All Aboard for Organics on Amtrak

Just a couple of quick notes from the train ride home. Amtrak not only serves Green Mountain Coffee, they have a wide selection of organic snacks available. Very nice to see and makes me want to keep riding Amtrak (though it would make me want to ride even more if they had free WiFi).

It was also nice that the cafe car server accepted my reusable mug. The last time I took an Amtrak train, the server refused to take my mug, saying, "I don't want my bosses to accuse me of stealing." I guess he wanted to make sure he gave out a paper cup for every cup of coffee sold?

My reusable mug also came in handy at Amtrak's tiny water dispensers. The only way to get water out of them is by filling miniature paper cones that hold about one gulp of water. So kept refilling the cone and dumping the water into my mug, it saved me quite a few trips to the water dispenser.

The Green Miles vs. White Oak Canyon

The Green Miles went back to Shenandoah National Park recently to hike White Oak Canyon. The weather was as weird as the waterfalls were beautiful:

3pm: Arrive at top of canyon. 85, sunny.
4pm: Arrive at bottom of canyon. 80, thunderstorm.
5:30pm: Arrive back at top of canyon. 55, cloudy.
6:30pm: Exit park. 80, sunny.

We stopped at the visitors center to grab some water, but instead of buying bottled, I grabbed a reusable water bottle. Didn't say if it was BPA-free, so I'm assuming it has it. I wouldn't use it every day, but for hikes and such, it'll do just fine. Kept the water surprisingly cool, too.

Reusables: The Big Lie

Nobody loves reusables more than The Green Miles. Toting my reusable coffee mug all over the country. Bringing my reusable grocery bag to Harris Teeter.

But from businesses to environmentalists, there's a Big Lie that people seem to be buying into. The Big Lie is that giving a discount of five or ten cents on your grocery bill or on a cup of coffee will get people to use reusables.

Allow me to detail exactly how many people will change their behavior based on a five or ten cent discount: No one.

Let me repeat that in big bold letters: No one.

Let's take Starbucks as an example. Buy a stainless steel desktop mug for $18.95, and with their 10 cent discount for bringing your own mug, you'll recoup your investment in just 190 cups of coffee! Talk about a lousy return on investment. And that's assuming you don't lose track of the mug by then.

Of course people will use reusables for other reasons, and that discount does help reinforce that behavior. But most people won't bend over to pick up a dime on the street, never mind change their routine because of one.

Why does The Big Lie live on? Because no one wants to discourage stores from doing what they can to promote reusables, so environmentalists feel like they have to take what they can get.

There's only one way to really incentivize reusables, and that's by ending the practice of giving away disposable containers. If you charged 25 cents per bag or per cup, you'd see behaviors change in a hurry. That 25 cents could then go to litter cleanup or recycling efforts. Right now, if someone doesn't properly dispose of their disposable, you pay for its cleanup through your tax dollars.

What's stopping that? No one wants to be the first, or worse yet, the only. Just take a look at British supermarket chain Sainsbury's, which tried to charge for bags:

We did a 'pay-for' trial some years ago where we did charge the cost price for carrier bags to our customers, but our customers where not happy and complained. From these trials we decided to stop charging our customers for carrier bags and fall in line with other retailers.

But a recent JD Power study reported reusables present a strong branding opportunity:

Nearly 45 percent of upscale store customers and 30 percent of midscale customers say that they would like their department store to offer a designer shopping bag that is reusable, which presents an opportunity for stores to provide an environmentally friendly offering. Shoppers 40 years and younger tend to be more interested in reusable shopping bags, compared with their older counterparts.

The bottom line? There are plenty of ways to promote reusables -- environmental education efforts, giveaways of reusables, and financial incentives with teeth. But as Yogi Berra once said, a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

Why Resuables Make The Green Miles Feel Like Johnny Appleseed

Confusion reigned from the moment I handed my reusable grocery bag to the bagger at my local Harris Teeter recently. First she tried handing it to the customer who’d just checked out, thinking it was something they’d dropped. Then she just set it aside, clearly having no idea what it was, and started putting my groceries into standard plastic bags. Finally, the cashier turned to her and explained how the reusable bag worked.

Incidents like that make me feel like the Johnny Appleseed of reusables, spreading the word about reusables whereever I go. And sure, that's cool, but on the other hand, it would be nice to sport reusables without having it be a major production.

Granted, I’ve used my reusable bag many times at Harris Teeter with no problems, and it was obviously a new bagger, but the situation illustrates one of the sticking points as reusable items are introduced. Service employees have to be trained to use the new items, even if that training is only a quick explanation from the senior cashier. That training may come from the employer or the customer, but until employees more universally recognize reusables, it can make the process a pain in the neck for the customer.

Another example came just yesterday as I flew back from San Francisco on United Airlines. The Green Miles travels with his handy ACE/Daily Grind reusable coffee mug because:

- Conservationally, it saves me from having to use somewhere around five paper coffee cups and plastic water bottles per trip
- Conveniently, I don’t have to worry about tracking down a recycling bin for any plastic water bottles I would’ve used
- Socially, at events like the Society of Environmental Journalists conference it Nuke LaLoosh-style announces my presence with authority as a green mack daddy

I got it filled with coffee at a shop in the airport, then on the plane, asked the flight attendant to fill it with soda. It had worked fine on the flight out, but just like the grocery bagger, this flight attendant was definitely unclear on the concept. She saw my mug and said, “Oh here, I’ll give you the cup of ice and the can of soda and you can fill it yourself.” She thought she was being helpful. Not so much.

At that point, any hope of conserving a plastic cup had been lost, so I dumped the ice into my mug and gave the cup back to her, which she threw out. So instead of the usual two containers (plastic cup and soda can), we used three (cup, can, mug). This is progress? At least I was able to recycle the can in the terminal thanks to Dulles’ new recycling bins.

If a product is a pain to use, people will stop using it. (I know, I missed my true calling in marketing, didn’t I?) It’s something we well-meaning conservationists need to keep in mind as we push reusables like grocery bags, coffee mugs, and water bottles. The early adopters should be prepared for minor hassles like the ones described above. But really, they’re minor inconveniences when you know you’re breaking the resource-container-landfill cycle, don’t you think?