This Saturday is World Fair Trade Day. I am, like many of us I suspect, guilty of being a bit of a fairweather fair trade buyer. I tend to go for the usual fair trade suspects like bananas, coffee, tea and chocolate. These tend to be the easiest and most visible/publicised fair trade products. But there is actually a suprisingly wide range of fair trade stuff out there, and not just from stores like Ethical Superstore, but also from online grocery stores like Waitrose and Sainsbury's, who tend to have a wider range available online than in-store which will hopefully change in future. And it's not just groceries that you should consider but clothes, accessories and household items.The Fairtrade Foundation are suggesting we get involved with a fair trade breakfast which sounds like a cool idea to me. But even if you can't manage that, try adding a few extra fair trade items to your shopping basket in the next week or so and it might even become a habit....
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I must say, the whole 'eco-friendly' initiative seems to be far more pervasive in Europe/UK than here in SA. For instance, in our grocery stores there are almost no indications of eco-friendly and fair trade products, and our online shopping os hardly main stream. I guess in time we will eventually catch up, but will it be soon enough?
ReplyDeleteIt is certainly a lots easier to be eco-friendly here, more shops, more stores etc. There is a Fair Trade SA 'branch' www.fairtrade.org.za. but from the sounds of things on their website they are relatively new and at the moment, the only fair trade stuff they list as available in SA is wine, coffee and rooibos tea! The heartening thing though is that this is how it started in the UK as well....so hopefully it will grow. It seems to me that SA has a particular interest in fair trade because the whole issue affects Africa so much.
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