Buying more stuff?

The green revolution is upon us. It is the fad, the political buzz, and the true concern of our times. I struggle with frustration at the contradictions that occur within this movement, and I strive to clarify the principles that will actually help the earth and its future inhabitants (including humans). One of the largest errors that I see when people are trying to make the move to green is that they immediately go out and buy new, “green” products.

Any new product, unless it is extracted, processed, manufactured, transported and sold with entirely renewable energy, is still putting more greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere and should not be bought just because it is green. This does not help the environment.

I hope that before everyone and their grandma drops what they are doing to go out and buy the latest green products, they think about the repercussions first.

No matter how green, organic, sustainable and animal friendly your new organic cotton pants are, they were still most likely grown in fields of cotton that were planted and harvested by giant diesel tractors, shipped in giant diesel trucks to factories that processed, weaved and dyed them using lots of non-renewable energy, then shipped again to a store that doesn’t use renewable energy for its operations to sell them to you. And you probably drove to the store to get them, maybe in a hybrid car, which is slightly less bad than a regular car. The overall “green-ness” of those pants is only slightly higher than the regular pants you’ve always bought. Not to say that if you really need a new pair of pants, you should buy pesticide-laden cotton (cotton is the most highly sprayed crop in the world, using around 16% of all pesticides worldwide). On the contrary, a new pair of organic cotton pants is better for the environment than a new pair of poison cotton pants, but not so much so that you should abandon your old pants.

Actually, the greenest thing you could do is patch your old pants, using your own hands to sew the patch, and keep right on wearing them until they decompose off of your body. But that might not fly in some fashion circles.

Another example:

Green Build, the largest green building conference in the nation (Boston this November 19-21), has as one of its stated goals:
“Build 1 million green homes”

Now this may sound great to those who are clamoring for green jobs and the use of green materials, but what it says to me is “use energy and resources enough to build another MILLION homes!”

Of course the argument exists that we would be building another million homes anyway, but I can’t help thinking that the enthusiasm for building green homes (and other buildings) sometimes overshadows the fact that to produce green materials and turn them into usable buildings STILL takes TONS of fossil fuels. Transportation, manufacturing, materials sourcing and the construction methods themselves all have a long way to go before they could be considered “good” for anyone. They may be less-bad, but that doesn’t make them good! Even if manufacturing these 1 million green homes produces ½ of the carbon emissions of traditional homes, that means that we are allowing and accepting the production of tons more carbon emissions!

When considering options for the future of our nation’s energy, many people are quick to jump to solar energy and wind energy. While I agree that these options would be less damaging to the environment in the long run than continuing to produce power with coal or nuclear power plants, we must still consider their impacts.
It still takes TONS of energy to manufacture the windmills and solar panels that we are considering installing. Many solar panels are still manufactured using cadmium telluride, a toxic material that, unless completely recycled at the end of its life cycle, will end up in our environment just like the myriad of toxins that are currently improperly disposed of every day. I do believe that solar energy as well as wind energy are part of the answer to our healthy future, but we must move use caution before we jump into pumping out millions of any new product.

Of course, the smartest energy policy is simply to use less. Turn off the lights, make sure new purchases are energy-efficient, unplug chargers when not in use, use the phone book and a map to look up directions and get directory assistance instead of a computer or phone (I’m guilty of that one all the time), put on a sweater if you’re cold, open the windows if you’re hot, deal with a little discomfort in the name of helping the future, use common sense and do the thing that takes no electricity before you do the thing that takes electricity.

When considering a purchase, I try to follow these guidelines for maximum “greenness.”
1. If you don’t need it, think about what impact it will have over the course of its lifetime, from extraction to disposal, before buying, and if the impact is greater than the usefulness of the product, don’t buy it.
2. If you do need it (e.g., you move to cold environment and need warm socks), then consider this priority scale of purchasing, in order from “most green” to “least green”
a. Used, Biodegradable: Re-use is by far the greenest option for purchasing. A product already in existence does not require any energy for its extraction or manufacture, and creates no demand for new products. Only around 5% of materials that are extracted for manufacturing ever get turned into an actual product, but when you buy used, 100% of the material is being used again! Biodegradable is what everything used to be before the creation of synthetics, and is the most natural state of manufactured products.
b. Used, Recyclable: Second best, recycling still takes energy, but WAY less than extracting, processing, and manufacturing from new materials.
c. Used, disposable: If it is already in its second life, then you are not supporting new manufacture by using it, even though it will end up in the landfill when you use it up.
d. New, Organic, Biodegradable: Biodegradable products, such as organic cotton, can be composted, restoring all of their nutrients to the earth. It is also human instinct to toss our trash on the ground, and if it is biodegradable, no problem! Organic means that no synthetic pesticides (poison), fertilizers or genetic modification have been used. This is healthier for you and the planet. Some new products are still made with a combination, like “60% organic cotton, 40% recycled PET” shorts that I saw at R.E.I. These suck because even though they are organic and recycled, they are effectively no longer compostable or recyclable because of the intermingling of the natural and synthetic fibers, and will end up in a landfill. Try for products made entirely of 1 material.
e. New, 100% recycled: Though arguably worse for your health due to the numerous chemicals that have to be added to plastics to let them serve a second life, hopefully you won’t have to delve into group e or lower very often, since you have 4 other groups of products to choose from that are better! Recycled materials take less energy to make into products than new materials, saving green house gasses.
f. New, 100% recyclable: Hey, if you’re going to get something brand-spanking new that’s really never been anything else first, then at least try to get something totally recyclable that will serve a purpose for more than 1 go-round.
g. New, disposable: Don’t go here! Requires tons of energy to make, then goes in the trash after 1 lifetime. Tennis shoes are a major culprit – but you can recycle the bottoms at FootLocker!


As you can see from the list, the greenest thing to do is just not buy so much stuff, especially if the stuff you already have works fine.