Tag Archives: green shopping

Does Buying Eco Friendly Clothing Really Help the Environment?

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.

How Do You Find Eco Friendly Store Bought Cleaners?

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?

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.

How to Make Your Wardrobe More Eco Friendly

Green is a great color for your wardrobe, whether you like to wear it or not. But I don’t mean the color. I mean having a wardrobe that is the eco friendly kind of green.

It’s really not that hard to make your wardrobe be kinder to the environment. This may not sound ideal to you, especially if you love buying new outfits, but you can make this work.

Thrift Store and Consignment Shops Are Your Friends

One of the easiest ways to have an eco friendly wardrobe is to focus on buying used clothes. It may not sound appealing at first, but you might be amazed at what you can find that has belonged to someone else first. An amazing number of people replace clothing in their wardrobe after very few wearings. You can buy used clothes that look as good as new.

Thrift store shopping can be an adventure. It’s not the easiest way to shop sometimes. Some stores are better organized than others. You may find clothes from many years ago. Some outfits may look as though they’d do better as a Halloween costume than everyday clothing. Bring your sense of adventure and sense of humor when you head out to the thrift stores to shop.

When you’re done with an outfit, it can head back to the thrift store. If it’s still in good condition they’ll probably just sell it on.

If it’s not in good condition, find out if it’s welcome first. Some thrift stores sell torn and stained clothes in bundles as rags. Others just throw them out. It’s better if you are certain you aren’t just moving something from your trash to theirs.

And you could always make rags for yourself.

Find Eco Friendly Retailers

You can find all kinds of shops online and in some areas that offer eco friendly fashion for those times when you do need something new. Fair trade is a good option to look for.

You can find companies that make clothes using organic materials and use natural dyes. You can find vegetarian and vegan fashions. Just look around and see what suits your eco choices.

A tragic number of retailers still use sweatshop labor. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to where your clothes are coming from when you buy them new. Being green isn’t always just about the environment. You should be thinking about the human factor too.

How Do You Get Around the Poor Selection of Eco Friendly Products at the Store?

Some days it’s hard being green. You try and you try, but you just can’t find everything you need in an eco friendly variety. And too many products appear to be merely greenwashed, not really green at all.

Simply put, the selection of eco friendly, high quality products available locally sucks sometimes. It’s better than it used to be, but still not great in some areas.

But you aren’t as stuck as you think you are.

Make Your Own Cleaning Products

When it comes to things like cleaning products for around the house, you don’t need to figure out which brand to trust in a lot of cases. You can make your own.

In some areas this is incredibly easy. Just get the big size of baking soda and vinegar and you can do an amazing amount of cleaning around your house with just those two products.

You can find recipes online to make your own laundry detergent from products that are pretty easy to find locally. Be ready to experiment to find the ones that work best with the water you have in your area.

When you make your own cleaning products you don’t have to worry about the greenwash. You know what went into it. You’ll know if anything is even mildly toxic. You’ll know which products you can hand to the kids and make them do the work without worrying that they’ll taste it, no matter how young they are.

That’s the beauty of using things like baking soda and vinegar. No more locking cabinets due to dangerous chemicals. You can let the kids explore.

Shop Online

If you can’t find it locally, online is a pretty good choice too. You can find cleaning products that really are better for the environment. You can research the claims and find out which companies to believe and which are taking advantage of the lack of regulation on most green claims.

And you don’t even have to drive to get to the internet.

You can find eco friendly cosmetics that are also better for your skin. You can find organic or fair trade clothing and home decor items. You can find just about anything you might need.

Shopping online and having things shipped to your home can be more eco friendly than driving around to buy the items. The products have to be shipped to your area anyhow. Buying online means the delivery truck takes them to your door.

The disadvantage is that buying online means you aren’t supporting a local business. But especially for products that you might have bought from a big box store if you shopped locally, it’s not necessarily all bad.

You should of course shop locally for food. Local produce is one thing the internet can help you locate, but it probably can’t get it sent to your door.

Online shopping still requires a good bit of research to get it just right. But once you know what you’re doing it’s really not all that hard to find your way around the greenwash and to the products that really are kinder to the environment.

A Few Sites to Consider

EarthWaveLiving.com offers Modern Homesteading, Sustainable Living, Emergency Preparedness, and Much More…

Green Nest – More natural products for your home.

Only Natural Pet Store – Natural, holistic and organic supplies for your pets.

Greenbatteries – Offers great prices on rechargeable batteries, battery chargers, battery cases and holders.

ReusableBags.com – A critically acclaimed line of reusable shopping bags plus a growing family of smart, earth-friendly products all designed to help you reduce, reuse and save.