Does it cost more to live sustainably?

A friend of mine came over the other day with her empty laundry bottle for a refill of a more sustainable laundry detergent. Her bottle was 198 fl oz, previously filled with Tide Detergent. If she would have filled the entire thing, it would have cost almost $100! When I told her this, she said, “but I got this at Costco for $11.98”! And right there in lies our problem. Absolutely nobody can afford to spend $100 on laundry detergent. I totally get it, I can’t afford that either, at all. Of course, there are lots of alternative eco-friendly laundry options that won’t cost you an arm and a leg, and don’t contribute to the degradation of the environment, but it takes a conscious effort to search out these products, and many people don’t take the time or care enough…that is the whole reason I started this business…to take the work out of it and make it easier for you all to be sustainable, because it is so important to me, but that is beside the point. 

I truly want everyone to be sustainable, and I am very conscious of the price of the items in my shop, I am aware that they may be more expensive than something you can find at Target. But here’s the short of it…eco-friendly products are more expensive, and they are more expensive for variety of reasons ranging from lack of demands to high manufacturing costs. Makers of sustainable products often put special care into quality because they want to minimize the use of resources and the generation of waste by ensuring that what they are producing is usable for as long as possible- that it’s sustainable. However, quality doesn’t come cheap. The production of these items has to be cleaner, and made with more durable materials, more skilled labor, and more time for inspection and testing. All these things take more time, and time is money. But purchasing quality goods will likely save you money in the long run, and it so much better for our planet.

Another reason sustainable products cost more money, is simply that there isn’t as great a demand for these goods as their single use, plastic, counterparts. Bar soap is allegedly good for the environment. but when faced with the option to spend $10 on a bar of soap that was sustainably hand made in small batches, with organic, vegan, ingredients from an eco-conscious certified B-corporation or $3.88 for a bar of dial soap, people tend to choose the $3.88 option, simply because it’s cheaper and more readily available! But we aren’t thinking about what it really means…Dial claims to be an environmentally friendly company promoting "economic success, protection of the environment, and social responsibility,” but the active ingredient in dial soap is triclosan- an ingredient added to many consumer products intended to reduce of prevent bacterial contamination. If you look up Triclosan on the FDA website, you will find studies that link it to decreased levels of some thyroid hormones, and the potential of developing skin cancer in animals. It is also linked to antibiotic resistance, which as a RN I see as a huge problem.

So you buy the $3.88 bar of soap, you wash yourself, and the run off, which has triclosan in it, goes down the drain, and ends up in the land and waterways…Triclosan has been found to be highly toxic to different types of algae, and has been detected at high concentration in earthworms. Without even being aware of it, your choice of the $4.00 soap, is innately funding pollution and environmental degradation, killing sea life, and letting dial soap know that it is okay to continue business as usual...you’re telling them that there simply isn’t a demand for sustainable items, and therefore nothing changes. However, when you purchase only sustainable and ethical goods, you’re making your values heard in one of the most powerful ways you can. You’re putting your money where your mouth is and funding a better world!  

Here’s another example. I sell reusable unpaper towels for $58.00. Sure, $58 is a grip, but let’s break it down. The average family uses two rolls of paper towels per week, and at $14 for an 8-pack you could be spending up to $182 a year on something you’re going to use once, and then simply toss out. Even though paper towels can be made from recycled paper, they can't be recycled or reused as they are considered 'contaminated waste. As a result, an inordinate amount of paper towels ends up in landfills where they generate methane—a greenhouse gas x20 more harmful than carbon dioxide— as they break down… 245 million tons of paper towels gets discarded per year. Bet that $58.00 roll of unpaper towels, which you can use for years and years is sounding pretty nice. Imagine if everyone in the world switched to a sustainable solution for paper towels- and there are so many of them! It really would make a difference, and it would put the companies that don’t value sustainability out of business! 

 In the end, sustainable items may cost you more money initially, but the cost of not choosing them is far greater. So next time you are faced with the choice of buying a plastic water bottle instead of a stainless steel one, think “what would the most sustainable option be?” …what went into producing this plastic bottle, and what will happen to it when it gets thrown away. Next time you have a choice, make the right one.