Sometimes it seems that environmental responsibility and household frugality are two values which are perpetually at odds in my life. While I want to participate in sustainable projects and choose products from eco-friendly companies, as a consumer on a tight budget, I often choose short-term affordability instead of long-term benefits for the environment. Case in point: Do I choose to buy groceries from Wal-Mart, which has a wide selection and low prices, or from Native Roots Market, which offers both local and organic produce and foods, but at a much higher price? Although I want to contribute to my local economy and help support the small family farms and companies in our central Oklahoma area, there are other factors involved that complicate the idea of buying exclusively or even primarily from the smaller, family-owned groceries in our town. Not only are the prices prohibitive, but I want to consider the preferences and favorite items of other people in my family, which are not available at these stores. Come payday, I usually buy the bulk of my family’s groceries at Wal-Mart and go to Native Roots for just a few select items that, to me, are worth the cost.
But where I buy my groceries is only a part of my role as a consumer and a steward of the resources around me. Any number of decisions I make with my money result in consequences which I have some small degree of control over. I wanted to learn more about this aspect of my life and recently checked out The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience at my local library.
After living in Norman, Oklahoma for six years going on seven, I’ve developed a sense of being an active participant in the cultural and civic life of the town. Of all the towns I’ve lived in, Norman has been the most environmentally affectionate and inclusive. Here are a few facts just to demonstrate. Although it’s a town on the wind-swept prairie, many tall trees line its streets and new trees are planted every year. In fact, we have so many trees that Norman has been named a Tree City. The city began a curbside recycling program in March, 2008 and several recycling centers throughout the city for apartment and rural residents. There is a municipal composting facility at the south end of town, where residents can come by and pick up free compost three times a year. At least three locally owned shops offer organic and locally-produced foods (Dodson’s Health Foods, Native Roots Market and The Earth). I enjoy all these aspects of Norman life because each of them has enriched and improved my experience here as a resident. However, whereas recycling and composting have been easy to incorporate into my daily routine, buying organic and/or local produce and supporting smaller home-town businesses with my grocery budget has been a much more controversial issue for me.
As an organic gardener, I’ve used composting techniques to reduce kitchen wastes for several years now. I have a compost tumbler and a compost heap in my garden and still make occasional trips to the municipal facility in order to supplement what I can’t produce. Recycling is easy when the truck comes right by the house. Even when we forget to take out the container, we just drive over to the nearest recycling center and dispose of our items there. There is even a can bank where we can take aluminum cans and receive a small monetary return. So sorting my trash and composting my kitchen scraps wasn’t difficult to turn into a daily routine because I felt personally motivated. I had always liked nature. My love for the outdoors certainly influenced my desire to do my small bit to beautify and protect the natural world.
I first became interested in environmental issues in high school, but perhaps it was my experience in Germany which really cemented the idea that recycling was important. Recycling in Germany is simply a way of life. Everybody divides their trash into aluminum, steel, plastic, glass and paper. There is even a bin for biological waste (for composting). Then there are the donation facilities for old clothes and shoes and the places to haul used furniture and books. Even the plastic bags in the grocery stores cost money and everyone brings their own canvas or cotton sacks instead. Living in Germany for five weeks was enough time to accustom myself to this orderly lifestyle, with each piece of trash having its own distinct disposal routine. There was also a unique way of handling glass bottles, such that you could return some bottles for a small amount of money (a kind of deposit fee) while others could be returned and refilled. When I came back and contrasted it with my life in Oklahoma, the German enthusiasm for recycling made a lot of sense because of how much waste it reduced.
But while recycling and composting were relatively easy to implement, frugality complicated my consumerism. What about shopping with a conscience? Well, my conscience is on a tight budget and I’m not just buying for myself. I’m also buying for my whole family, whose needs and desires are not the same as mine. Not only that, but the more I read about the various ethical issues involved in the various decisions you can make as a consumer, the more I felt overwhelmed by the complexity of it all. Even if I could afford to have a conscience when I shop, who could have the necessary wisdom to make the best decision in every situation? I’m just not that informed. If I tried to be, would that part of my life threaten to dominate more of my time than I want it to?
So, reading this book has affected me in a couple of ways. On the up side, it has heightened my awareness of aspects of ethical consumerism that I didn’t know anything about. It also reinforced the idea that when I can make ethical choices through shopping, I should. Clearly every decision makes a difference. On the other hand, reading this also confirmed that the spectrum of consequences hinging on each issue are complicated, requiring a great deal of information and background knowledge on an ever-changing economic landscape.
For someone like me, for whom these issues are important, yet peripheral to my main pursuits, I need to to know that I can trust the research of other people in order to make responsible decisions. So, I’ll still shop at Native Roots when I can, because I know that the values behind that company ensure that every product is participating in environmental responsibility and social justice. However, the bulk of my shopping will still most likely be at Wal-Mart simply because of the cost and the selection.
For me, reading a book like Shopping with a Conscience was useful for stimulating more reflection and thought towards making individual consumer decisions, but I put a limit on the extent to which I concern myself about boycotts, Fair Trade, organic food, vegetarianism, veganism and the like. I already ride my bike instead of driving to work, and if I had my druthers, I’d choose a more fuel-efficient car than the gas-guzzling Caddy that sits in my driveway. In all honesty, I’ve been eying the Wheego, but I doubt my husband would consider it the safest of choices. At any rate, so many of the more problematic issues involved in ethical consumerism and social justice are just beyond the scope of my influence. What is important for me is to take care of the needs of my own household in a responsible and sensitive way. I am a simple steward of resources. When all is said and done, God is still our Father and He is taking care of His world. I trust that He knows what He’s doing.
You placed your finger on the heart of the paradox for me, love, when you hinted that there seemed too great a set of diminishing returns in investing so much time into these issues that we sinfully neglect much more important parts of our lives. There are so many causes of interest out there that they appear innumerable, more causes to stand behind in fact than there are a sufficient number of people to manage them, and even less time. There is too little time to become informed so that our decisions do greater good than harm. There is so little time that it is easy to slide along into spreading our attentions thinly between various layers of occupations until our brand of justice becomes virtually tasteless, until we are good for nothing and no one.
We have to pick our “causes” with greater discretion and simply leave much of what demands our attention to others. We can do this only because we know (or hope that we know) that there are those out there willing to devote the right focus and energy and money into these dreams. And we feel the pleasure of our Father who cares more for His creation and pours more grace and affection upon it all than we could possibly sustain.
We mustn’t forget why we do any of it. We mustn’t forfeit our joy to our concerns. We mustn’t trap our care in a web of burden. I think it is best to see our purpose as Tim Keller once put it. We are meant, as His people, to treat the extensive effects of sin that are still in our power to change, primarily the estrangement of human beings from GOD, but also the estrangement of people from each other and from themselves and the world. This is why we speak so profoundly of Christ.
All this so that we might make every ounce of charity a part of the greater song we sing of the sweet attraction of Jesus… because, truly, He resolves all things in Himself.
I enjoyed this. Not long ago, I found myself being presented with new information on responsible choices at such a fast clip that I almost rebelled at the whole idea of buying, eating, recycling and composting, etc. as a good steward. I was ready to SHRUG it off. I’m glad I stuck with it awhile longer. The initial effort to create new habits of thinking and behaving is never easy. After awhile, though, it becomes habit, second nature, no more of an effort than the old way of thinking and behaving–and much more rewarding in many ways. For the joy set before Him, Christ endured the cross. Surely, it is a small thing to endure inconvenience for the joy of being a good steward. I think that you have experienced both the inconvenience and the joy, and it’s good that you have written about both honestly. There’s no doubt that you can only do what you can do within the means and environs the LORD gives you. For instance, I have affordable organic food in my area, but alas, there’s no recycling to speak of. I can’t ride a bicycle to work (45 minutes one way) either. So each of us is a good steward of the bag of goods our LORD has entrusted to us. The thing I admire about what you’ve written here is that you don’t use what you can’t do as an excuse not to do what you can. It isn’t so much a matter of picking causes, as I see it, but rather, to remember we have only one cause: Do ALL to the glory of GOD. Of course, under that umbrella, we must prayerfully determine what will glorify Him most in our shopping and eating and even our composting. Trashing the temple or the planet doesn’t glorify Him or constitute good stewardship, but if we love Him and others as the Bible instructs, we will be good stewards of what He places in our hands. It sounds to me like you care enough to be a good steward, and that’s more than most. And your attitude toward one aspect of loving and glorifying GOD permeates other aspects … in particular, the way you show yourself to be a good steward of the people our Father has given you to care for, interact with, love. Blessings in all you do –k