It’s Not Easy Being Green
Do you shop consciously? I bet you try really hard to be as responsible as you can when you shop and travel. And I bet you read labels and spend hours on the internet doing your research to find products that are organic, fairtrade, cruelty-free, vegan, biodegradable, plastic-free, etc. And you may even make your own stuff, which I admire wholeheartedly. Isn’t all this work a pain in the a** though?
Hi, I’m Jessica and I’m lazy. I’m also a conscious consumer wishing that wasn’t anything special. All I want is accessibility, transparency and honesty when I shop. That’s all. It’s shouldn’t be that hard but unfortunately, it is.
It’s not easy to find ethically-made products. We can’t shop at one store and be done with it. We have to go here and there by car because everything is so spread out. Either that or we have to buy things on several different websites.
Many people want to buy ethical products and are willing to pay a higher price for them, but don’t because they don’t spend the time to do the research. Understandable, who has time these days?
And then there are people who downright don’t want to know. As heartbreaking as that is to hear, I just have to accept that some people just don’t want to know that leather is not a by-product. That cows are skinned alive and children work knee-deep in a toxic blue chemical to process the leather. I’ll never understand the unnecessary torture done to humans and animals, but it’s our society that created this monster, because we want cheap, so all we can do is our best to continue trying to turn this monster into a precious, caring living being.
Those who put blinders on are not the right customers for you though. But I bet you anything that they would buy ethical products if they were more accessible.
It’s a good thing there are labels on products. But, unfortunately, you can’t be 100% sure they are what they claim to be. Organic is sometimes not organic, I’ve seen the documentaries!
Cruelty-free is not easy to prove. The end product may not have been tested on animals, but the ingredients may have been. And a particular brand may be cruelty-free, but the company who sells the product may have other product lines that aren’t.
There are also a bunch of names for things that we’ll never get straight let alone understand or be able to pronounce.
Conclusion? Labels serve a purpose, but a workaround was created so that the harm to humans and the environment can live long and prosper.
‘Hi, my name is Jessica and I am lazy’. When I finally have time to relax, I don’t want to spend it researching for products or shopping in malls or online. I’d rather spend it with my family or doing something else, anything else. Some people just say ‘forget about it’ and buy what’s convenient and I totally understand that, but it’s not going to help our society, environment or animals.
Purity has its Price: Inconvenience
Unfortunately, shopping consciously means spending more time and money than ‘normal’ and the typical lazy person won’t make the effort.
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