I wasn't going to take pictures at the Green Festival this time. Then I cam across this booth with a big banner across the back that said "We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing oriented' society to a 'person oriented' society - Martin Luther King Jr." Below that was another one that said "If you stop the pollution in people's minds, they will stop the pollution of the environment." There was a woman there who explained that the collage next to her was an expression of people's ideas about the right thing to do. I decided I needed to take a picture of that. Here is the most interesting part of it:

They were near the begining of the non-profit sector of the event. After that I had my camera out, but most of what I saw were advocacy organizations handing out pieces of paper and collecting email addresses.

   

The Peace Corps was giving out leaves they had stamped their information on instead of business cards. It was the lowest input gimmie I remember seeing at the whole event. Even samples of food that you pick up and eat contain more processing.

These white board markers were refillable. A set costs $60, but the guy said it would replace dozens of normal disposable white board markers. You unscrew the tip and drip ink from the squeeze bottles into the barrel. They also have extra bottles of refill ink for something like $5 each. I hadn't noticed such a product before. Many times I've had to deal with white boards and dried out markers. I hope they do well!

  

Reuseniks sells dry cleaning bags. The idea is take your stuff to the cleaner in the bag, give them the whole load. They clean it all and send it home in the reuseniks bag instead of a disposable. I don't use dry cleaners, but hopefully people that do will prevent a lot of big plastic bag consumption with these.

I spent most of the day pushing stickers and shopping. The above are most of the things I got in exchange for MEND YOUR FUELISH WAYS stickers. The tea is sort of an exception. The guy let me have it for a bit less than the standard price, so I gave him a sticker with my money. Of these, the only sticker I expect to see on one of my bicycles is the BUY FRESH, BUY LOCAL. I got that from Community Alliance with Family Farms (www.caff.org).

  

Then I found these items that I'd forgotten to include in the other picture. I got the milk because the guy selling coffee had over estimated the size of the crowd he was going to have to deal with, and there was too much left at the end of the day. I'd say the crowd wasn't as thick as it had been last year, but maybe that's because the economy is down.

I'm hoping to read these books (and the big bag of other paper I picked up) on the way to and from Virgina Beach this Thanksgiving. I also did a bunch of my Christmas Shopping. What I really enjoyed was talking to the people I saw there though.