Though you're probably already way cooler! I could have called this "How I tried to save the world today", but that seems kind of overblown for just finding treasures in the thrift store.
Consider some consumer choices with me after the jump...
I have to drive to the "Big City" once a week for Son 2.0 to take guitar lessons. Just down the road is a modest thrift store I enjoy poking around in. Today I found a small assortment of "treasures". I'm blessed in that I have the resources to go out and buy what I need when I need it. But I prefer to do a good portion of my shopping this way. It just seems smarter, for a variety of reasons.
The first one on my mind this morning was charity. Not charity in the sense that I went to the Goodwill. I know they put the money they make off my purchases to good use. I was really thinking of the cash I put in the hands of a young lady who didn't have diapers for her baby or real food to put on the table for her family last week. Her husband has been between jobs for a long time, having been laid off. He finally found a position, but won't get a paycheck for a while. I could have used that money to get myself a new pair of jeans (which I did "need"). But I didn't.
Yet today, while just poking around, I ran across a brand new pair of just my size (designer name) jeans, right there in the thrift store! Ha! For $4! Someone stuck them in the young men's section on accident, and I just got lucky! I guess a store had gone out of business or something, and donated them, because I got a pair just my boy's size for him! Brand new, for $4! That delicious, just barely stonewashed feel made me think about the runoff polution caused by the factories that make these. I've only recently learned about the process, and I don't know if this brand is responsible, but if I'd bought them new, I bet they would have been made in Maquiladoras. (Recently a diary was posted on DKos which had photos of the run off and a description of the effects. I can't seem to locate it and would love to have the link.) I love knowing that by getting these this way meant that I didn't contribute to that.
Score so far: 2 pairs of great jeans = enough money left over to feed family of 5 for a few days plus gas for her to get to work. Plus not contributing to the pollution of our neighbors.
I found a new shirt for the princess. It was made in Honduras. I'm ambivalent here, because I know Hondurans need the work. However, the companies which contract for the clothing made in these factories are enriching themselves at the expense of poor people who are not being treated fairly.
Honduran clothing factories I hate to think about supporting companies which are quickly disrupting people's lives all over America by switching to sources of cheap labor such as Honduras:
Then came the final blow. Beginning in January, three companies announced that they would shut down for good - 300 jobs would be lost at Cross Creek, 125 at Spencer's Infants and Children's Wear and 102 at Renfro Corp.
In May, Gildan Activewear said that it would close its remaining two Kentucky Derby Hosiery Co. plants here, transfer the production to Honduras and put 520 people out of work. It was the single largest manufacturing loss in 20 years. Gildan made the announcement less than a year after buying Kentucky Derby for $45 million in June 2006 to gain expertise in sock manufacturing and access to its customer base that includes Wal-Mart, Kmart and Dollar General.
...snip...
The closing of Cross Creek alone wiped out about 18 percent of the city's water and sewer budget-an estimated $960,000 in fees gone. In response, city officials increased water and sewer rates by an average of 45 percent.
Back to school
Winston-Salem Journal
I got a really great pair of almost new leather shoes. I've always thought of leather as an ok choice for a responsible consumer, because we eat so many cows here there must be tons of leather available, right? Well, apparently, leather tanning can create all kinds of environmental problems:
The relationship between the Pakistani leather trade and the
environment is being strained by a growing demand for the product
in the world and ignorance of environmental problems resulting
from the tanning process. A one noted Pakistani news journalist
commented, "The tanning industry is notorious for its heavy
pollution through effluents containing organic and inorganic
matter, dissolved and suspended solids, accompanied by
requirements of high oxygenic demand and having toxic metal salt
residues...these tanneries discharge effluents without any
treatment into water reservoirs and the sea."(1) Often, the
tanneries are located in industrial areas within Pakistan that
contain a large percentage of the population. With scarce land
resources, the pollution is affecting large numbers of people.
While the effluent contaminates the water supply on the land, it
also pollutes the sea. This pollution in turn affects the food
supply for the population. Moreover, much of the country is
subjected to the direct air pollution caused by burning the
tannery residuals into the open atmosphere. All of these forms of
pollution are having detrimental effects upon the health of
Pakistanis.
The primary pollutants that leather tanning in Pakistan
creates are heavy metals (chromium, cadium, etc.), various organic
chemicals, and acids. The Pakistani government recently tested
the effluent runoff from leather tanneries in Pakistan and
verified that the discharges were toxic. The sample of tannery
effluent contained .30 copper milligrams per liter, .15 cadmium
milligrams per liter, 7 zinc milligrams per liter, 1.14 nickel
milligrams per liter, and 1.8 lead milligrams per liter.(2) These
levels were almost all well above the suggested standard for toxic
substance concentrations in effluent. Very few of the tanneries
have any type of waste treatment facility and this runoff is
released into the nearest drain (most likely an open one) or body
of water such as the sea or a river. The effluent is uncontrolled
by any process treatment, waste recycling, or end-of-pipe
treatment.
Leather tanning pollution in Pakistan
Score so far: money for charity, not supporting corporations exporting jobs and polluting central America, not contributing to more pollution from leather tanning.
I got 4 books and 3 videos for my classroom.
Something to think about when book shopping:
Over the past 3 years, the U.S. book publishing industry has consumed an average of approximately 20 million trees per year to print books sold in the U.S. If book and other publication papers were produced with recycled or alternative fibers, the environmental savings could be tremendous. However, recycled fiber usage is less than 5% of the entire printing and writing market. This ever-increasing demand for wood fiber is contributing to the destruction of endangered forests worldwide.
Listed below are global statistics:
Southeastern United States
The paper industry is the largest consumer of forests in the Southern US, currently logging an estimated 5 million acres of forests (an area the size of New Jersey) each year. (USDA Forest Service Southern Forest Resource Assessment 2001, hereafter referred to as SFRA 2001)
75% of the tree plantations established in the last 20 years have been established at the expense of natural forests (USFS, SFRA 2001)
Tree plantations host about 90 percent fewer species than the forests that preceded them (Allen Hershkowitz, Bronx Ecology, p. 75, 2002) and require the use of toxic herbicides and fertilizers.
The Southern US, which contains the most biologically diverse forests in North America is the largest paper-producing region in the world. (SFRA 2001)
Rural communities where the paper industry is concentrated are economically worse off than other rural communities, experiencing higher levels of poverty and unemployment and lower expenditures on public education. (USFS, SFRA 2001)
Green Press Initiative (emphasis mine)
As someone living in a southern poverty logging/farming community, this impacts me directly. I urge everyone to consider the impact of the publishing industry's use of our resources. I buy used books for my classroom simply because our school cannot afford all the books we need. (Part of the reason for this is the unfair tax situation for the logging industry here, but that's another diary entirely.)
Here's some interesting info on e-waste and recycling:
Not exactly the same products, but the point is that new technology is adopted quickly and the "waste" produced builds up and harms the environment. By purchasing used videos, I've kept them out of the landfill, at least for a while.
Score so far = reduced paper production (logging, chemical pollution), reduced e-waste (temporarily).
So I was driving home, feeling truly smug about finding a few goodies I "needed", and being environmentally responsible, when I began to notice just how many of these monsters were out and about:
The first thing that crossed my mind was that the drivers of these had grown up dirt poor and now felt a need to show off. It's just too much! It just screams "Look at me! I'm not poor!" (Maybe it says something else to you, feel free to comment below!) It depressed me so much to see this, because it seemed to cancel out all the good I'd accomplished that day.
We've got to find a way to make responsible, sustainable living "cool". H2 marketers (and other corporations creating irresponsibly wasteful products) spend huge amounts of money to create the "need" in the minds of consumers for this kind of conspicuous consumption. Thorstein Veblen wrote about this many years ago, and it seems even more important to consider now.
Here is an explanation of Veblen's theory:
Accumulation of the symbols of wealth seems to be a primary goal of the many of the people I've seen who were raised poor. How can we make sustainable lifestyle choices so desirable as a status symbol that these can compete with the messages of our consumer culture?
conspicuous consumption
You can get your own copy (e-copy) of this book for free!
Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen) from Project Gutenberg