Alison was honored to join the Down to Earth 'ohana in 2018. She represents Down to Earth at the Hawaii State Legislature, Honolulu City Council, and Maui County Council on issues that are important to our customers, like organic and local farming, GMOs, and animal rights, as well as other environmental and community health initiatives. Alison is always searching for sustainability solutions for the Down to Earth stores and loves sharing eco-friendly tips with our customers. She also assists the Marketing Team with merchandising, community outreach, events, and classes. Alison is a homeschooling mom with 3 daughters and loves hiking, yoga, ocean swimming, and organic gardening.
My kids and I were swimming at a Windward beach recently and afterwards we had to pick small pieces of plastic off our skin and out of each others' hair that had been floating in a colorful soup on the ocean surface. Yuck.
I think we all know plastic pollution is a big problem. Walk on any beach, drive on any highway, go to any park anywhere on the islands (and practically anywhere in the world) and the plastic pollution is disturbingly evident.
Have you seen stories in the news about people who produce almost no trash? This is achieved by only purchasing things with little to no packaging, doing without items that are wasteful, and being dedicated to recycling and composting. Although that is admirable, it does seem pretty unrealistic for most people. Food packaging, paper napkins, diapers, junk mail, empty medicine bottles and other plastics that aren’t recyclable, broken pens and other office supplies...all this and more seem nearly impossible to avoid while functioning in our current world.
