. Smart for the future. But if we expect others to get on board, I think we have to be more vocal with our vendors and start demanding their accountability in the matter. And reward the early adopters by giving them our money. Eventually the masses will follow.