If you take the R train from Manhattan south to Union station in Brooklyn, you emerge in a streetscape that looks somewhat less than eco-friendly. But a few brownstone-lined blocks over, on a charming street of shops, you’ll find 3R Living, a tidy boutique of recycled, re-thought and refreshing lifestyle products. The store is the brainchild of couple Samantha Delman-Caserta and Mark Caserta, who combined her background in marketing with his involvement in environmental issues to create a business they could really live. The shop smells deliciously of beeswax and Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning products, a line of soaps, toilet cleaners and sprays that bring a touch of aromatherapy to everyday scrubbing. Other offerings include organic linens, wallets made from inner tubes, and solar-powered backpacks that will charge your phone in places you won’t even be able to get reception. Heading for their third year of operation, Samantha and Mark say it is going very well, with much success due to their on-line sales portal. When asked about possible expansion plans, Mark was cautiously optimistic, saying that he wanted to get all of their existing systems perfectly buttoned down first. Suffice it to say it was extremely heartening to see such a future-friendly venture succeeding. (Personally, I think they would kick ass on west 4^th avenue in Vancouver.) Visit them in Brooklyn at 276L 5th Ave, or on-line at http://www.3rliving.com.

Surprising Stats:

Eighty-two per cent of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for residents of Los Angeles County. New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy use.*
*Green Manhattan - New Yorker, October 2004

Organics on the Street

 In the middle of January, on my way to the subway, I was surprised to see an organic farm market at Union Square. Turns out this is a weekly occurrence, through the GreenMarket program, operated since 1976 by the Council on the Environment of New York City. Almost 200 local farmers, fishers and bakers  sell what they grow, raise, catch and bake themselves, at 44 locations in the five boroughs. No middlemen or brokers allowed. So the members of the world's largest eco-commune don’t even have to leave their tree-hugging hippie paradise to shop locally-grown and organic.

When you want the Whole Thing.

 On the ‘Bigger Apple’ side of the scale is Manhattan’s largest grocery store, the 59,000 square-foot flagship Time-Warner Centre location of Whole Foods Market. Organics, fair trade and wellness products cram the shelves, all merchandised and displayed with point-of-sale material that screams “I was crafted by incredibly-skilled-yet-undiscovered New York writers and artists forced into indentured servitude in the design and advertising world”. If the throngs of designer-clad Manhattanites lining up to spend their cash isn’t a top-down endorsement of the good-food movement, I don’t know what is. Vancouver is also slated to get its own Whole Foods market at Broadway and Cambie. Local eco-favourites Choices and Capers had better get their marketing teams busy. For more on Whole Foods and their Manhattan location, visit www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/columbuscircle/.