April Themes and Reflections

Every year as Earth Day comes around, I find myself mentally reviewing the ways in which I’m working to lessen my impact on our wild earth. And this year, Earth Day happened to coincide with a friend sending me a New York Times’ article, titled “ ‘Garbage Lasagna:’ Dumps Are a Big Driver of Warming, Study Says.” My mind has really been churning since. One thing I knew was bad for our environment was the amount of material things humans tend to consume; the energy to create them, ship them etc… But this article helped me understand that it’s not just the buying that is problematic, it’s the throwing away too! Eek.

I’m highlighting some of the things I do at home and also at Arctic Lynx Maternity. Share your ideas with me and maybe we can all pick up one or two new habits that help us all help the earth.

At home:

• We compost our food scraps (fruits, vegetables, flowers, pumpkins, egg shells) and though we don’t use the soil, what I’ve learned is simply allowing the food scraps to decompose with oxygen doesn’t create the same amount of methane as when food is trapped and then forced to decompose under other garbage.
• We do our best to buy quality over quantity. In my experience I have found that fewer high quality goods treat me better than many lower quality goods. 
• We buy US made products when possible. We do this because when things are made in the US, workers are making a minimum wage that I can understand and feel comfortable is regulated, and the product doesn’t have to travel so far to get to me. 
• We recycle. EcoMaine does a great job of publishing what you can and can’t recycle based on their facilities and I make sure to look at it periodically so I’m sure I am recycling items that actually can be recycled by my local facility.

At Arctic Lynx:

• We use recycled shipping materials from EcoEnclose.
• We produce our products in the US.
• We make small batches of products to allow for greater flexibility and consistency.
• We recently held a Sample Sale to sell our samples at a discounted price and to stop them from being thrown into the landfill.
• We are a member of 1% For the Planet.

And some new thoughts I had after all of this reflection;

• ALM will, for the near future, remain a small batch shop. It’s right for what we’re making and it’s right for our customers. We’ll continue the tradition of creating products that are durable, versatile and not too trendy (but of course still fabulous).

Please comment below and share the ways in which you lessen your impact on the earth. We can all learn from each other.

Take care,

Michelle