Why Don’t People Buy Environmentally Friendly Products?
Aug 30, 2010 Environmentally Friendly
Lots of people want to be more environmentally friendly. Not everyone; in fact, some are downright opposed to the idea, and strongly. But even those who want to be more eco friendly in their homes won’t buy the products. Why is that?
Confusion
Confusion may be a large part of the problem. The various claims are confusing and often misleading. People don’t always know which products are really eco friendly versus merely being greenwashed.
Uncertainty About Quality
Many people aren’t at all certain that eco friendly products are going to be as good as conventional products. Conventional products are comfortable to use, and people know what they do. They’ve been using them after all.
Eco friendly products, on the other hand, are less well known. Many people don’t have a friend familiar enough with the products to share success stories or to say to avoid particular products that don’t work so well.
Many eco friendly products are not advertised in the same way conventional products are. You don’t see them on television so much unless they’re made by one of the big brands. While some don’t like to admit it, such advertising has a big effect on how products are viewed.
Hard to See Personal Benefit
Telling someone that a product benefits the environment is great. Lots of people like to hear that. But it’s hard to get people to take action without a quickly obvious personal benefit.
That’s much harder to demonstrate, as the basic benefit of using an environmentally friendly product is about the same as using a conventional product. The potential long term personal health benefits and benefits to the environment are much harder to see.
Cost
Eco friendly products are perceived as more expensive. That’s because many of the most visible products do cost more. Organic cotton products cost more. Hybrid cars cost more. Solar panels are expensive.
Yet many eco friendly products are easily affordable. Vinegar and baking soda work very well as cleaning products, but many people aren’t aware that they can be used in this way or that they do such a good job. Other eco friendly products can also be affordable.
“One Person Can’t Make a Difference”
Many people feel that what they do personally doesn’t make a significant difference. They’re both right and wrong about that.
Choosing eco friendly products can be better for your health, and while you can’t define that difference much of the time, it can be a difference.
But even more important is that as each individual makes the choice of buying eco friendly products shows businesses that it’s worth their time and money to provide eco friendly products. Choosing to do business with companies with eco friendly practices makes it worth their while to continue to improve those practices. It takes more than one to make that difference, but if individuals don’t make those choices, the pressure never builds up on the businesses to make the change.
Are You Replacing Too Much in an Attempt to be Green?
Aug 10, 2010 Eco Friendly Home
Living an eco friendly life is complicated at times. There are usually a lot of things you want to buy that are more eco friendly than what you own now, but when is that the right choice? When does it make more sense environmentally speaking to buy new?
Appliances and Electronics – It’s Not All About Efficiency
Replacing appliances and electronics can be a tough decision, and much of it depends on just how bad the old version is. Really old refrigerators are likely good prospects for replacement when you’re ready. Newer models are much more efficient and you should quickly see a decrease in your power bills. Just make sure the old one is sent off to a good recycling program.
Laptop computers
Electronics can be problematic in general due to recycling issues. When it comes time to replace some of your old electronics, make sure you think about how you’re disposing of the old. There are some pretty toxic metals inside them.
Plastics
Getting rid of plastics is an environmental issue and possibly a health issue as well. People can argue about whether or not BPA is a problem, but there’s no denying that plastic is an environmental problem. Search for pictures of the Pacific Garbage Patch if you doubt that.
They’re incredibly hard to get rid of completely. Plastic comes into our homes in so many ways.
Plastic wraps some of the foods we buy from the grocery store. It’s used in the bags many stores use when you make a purchase. It’s used in water bottles and food storage containers. It’s used to make bottles that hold cleaning and personal care supplies. It’s all over the place.
Some areas it’s easy to say that you should buy something to replace the plastic you’d be using otherwise. A good quality reusable shopping bag – not one of the cheapies sold by the grocery store for a dollar, but a good one – should last a long time, be washable and keep you from having your purchases put into a plastic bag.
A stainless steel water bottle is a great replacement for buying disposable plastic water bottles. Pick good quality and it will last for years. You’ll even save money over time in comparison to buying water in disposable bottles. And I don’t mean all that much time if you’ve been buying a lot of water.
Invest in a good filter if you really aren’t used to the flavor of tap water. Plastic may be involved in at least the casing of the filter, but as I’ve said – it’s really hard to avoid plastics.
Clothes
If you’re replacing perfectly good clothes with eco friendly versions, you may be doing it wrong. What you have has already done whatever environmental damage inherent in its creation. So long as you choose eco friendly laundry detergents, there’s nothing wrong with continuing to use what you have until it wears out.
When to Replace?
In general, save the eco friendly shopping for when something really needs replacement. Don’t go chasing after the latest, greatest eco friendly whatever. That’s called consumerism and it’s very easy to fall for.
When you’re replacing something, think about how you’re disposing of it. Could you or someone else reuse or repurpose it? Can it be recycled? Is it honestly just trash?
Use things until they really aren’t worth keeping, and then think if they need to be replaced. Sometimes reduce is the real answer. Buying just because it’s the latest eco item to catch your attention is not a good reason to buy anything.
Tags: green shopping, reuse
Does Buying Eco Friendly Clothing Really Help the Environment?
Aug 9, 2010 Going Green
Choosing eco friendly clothes is a common piece of advice for families who are trying to go green. Clothing is something we all need, and with kids in the house, new clothes are needed pretty often. Wondering if your shopping habits are really making a difference isn’t a bad thing; it just shows that you’re really thinking about the impact you’re having/
What Is Eco Friendly Clothing?
The first thing you need to figure out is just what is meant by eco friendly when it comes to clothing. Clothes made from organic cotton come easily to mind for most of us. Bamboo is a popular material now. But to really get into eco friendly clothes, you need to go beyond the simple categories.
Handmedown clothes are eco friendly. You’re reusing clothes that someone else was done with.
Clothes bought at thrift stores are eco friendly. Same deal as with handmedowns.
The clothes you have in your closet aren’t going to get any more un-eco friendly, so long as you care for them in environmentally friendly ways.
That’s important to remember. Going green is not all about shopping.
Worrying about whether the materials used to make the clothes matters most when you’re buying new. That’s when you get into organic cotton and other such materials. They matter most when the materials used are new to your purchase.
Does Buying Organic Cotton Clothes Make a Difference?
You can feel as though the difference in how your clothes are produced is a small issue, environmentally speaking. We’re so far removed from where the cotton is grown and processed that it’s easy to miss the harms.
Tremendous amounts of fertilizers and pesticides are used on conventionally grown cotton. This is bad for the land it’s grown on and for the lakes, rivers and oceans the excess water may runoff to. There’s a good post over on The Good Human called What’s So Bad About Non-Organic Cotton? that explains the situation well.
Buying organic cotton also means you’re supporting farmers who aren’t using so many potentially dangerous chemicals.
Clothes made from bamboo, even organic bamboo, are a bit more complex. Most bamboo cloth is chemically processed. Some of these chemicals are hard on the environment and on the workers using them. This processing turns it into a viscose or rayon fiber. It’s not as natural as many want you to think.
Overall, if you want to help the environment through the clothes you wear, really think about where they’re coming from, and don’t go for the huge wardrobe. Reduce how much you buy new, buy used when you can, and pay attention to how the new clothes are made. That’s the best way to limit the impact your clothes shopping has on the environment.
Sites to try:
Tags: clothes, green shopping, organic cotton, shopping, thrift stores
How Do You Find Eco Friendly Store Bought Cleaners?
Jul 26, 2010 Cleaning Products
Not everyone wants to make their own cleaners for their home, even when it’s as simple as baking soda and vinegar for many jobs. Some prefer to buy cleaner that have been made for them. The hard part is getting past the claims and finding products that are more environmentally friendly and safer for your family.
What do you look for?
There area few clues, and labels proclaiming that the product is “all natural,” “green” and so forth really aren’t it. Too many of these claims are not regulated and are in fact meaningless.
Clearly Marked Ingredients
The ingredients in general should be clearly marked. There are a lot of ingredients to look out for, such as anything derived from petroleum. There are a lot of ways these can be listed, such as mineral oil, propylene glycol, isopropyl alcohol, parabens, and many synthetic fragrances.
If you don’t know what’s in the cleaner, you don’t know what you’re using. A partial list isn’t enough.
Calling a product chemical free is misleading. While most of us would assume they mean dangerous chemicals, the simple truth is that nothing in this world is chemical free. Water is a chemical, for example. So is baking soda. Don’t let a label mislead you with this term.
Good Terms to See on the Label
There are several terms you do want to see on the labels of cleaning products. These include phosphate free, ammonia free, plant based, biodegradable, chlorine free, certified USDA organic, solvent free, fragrance free, and dye or artificial color free.
Terms to Beware of
Some terms are there specifically to tell you that the product is dangerous to ingest or get on your skin. Even some natural products can have problems, such as essential oils that are better for you when diluted into a carrier oil. Natural does not equal safe, after all.
Poison and danger are the strongest terms. These are the products you most want to avoid, and doubly so want to keep away from your children.
Next come caution and warning. These have hazards, but not as bad as those labeled poison or danger. Still not thing you want to have around your home when you can avoid them.
Finally, if the package tells you to wear gloves or use in a well ventilated space, pay attention. These are hard on your skin or can make breathing difficult. They certainly aren’t healthy for you to have significant contact with.
Packaging
You can’t avoid packaging, even if you make your own cleaning supplies. But you can do your best to buy cleaning products in packages that can be reused, refilled or recycled. Reusable and refillable are of course the best.
Many genuinely eco friendly companies try hard to have refillable containers. It’s a part of their work to be kinder to the planet. Non-eco friendly companies can do this as well, so it’s not a real indicator.
Refills should be in either larger containers or in a concentrated form so that they use less packaging than the original container. Ideally these containers should also be recyclable, although the lack of available recycling facilities is a reality many of us have to deal with.
Generally Good Brands
While I can’t promise that every product offered by these companies will be good, these companies tend to sell cleaning products that are more eco friendly than others you will see on store shelves.
Simple Green Naturals
Dr. Bronner’s
Method
Seventh Generation
Is There Ever a Good Reason to Shop at the Dollar Store?
Jul 13, 2010 Budget Environmentalism
When you think of your local dollar store, you probably think of all the plastic and cheaply made crap they sell. Dollar stores aren’t exactly known for their high quality merchandise, and they certainly don’t aim at the environmentally friendly market. With that in mind, is there ever a good reason to shop at one?
I’ve found a few. They’re strictly limited, and I believe that if you can afford better options, do so. But sometimes even when you’re green you do what you have to do.
Budget
While much of what the typical dollar store carries is low quality, there are some reasonable things to buy there. Just what depends on which one you shop at.
I’ve found coloring books and workbooks for my kids at the one by me. These are things I can’t get at the library since the kids need to color or write in them. We don’t use a lot of coloring books as my kids would mostly rather draw their own pictures, but sometimes they want a coloring book.
The one by me also carries a lot of canned food. While I prefer to avoid canned foods, preferring fresh or frozen, for those things that I do buy in cans the price is often – not always- better than for the same thing at the grocery store. That means a lot when you’re on a tight budget.
The dollar store by me also carries fresh produce. Well, barely fresh produce. Sometimes it’s even organic. On a budget, buying produce that you know you need to use right away isn’t a bad thing, so long as you do use it. You have to be extremely picky to find the packages that have food in good condition, as too often the fruits and vegetables have already started to go bad.
That may sound gross, but there’s usually plenty of produce that is just fine.
What Shouldn’t You Buy at the Dollar Store?
If your goal is to be eco friendly, then the answer is “most of what they offer.”
Dollar stores serve a purpose, certainly. They sell a lot of stuff that didn’t sell at other stores. Most of it is things you really don’t need. Most of it is not remotely eco friendly.
The one by me sells tons of plastic containers. They have a lot of conventional cleaning supplies. They sell a lot of little party favors for gift bags. They sell a lot of cheap personal care items.
If you have a need, that’s one thing. But make sure it’s a need before you start buying even the highly discounted stuff at these stores.
If you need containers, for example, visit your local thrift shop, swap meet or garage sales first. You might luck into some cheap glass storage containers and get to avoid the plastic.
Much of your cleaning can be done with baking soda and vinegar, which are much cheaper when you buy them in bulk than what you’re likely to find at any dollar store.
If you’re throwing a party for one of your kids, skip the plastic party favors. If you really need to give the guests something, have it be a craft they can do at the party. We had a blast one year with the kids planting seeds in little pots they could take home. They loved it.
Think about where you’re spending your money. For a lot of reasons, the dollar store isn’t my first choice for shopping. But if you keep it sensible and really need the assist on your budget, do what you have to do. Just avoid the junk.
Tags: dollar store, green shopping
