Question by starwberry: Can someone please explain to me why it is so expensive to be green?
I have no objection to being green, but it seems to me that when you put the labels of recycled, organic, natural, etc on things they become designer items. This means that the price skyrockets. It makes no sense to me.
If something is recycled then it should not cost more because the materials did not have to come from scratch. The same with natural things. If its something natural then very little should have to be done to it in order to get it ready for the consumer. Now I know that organic things have all this special stuff that goes on behind the scenes to avoid having chemicals in it so I get the higher prices there. I don’t agree that organic is all that much better though.
These things especially irritate me when it comes to baby items. I am expecting. They advertise all these things for a green baby. They say that it will make my child healthy and happier.
Okay how is an $ 80 onesie that he can wear for two months going to make his life better?
How is a $ 700 stroller better than the $ 60 stroller that I got, just because the fabric is organic? My stroller will carry him longer (it holds more weight). It also has more storage room and two trays — one for each of us. Not to mention the $ 700 stroller does not have a hood for sun protection.
I also don’t understand how a $ .50 of bananas is somehow inferior to a $ 2.00 of bananas simply because it lacks the word organic or natural. The only ingredient is bananas and the chemicals cannot get through the peel.
Is there some big secret that I am missing? Can someone please explain?
Best answer:
Answer by Bob
That’s because the whole reason behind the green scam is to suck more money from the gullible. It has nothing to do with the environment. Just more green in the pockets of the companies making the “green” products.
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It’s because people find ways of making a profit on people who want to be green, if being green to you is simply a social status then sure buy into these corporate forms of manipulation but if you want to be green to actually help the earth do things like planting seeds, recycling, picking up trash on the side of the road and much more.
It is called economies of scale. If we produced enough Jags for everyone to drive one, they would cost a lot less.
I believe you are talking about “Green Splashing” where some companies put their products in green boxes, and put every natural word on them they can legally get away with to market at a better price point. I disagree with this tactic myself.
But there is another disturbing side to all of this. Take organic veggies for example. They are often more expensive, and it does not make sense to spend the extra 25 to $2 cents for these when there is essentially the same veggie or fruit sitting next to it a bit cheaper. The scary part is what has happen to our food supply. Many of our foods are mass grown in such a way to cut cost to where the food is so engineered that it has to use special chemicals just to keep it alive, and lab engineering just to get another batch of seeds that cannot reproduce in the wild.
So the question you have to ask yourself is, do you want something that was grown naturally for the most part, or something that has to have all kinds of chemicals, not to mention dyes in some cases to paint the intended color of the veggie, particularly with tomatoes that it’s nearly as healthy as licking the floor of an industrial plant with all the stuff that gets into this alien food supply we have built as though it was Frankenstein himself as a carrot.
So the extra price in some cases is the real price to produce the food, not the cheapened version made by scientist to cut cost.
The other careful piece of advice is where it’s grown. Many cheap fruits and veggies, especially out of season are from places around the world that have far lax standards on fertilizers, fungicides, and herbicides than we do here in the States. Just take for example DDT. It was banned in the States in the 1960′s because it had a direct link with cancer (as it’s basically watered down Agent Orange), but it’s legal in Mexico. So, where was your bananas grown? What are the agricultural laws of these countries? I bet you suspect our government would be watching out for this stuff? As long as the chemical is not on the plant when it crosses, it’s technically in the minds of many not in the plant as well. Why would it be, only the good stuff is in there, all the outside influences never make it into meaty part of the veggie or fruit. Of course now we are finding out that peaches suck up every toxin in the soil, but who’s watching?
There are many reasons, for now. First is that the new green economy, is just that new. The technology, techinques, and options are still being worked. For example solar panels, when they first came out they were crazy crazy expensive, but now you see them in simple devices like road signs, and calculators almost everywhere and if you install them the cost is lower, but still too high at least for me. But now there is the option of renting panels which is way cheaper, cheaper than regular grid power first day even. Second let’s say you want green clothes, made of of say something recycled, well we don’t recycle as much as we could yet, so that means it’s harder for designers to find products, and it might be hard to get them, guess what that means it’s more expensive
. Then you’ll find that many nonsutainable products are actually subsidized, for example oil is technically subsidized so it’s seems like it’s cheaper, but it’s not, you pay for it in taxes and we all pay for it in how it affects the planet, and for example oil companies don’t have to pay for cancer from pollution that they cause so the benefits of green aren’t as easy to see with our current laws.Finally there is supply and demand, sometimes the more demand the higher the price, but with technology and new materials sometimes what happens is that the more demand means companies have more money, more money to invest and make products better and cheaper. Like computers, back in the day. I have the same problem not rich, care about the planet so in the mean time, while the green economy grows I study to put the biggest bang in my buck when it comes to being green. For your baby I would say for example one thing to do for sure if you paint anything around the little one use no VOC paint, it’s so much healthier and for longer term items like cribs put your investments there, and when it comes to organic food it is always better for our planet but for you health wise anything with a peel doesn’t need to be organic but for especially berries and other non peel produce try organic when you can, but alway go local even if it’s not organic it’s good for your local farmers, the planet and your bottom line. Get anything that is reusable it is cheaper in the long run and good for the environment, look for green products in inexpensive brands like payless or something. Get low energy appliances, and look for green cleaners (there are a lot of those out now that are cheap). Try thrift stores for baby clothes it’s green and cheap since babies go throw clothes quickly.
CUZ you have to buy products to cover your abnormality
we must form an alliance
THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE AND AN OUTRAGE
Difficult to answer. It is more expensive to produce ethical food as it is not been mass produced, so in order to turn a profit the price per unit item has to increase. So take a marine stewarship certified tuna compared to the purse seine netted ones … in the latter case they will catch up to 150 tonnes of fish in one go, an awful lot of killing and waste but they can sell them cheaper as they want to get rid of it quite quickly. If you are catching one fish at a time sustainably, naturally each fish is more expensive as it takes more time and effort to catch them. If you walk, cycle, grow some of your own food, use a breadmaker, buy from farms and local growers, recycle, the costs could go down. Also you can consume expensive quality foods less frequently rather than taking them for granted. Quality not quantity. Try keep going for best values, not best value.
Everyone is missing the point here. Green refers to plants, because they are green and provide oxygen and remove toxic fumes.
“Common indoor plants may provide a valuable weapon in the fight against rising levels of indoor air pollution. Those plants in your office or home are not only decorative, but NASA scientists are finding them to be surprisingly useful in absorbing potentially harmful gases and cleaning the air inside modern buildings.”
“NASA research has consistently shown that living, green and flowering plants can remove several toxic chemicals from the air in building interiors. You can use plants in your home or office to improve the quality of the air to make it a more pleasant place to live and work – where people feel better, perform better, and enjoy life more.”
Congratulations on your pregnancy. You can stay healthier by having more live potted plants indoors. Make sure you get the right ones. Please check out the two websites below and good luck.
Green and recycled are not the same.
Green makes an effort to not destroy our earth and its resources. An example–beautiful granite and marble can be mined on other continents such as South America, where people work for relatively nothing. Destroying their environment by selling to Americans who treasure granite and marble puts a meal on the table because they sell cheap. In America, we could create a beautiful concrete countertop which is a green product, but the labor involved for an American to create this is very high because the worker wants lots of money just like any other American.
In addition, we spend lots of oil shipping these products to the states–again ‘not green’.
Though recycling is within our ability, most people don’t value reusing over getting what they want in their designer dreams. It is a real design challenge.
You would be amazed to find out how America encourages other economically challenged countries to destroy their own countries.
because no one is buying them so they have to jack the prices up on them.
It’s not a big secret, and should be pretty obvious. Organic items are more expensive because the cost is higher. Cost means the price that they pay to make it. It is different from the price. A “designer item” usually has a low cost but a very high price.
When you’re talking about organic items–bananas, for example–it’s the cost that went up to produce the bananas, and it is simply being reflected in the price. Companies always want to lower their costs as much as possible: if organic fruit had a lower cost than non-organic, don’t you think all fruit would be organic?
That’s all it is. Growing organic carries a higher cost for the producer. Without using pesticides, you lose more crops, so your return on investment is lower. Without fertilizers, you don’t get as many crops, or they’re not as big. Many organic fruits are also fair trade, which means the workers get paid more.
There’s a reason that so many farmers choose to use powerful chemicals on their crops: they work. An organic farmer may thus only produce 1,000 bananas per month on the same area of land that a non-organic farmer would have gotten 2,000 from. Thus, the organic farmer needs to charge twice as much, or else it will not be in his best self-interest to grow organic.
I promise, it’s not a conspiracy, just basic microeconomics.
There have been observations by scientists who noticed the monkeys peeling the non-organic bananas, but eating the organic ones whole. Even a monkey can tell there is a benefit to eating organic. I wish we had this kind of sense.
Having common sense about buying organic cotton for a baby is a good idea. How much of the pesticide actually gets in through someone’s skin? Buy a set of organic underclothes and bedclothes and that should be enough. Or don’t?
Probably because the people making the products get paid a fair wage.
Many things are labeled organic, but are not USDA organic. USDA items have to meet the highest standards. As far as the strollers and onesies I would agree that is not money that needs to be spent, but when it comes to organic food it is very important.
I actually just wrote a couple blogs about this.
cleangreencreative.blogspot.com