This weekend the Green Living Show came to Toronto, assembling over 400 eco exhibitors in the Direct Energy center. It’s a show I’ve looked forward to since my first visit last year, an opportunity to try new products and hunt for deals, a day of aspirational living.
But I am, at times, an ambivalent ecoholic. I am fanatical about recycling and composting and electricity use. I use earth-friendly cleaning products. I reuse and freecycle. I grow as much of my own (organic) food as possible. I try to eat less meat, and “happy” meat. I take public transit, walk a lot, and am working on my two-wheeler relationship. But that said, there are so many things I don’t do. There are so many things that I’m even afraid to acknowledge that I should do, because so often it leads to guilt and anger.
A big part of the reason is that I feel lied to. By my government who I trusted to protect me from hazardous chemicals, but who I shouldn’t have, given all the insidious things that are in everyday products. By the companies who made those products. By advertisers and beauty magazines who told me I need the product, or [...]
