It's Easy Bein' Green

This week is local foods week at the University of Rochester.  I thought it would be a good idea to write a blog about the benefits of buying local.  I should first of all mention that this week my university is featuring all local lunches/dinners every day of the week!  The U of R is usually pretty good at using local produce, but this week they use more than usual and emphasize the importance of it.

The most obvious reason for buying foods that were grown near you is that it reduces the amount of oil needed for transportation of the food.  For example, buying New York apples instead of Washington apples (for me, of course, because I’m located in NY) makes much more sense.  Imagine the oil needed to transport a bunch of apples across the country!  I have read that the foods bought at a grocery store travel about 1500 miles on average.  Buying from area farmers reduces that mileage drastically.

Second of all, buying from local farms increases their income.  According to sustainabletable.org, buying food from a local farmer allows 90% of the money spent on that food to go back to the farmer, instead of going to packaging, processing, and transportation.  Much of the food sold at grocery stores is brought in from other countries, especially fruit.  Buying local foods keeps the money in the U.S. economy!  And the produce grown here has strict standards as far as pesticides and other health factors go, which may not be as present in other countries. Also, the quality of the food is much better locally because it goes through less processing.  If local food is not available to you year-round, do the best you can and at least buy as much food as possible from U.S. farms!!

It is easy to buy local, especially in warm months.  Go to farmers’ markets, look at the signs at grocery stores, grow your own, or join a CSA (Community-supported agriculture).  The least you could do is read labels and choose products that were produced near you!

Recently it has become hip to support the environmentalist movement.  Unfortunately, however, many people only take this as far as wearing “Go Green” t-shirts and buying products that say “natural” or “eco-friendly” on them.  I’m not saying that nobody makes more of an effort, but with this new interest in environmentally friendly products people could definitely go a step further.

Here’s a fun fact: it takes 1/3 pound of fertilizers and pesticides to make one cotton t-shirt (MacEachern 2008).  Many of the “Green is the new black” t-shirts out there are still made from the same harmful chemicals and materials that other clothing is made from (I will go into the hazards of pesticides another day, for I have a class to get to soon).  There are many alternatives, such as organic cotton, hemp, and bamboo.  Personally I have found that all of my hemp and bamboo shirts are much softer than regular cotton, which is also a plus.  These days it is so easy to find these materials in clothing.  A lot of organic and hemp fabrics can even be found at Wegmans (a grocery store) near the organic foods.

Of course I’m not saying you should throw out everything you own and buy all organic clothing, which would be even more of a waste.  Not everything I wear is environmentally friendly.  Also, we’re not all rich celebrities like Paris here, and eco-friendly fabrics tend to cost a little more than normal.  What I’m suggesting is that we simply opt for organic, hemp, or bamboo when we need new t-shirts or shoes or whatever.  If you are in need of new plain tees or tank tops or long-sleeved shirts, buy organic.  If you need new mittens and hats and scarves for the winter months, buy organic.  This will not cause as much of an expense as you may think. Wal-mart sells organic cotton pajamas and t-shirts for super cheap!

An incentive of buying organic clothes is that the more interest companies see in organic products, the more organic products they will make.  Of course these companies want to make money, and if they see money going into bamboo t-shirts they will make more, cheaper bamboo shirts.  This theory is explained thoroughly in the book Big Green Purse by Diane MacEachern and at biggreenpurse.com.  I love this book and will refer to it often in future blogs!

So here is the bottom line: stop focusing on letting others know that you support the cause and focus on directing your money to REAL eco-friendly clothing.