i have become increasingly disgusted with products being needlessly transported 1000s of miles when products of comparable value and use may just as easily be produced closer to home. people would be up a creek without a paddle if some unforeseen circumstance left them unable to secure necessities made far away. local communities really ought to be able to produce all necessary commodities for themselves and not be dependent on far away factories. and while excess shipping is not eco-friendly, i am mostly concerned with community independence.
ideally, i should be able to find everything i need to live on in town. not only is community self-sufficiency desirable, but to consider the bigger and trendier picture in the current economy, keeping people employed by local businesses would drive local economies and provide more security for the employee and not force people to work for gigantic national/multinational corporations with whimsical hiring practices and poor job incentives. what could be more beneficial than working for oneself and the community?
for example, when i buy toothpaste in most stores, i can find only toothpaste distributed by one of three major companies on the east coast. i don’t see any need to contribute to such a concentration of power for a simple and necessary product while also contributing to needless wastes of natural resources in the shipping requirements to get that product all the way to oregon. seriously, why does all toothpaste need to be produced in new york or connecticut? is there some mysterious natural resource that can only be found there? furthermore, why does toothpaste have to come in a tube which is so difficult to reuse or recycle? why can I not just buy it in a jar that can be washed out and reused or refilled? with virtually every product i purchase i find myself questioning such things.
this led me to consider a few areas of consumerism i wish to improve upon as my new year’s resolution. if people stood up and supported a more sensible approach rather than continue to give in to what is convenient and readily available now, we all could make a major difference in creating a locally based system which is cheaper, more efficient and self-sustaining.
1.
buy from local merchants. i have become really tired of hearing people say things like, “wal mart is putting all the little guys out of business.” that is completely inaccurate. the little guys go out of business because of the people that decide to shop at places like target or wal mart. regardless of the reasons people feel “forced” to shop at major chains, if consumers were to shop at locally owned stores then the major chains would be the ones to go out of business.
i am cheerfully reminded of a starbucks coffee shop in kansas city’s westport district that went in on the busiest intersection next door to the local coffee shop,broadway cafe. people in westport did not approve of a west coast corporation that sold worse coffee coming in to threaten the locally-owned business next door. as a community, they refused to support starbuck’s and that starbuck’s location went out of business. that is an exception to the norm, but proof of what could happen if people were to be more responsible consumers and stop supporting the great satans of the business world.
that may be easier said than done, but without an honest attempt the norm becomes the giant corporations winning. i am depressingly reminded of a chain store (my recollection is that it was subway sandwich shop in utah) that bought the building that the competitor rented. the corporation then raised the rent until the local family couldn’t afford to stay in business. that is tragic, but easily avoidable. to think more simply, why do we need a chain business or restaurants like subway in the first place? if there is no such local store, people could just make their own damn sandwich at home. i know, it is probably way too much to expect people to actually do something for themselves. whatever. that’s what i do, though. even if i were to go out for fast food, i would go to the locally owned drive-in rather than some chain like mcdonald’s. it may be more expensive, but then again going to mcdonald’s itself is not exactly cheap. the more people that support the local places equals the lower prices they can attain. and if it is too expensive now, that should merely encourage people to make their own lunch or dinner, which is the cheapest way yet. instead of going to a fast food chain say seven times per month, someone could go to the local one three times per month and make their own food the other four times. not really that hard to do, just be a little less lazy and more proactive. guess what, it would likely also be much healthier!
so, to every extent possible, i will buy from local businesses.
2.
buy locally made products. i search as much as necessary to buy products that were made within 200 miles. if i still cannot find what i need, i look for something made within oregon or at least within the pacific northwest. if i still cannot find what i need, i will choose things made within the western region. any further beyond that, i am quite sure the product is superfluous and i need to re-evaluate how much i really need the product. there can’t be anything produced too far away than that is integral, and i should try harder to be a “localist.”
not only does the community benefit socially and economically by building from the inside out, but the products are more desirable. usually the products are of higher quality, specifically in the case of foodstuffs. food produced for long shipping distances are more likely to use mass amounts of preservatives and be farmed with less organic methods. do i really need to be eating overly processed foods, or should i be eating fresher foods?
3.
after i have gone to a local store and searched out a local product, i then concern myself with the packaging options. in the best case scenario, i want a product straight off the shelf with no packaging or a reused package. if it must be packaged, i first look for objects in glass. if i can’t find glass, i choose products in metal containers, and after that i look for paper or cardboard. i try at all costs to avoid products in plastic containers. even recyclable plastic containers are still not very eco-friendly. styrofoam and other such containers, i never even want to see much less be guilty of using.
when caring about the disposal of packaging, the phrase goes, “reduce, reuse, recycle.” note the order of those words. first is to consider whether i really even need the product. not only does it prevent needless waste, it saves lots of money to be more considerate of what i actually need to buy. then comes reusing, such as taking my own bags shopping. why have products which are already in a package unnecessarily placed in a new package? for years now, i have even washed out and reused ziploc bags until they fall completely apart. i can not even ever remember purchasing a ziploc bag or a can liner. the third option, after both reducing and reusing were not possible, is to recycle. many containers marked as recyclable still are hard to find places to take them, so i always am thinking of how i can get rid of the package before i ever purchase the product. throwing stuff into the garbage is completely unnecessary. i do not even pay for garbage service or have any trash pickup. about the only things i need to throw away are petty, infrequent items like wax paper. i use such little amounts of things that are not recyclable that i accumulate about one grocery sack full of garbage every three months or so.
there is always a solution to throwing things away and dealing with used packaging. that process begins from the moment we consider buying a product. to be smarter about what we buy and what lifestyles we support and encourage others to support is of paramount importance to saving our planet and our economy. so, my new year’s resolution was to work hard to be as responsible of a consumer as i can possibly be.
coming soon: some baseline statistics on how well i have done to purchase local products and support local businesses according to my resolution thus far in 2011!
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