Monday, February 2, 2009

February: Consumer Detox

My challenge to myself for this month is one that I have been thinking of for a while.

I want to stop buying random brands of clothes and shoes. Often after purchasing new clothes, especially if it was a "great bargain", I feel a momentary stab of guilt if I pause to think that by my consuming I am buying into global inequality. The "made in China" labels etc are a great reminder of this problem.

So for this month, and for the rest of this year, I will only buy clothes and shoes that I can verify are ethically produced. The only exception is buying second hand from shops where the proceeds go to charity.

It is not really going to be that big a deal when I consider that I could exist quite comfortably without buying any new clothes/shoes for a long time.

Also, there are now a number of companies that produce sweat-shop free products. And so my job of finding them should not be too hard.

I will post links as I find them.

1 comment:

Andrew and Alice Brown said...

good one!

yeah I'd do the same, but budget reasons have pretty much limited me to 2nd hand only..
I don't feel bad if it's made in china (etc), because my $$ aren't furthering the cause, even if the product in the first place did hurt people.

-andrew