For All This Talk of “Green”, Why Do We Buy Junk?

Posted by Lorren on August 4, 2008

I’m not one of those people that believes the world is going to suddenly overheat or anything like that. It’s been the coldest year on record in some places… IMO, our planet goes through temperature fluctuations and it’s normal… less than 200 years ago, we were in the Little Ice Age! I don’t buy it.

But for all this clichéd talk of “going green” and the hype surrounding it, there’s one thing that I don’t understand: if we are so concerned about planet Earth, why do companies sell us junk that’s going to break down in two years? Why do they sell clothing where the seam will unravel the first time you wear it, and the buttons will fall off if you accidentally pull a thread? Why do people need to buy a new TV every other year?

If we really wanted to “go green,” we’d buy quality products that would last a long time. We’d buy clothes made from quality fabrics and construction… if you really wanted to go crazy, you could take your worn-out clothing and use it to make rags, quilts, doll clothes… something to reuse it as long as possible.

We’d buy television sets and keep them till they were ready to die, rather than going for the latest and greatest LCD out there. We’d buy long-lasting furniture. We wouldn’t be purchasing the latest gimmicky piece of junk out there just because everybody else was buying them.

Even if you don’t believe in global warming (which I don’t), buying good quality items, and giving them away if they were still in good condition when you were done with them rather than throwing them in the landfill, would be a good thing for our environment.