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Buy the Right Thing
As Americans, we don't really express the will of the people through voting (as apathetic voter turnouts sadly demonstrate) but rather through purchasing.
A true consumer nation, we vote with our wallets.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, did President Bush ask us to buckle down and sacrifice as we geared up to fight the terrorists?
No, he urged us to teach the terrorists a lesson by going shopping.
I’m sure that had them quaking in their caves.
So when Americans decide they want to “go green” (and no, that doesn’t mean root for the Eagles!) they are most likely to do it not by choosing a candidate based on his or her environmental policies, but with what they buy.
Haunted by lurking eco-guilt that, like buyer’s remorse, pounces moments after you leave the cash register with some wastefully over-packaged product, American consumers are increasingly looking for a way to do the right thing, by buying the right thing.
(Like how I made that clever link to my headline?)
Any-hoo, whenever Americans have a desire, other Americans will try to make a buck satisfying it.
And three stories in The New York Times that caught my eye in the past week exemplify this trend and how the American entrpreneur may yet help save America from itself without having to make sacrifices, something my generation seems woefully incapable of doing.
(Reader Warning: Given that my technological expertise is largely limited to spreading butter on bread, be forewarned that rather than provide the easy link to these stories, I must lamely post the actual addresses into this here blog in case you want to go read said stories for yourself. Just highlight the address, then copy and paste it into your browser window. My apologies to the techno-savvy, but hey, until a few months ago, I still had dial-up too.)
The first article -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/garden/15paint.html?scp=1&sq=The+promise+of+green+paint&st=nyt – has to do with paint, a most troublesome substance from an environmental standpoint, but most necessary for fixing up the old houses green living suggests we re-use.
Oil-based paints, which once lasted the longest, are also the most toxic. And the trade-off that always seems to come hand-in-hand with green products is that it costs more but works less well. I found this to be the case with my attempts to unclog my drains in a green fashion.
In the case of many green paints, experience suggests more coats may be necessary to get the same coverage which may not last as long..
But the important thing is, we’re trying, and, even more importantly, we’re succeeding. When you hear politicians talking about green-collar jobs, this is the kind of stuff they’re talking about.
There are even more exciting trends in other industries.
Featured in another Times article – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/business/smallbusiness/21tooth.html?ex=1212033600&en=d91f7d8ffee2811c&ei=5070&emc=eta1 -- was Recycline, a Massachusetts company making plastic consumer products entirely from discarded plastic consumer products, particularly used yogurt and cottage cheese containers.
Sold under the “Preserve” brand, the company has a supply arrangement with Stonyfield Farms, which provides used yogurt containers provided by customers who have used them.
Most ingenious is the fact that all these recycled products – primarily toothbrushes and kitchenware -- are themselves, recyclable and come with a pre-paid envelope for mailing them back to the company for another round of re-use when they are re-made into plastic lumber for decking and benches..
“Customers are part of our supply chain,” company founder Eric Hudson, a wiry environmentalist who drives a Volkswagen powered by cooking oil, told the Times.
In this May 21, 2008 article -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/business/smallbusiness/21image.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=The+Goal+Is+to+Do+the+right+Thing&st=nyt&oref=login – readers learn about a company called Terracycle that makes fertilizer that is unique for two important reasons.
First, the product is made by feeding trash to worms and then harvesting the nutrient rich end-product, which makes it, in the words of its co-founder “green to the extreme.”
Secondly, and this is important, it costs the same as other fertilizers.
These folks seem to understand that you can appeal to the conscience of the American consumer and grab a certain portion of the market. But if you can match the competition on price point, you’ve made the green choice that much easier for them to make.
That, my friends, is truly the American way.
A true consumer nation, we vote with our wallets.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, did President Bush ask us to buckle down and sacrifice as we geared up to fight the terrorists?
No, he urged us to teach the terrorists a lesson by going shopping.
I’m sure that had them quaking in their caves.
So when Americans decide they want to “go green” (and no, that doesn’t mean root for the Eagles!) they are most likely to do it not by choosing a candidate based on his or her environmental policies, but with what they buy.
Haunted by lurking eco-guilt that, like buyer’s remorse, pounces moments after you leave the cash register with some wastefully over-packaged product, American consumers are increasingly looking for a way to do the right thing, by buying the right thing.
(Like how I made that clever link to my headline?)
Any-hoo, whenever Americans have a desire, other Americans will try to make a buck satisfying it.
And three stories in The New York Times that caught my eye in the past week exemplify this trend and how the American entrpreneur may yet help save America from itself without having to make sacrifices, something my generation seems woefully incapable of doing.
(Reader Warning: Given that my technological expertise is largely limited to spreading butter on bread, be forewarned that rather than provide the easy link to these stories, I must lamely post the actual addresses into this here blog in case you want to go read said stories for yourself. Just highlight the address, then copy and paste it into your browser window. My apologies to the techno-savvy, but hey, until a few months ago, I still had dial-up too.)
The first article -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/garden/15paint.html?scp=1&sq=The+promise+of+green+paint&st=nyt – has to do with paint, a most troublesome substance from an environmental standpoint, but most necessary for fixing up the old houses green living suggests we re-use.
Oil-based paints, which once lasted the longest, are also the most toxic. And the trade-off that always seems to come hand-in-hand with green products is that it costs more but works less well. I found this to be the case with my attempts to unclog my drains in a green fashion.
In the case of many green paints, experience suggests more coats may be necessary to get the same coverage which may not last as long..
But the important thing is, we’re trying, and, even more importantly, we’re succeeding. When you hear politicians talking about green-collar jobs, this is the kind of stuff they’re talking about.
There are even more exciting trends in other industries.
Featured in another Times article – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/business/smallbusiness/21tooth.html?ex=1212033600&en=d91f7d8ffee2811c&ei=5070&emc=eta1 -- was Recycline, a Massachusetts company making plastic consumer products entirely from discarded plastic consumer products, particularly used yogurt and cottage cheese containers.
Sold under the “Preserve” brand, the company has a supply arrangement with Stonyfield Farms, which provides used yogurt containers provided by customers who have used them.
Most ingenious is the fact that all these recycled products – primarily toothbrushes and kitchenware -- are themselves, recyclable and come with a pre-paid envelope for mailing them back to the company for another round of re-use when they are re-made into plastic lumber for decking and benches..
“Customers are part of our supply chain,” company founder Eric Hudson, a wiry environmentalist who drives a Volkswagen powered by cooking oil, told the Times.
In this May 21, 2008 article -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/business/smallbusiness/21image.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=The+Goal+Is+to+Do+the+right+Thing&st=nyt&oref=login – readers learn about a company called Terracycle that makes fertilizer that is unique for two important reasons.
First, the product is made by feeding trash to worms and then harvesting the nutrient rich end-product, which makes it, in the words of its co-founder “green to the extreme.”
Secondly, and this is important, it costs the same as other fertilizers.
These folks seem to understand that you can appeal to the conscience of the American consumer and grab a certain portion of the market. But if you can match the competition on price point, you’ve made the green choice that much easier for them to make.
That, my friends, is truly the American way.
posted by Evan Brandt at
11:29 AM
1 Comments:
Great point on worm compost as fert for lawn. However an even better, less expensive, and non-labor intensive method is to add worms to your lawn. They aerate and create the compost on site. My lawn looks better than ever and I do nothing. Thanks again for green reads.
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