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Wendell Covalt and fellow RAN activist David Rosenstein led a victorious effort to show the Santa Monica Co-Opportunity natural foods store why they should stop buying Weyerhaeuser paper bags. In his own words…

The Santa Monica Co-opportunity is a natural grocery co-op that is well regarded in Santa Monica, California. It is member owned and has a statement of purpose that says“their actions will be guided by the concepts of environmental sustainability and social responsibility”. I discovered that the Co-op was using Weyerhaeuser paper bags and contacted the store manager pointing out that Weyerhaeuser was one of the largest destroyers of old growth forests and violated indigenous rights, and thus was in violation of the Co-op’s stated policy. I said that they should start buying post consumer recycled paper bags. The store manager agreed with our position and approached the nation buying group that orders bags for them and other cooperatives across the nation. Unfortunately, the buying group was unwilling to take any action and the Co-op was reluctant to go it alone and independently switch bag vendors.

We then became more aggressive. David Rosenstein, a local RAN activist who lives in Santa Monica, approached the store manager and stated that they had shopped there for years and would like to see a change. He also approached the Board President and gave the same message. I told the store manager that while we appreciated his reluctance to move alone RAN would start picketing the store by Feb 1, 2006 if no action was taken and sent him pictures of our protests at Wild Oats. The combined activity was enough to motivate the Co-op to change especially given their stated purpose. They are now getting post consumer recycled bags from Duro Bag and have terminated their purchase of Weyerhaeuser bags.

Our congrats to Wendell and David for a great action! Keep up the great work and we’ll keep reporting it to the community!