Kristen Zelenka World Changing Response #7

Kristen Zelenka
World Changing
Response #7

“Knowing What’s Green” pg 114

This past semester during our lectures, Trumpey has shown us labels and brands, mostly pertaining to food products, that are fair trade and are conscientious about the environment, however there are many items that we have to buy, such as shoes and clothing, that do not have such a label. How are we supposed to know what is good to buy and what isn’t? A lot of the information about the origin and manufacturing process of a product is untraceable or ambiguous. There are many things to consider like the materials used, the conditions under which the item was made, the working atmosphere that the employees are in, and then whether or not it can be broken down again to be recycled or can be decomposed.

Right now there aren’t many regulations; “Companies are operating totally within their rights when they make appliances in toxic soup and sell them to us on the cheap. But while regulations set a low minimum threshold that products have to meet, certifications are the standards that products get to live up to” (115). This whole scenario reminds me of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” where there was no standard for meat production until the general public knew what they were really eating. I feel that it’s the same now with the products we buy. If the general public was educated and there were more government regulations about manufacturing practices then as a whole we would consume wiser.

However, right now we are not there yet because many regulations that are set up are only regional (115). We need a third party agency to monitor businesses and their practices to make sure that consumers aren’t being fooled. The article mentions two groups that have started this process. One is called Cradle to Cradle and the other is the Corporate Fallout Detector (116). Cradle to Cradle has developed its own strict standards for green production and awards certifications to companies and their products that comply with them. The Corporate Fallout Detector is a scanning system that emits clicks depending on how eco-friendly the product is. The more clicks you hear the worse the product is (116). Down the road, another feasible option would be to use RFID chips that have the information about an object and how to recycle it embedded into it (117). This information would be available to everybody who had the appropriate scanner. However there are still many aspects about this technology and infrastructure that still need to be developed.

Ultimately, if consumers were more conscientious about what they were buying, they could pressure manufactures to comply with the green standards. People just need to have more information available to them and understand the consequences of how things are made.