And, where did The Green Car Company go?

Yet another green business attempts to make a home in Bellevue... fruitlessly.

The Green Car Company sells a variety of alternative energy and energy-efficient vehicles: electric cars and bikes, biodiesel vehicles, Smart cars, hybrids (plug-in and standard), and other economy vehicles. They came to Bellevue from Kirkland, anticipating greater exposure and combining their sales and repair in a more convenient layout. They opened up shop on 106th last year, then closed it just a few months ago.

Although that short stay didn't give them time to get established nor make themselves known to Bellevue residents, they claim they didn't feel welcome here. They felt no support by the residents nor the city. What is it that we Bellevuites aren't doing for these green companies to make them stay and join our environmentally-friendly community? After all, we have one of the best city park systems in the state if not the country - does that not prove that we are interested in the quality of the environment? Well, parks is just a small part of being environmentally conscious.

We need to develop 'green' attitudes which include becoming energy-efficient, water-wise, considerate of our resources in terms of cleanliness (i.e. the disuse of toxic and environmentally detrimental products), and accustomed to using the 3-R's diligently: reduce, reuse, recycle. By supporting companies that work for the betterment of our society and our planet, we participate in an extremely important mission of making our community holistically greener.

I'm sorry to see The Green Car Company leave us particularly due to their reason for leaving. I look forward to the time when we welcome with open arms companies, such as this one, which stand for positive changes for our society. May we begin to reconsider our actions and decisions and be a magnet for them.

What Happened to EcoHaus?

I was dumbstruck when I drove to the old EcoHaus location on Bel-Red and it had closed! What could have happened to cause the failure of Bellevue's only Green Home store?

Although I haven't learned the facts behind the closure, I can come up with several plausible reasons.

1. The poor economy didn't allow sales to keep the store alive
2. The parent company, Environmental Home Center in Seattle, recently renamed EcoHaus, just couldn't support both locations for internal reasons
3. The Bellevue shoppers haven't yet changed their mentalities toward green living, so a green product store such as EcoHaus was simply a novel idea to the residents, not a signal that it's due time they change their buying habits.

Oh, sure, the Bellevuites flow steadily into Whole Foods, where buying expensive organic and mostly environmentally friendly products is most likely more of an indication of status and wealth than of a new belief system. I must admit that I have conflicting feelings about Whole Foods (political reasons included), but that store is, without a doubt, solely in the business to make money. Its huge bottom dollar is the prime reason for its existence. EcoHaus (ex-EHC) opened exclusively for the purpose of bringing eco-friendly items to the consumer and continues to live with that mission.

Many other US cities have turned their sights to greening their communities - why is Bellevue lagging behind?

Dazed and confused about grocery shopping

I must say that I do love Trader Joes. It offers a good variety of interesting as well as mostly healthy and organic products. It's been seldom that I've purchased a product of which I was dissatisfied - the quality is typically good and the food is typically rather tasty if not delicious.

However. I don't believe I've been brainwashed to believe the importance of supporting our local businesses, manufacturers, and producers. Making our country - and local environs - economically strong is essential to any sort of decent future for our next of kin (such as my 16 year old daughter), and one of the best ways to do that is to keep our money circulating locally, or at least nationally.

Sure, some of the money we spend at Trader Joes goes to the employees, the building maintenance vendors, most likely the local administration that manages the building and possibly even the product buyer. There are even a few U.S. products such as their wines and beers, and I suppose some of the dairy products, too. But a huge percentage of the dollars earned by the store goes overseas to the multitudes of countries that ship their goods to Trader Joes. How does that support our local economy? Right, it doesn't.

I've come to understand the harm to our country's welfare by the Free Trade Agreement, and now understand why there was so much passion against the WTO meetings in Seattle 10 years ago. The USA simply will not thrive unless we bring manufacturing and buying back home. (By the way, if you haven't yet seen The Battle in Seattle, it's well worth watching.)

But, that still doesn't prevent me from liking Trader Joes. The question is do I continue to shop there because I like it, or avoid the store on principle? It's truly a tough decision.