The other day I went to our friendly neighborhood food coop here in Tucson, with a canvas re-usable bag full of used plastic bottles to re-use, for shampoo, conditioner, dish soap, etc. I dutifully weighed the empty bottles at the scale and went over to fill them up, feeling good that I was reducing my usage of nondegradable packaging materials.

But when I got home Greta noted, glancing at the receipt, the prices of the re-usably-contained liquid products: for example, about $4 going on $5 for the shampoo. You can buy a new bottle of shampoo at Trader Joe's for about 3 bucks. The same general story for all those bottles.

So, what incentive is there to re-use those bottles? Just the good fuzzy warm smug glow inside from being a happy smug green consumer? Maybe for some of us with overdeveloped senses of morality and responsibility - and even then, as our wallets get thinner in these dark days, it's harder and harder to be "responsible". Furthermore, for the vast majority of the populace, that will not do even in good times.

The sustainable/green/earth-friendly consumer "movement" will never really get going unless there's more reason to do it than just "do the right thing."