Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Giving away toxic products

I've dealt with this quandary many times in my journey to become more 'green'. How do you deal with the guilt of giving things to other people that you don't want your own family to touch? Over at Enviromom Heather asks the same questions. After a few days thinking the issue over, I realized that it's not going to a landfill and this will prevent that person from buying the same product new. This will decrease demand(a little bit) and maybe they'll stop producing it at all - if a whole bunch of people do this, it's possible!
Also, I keep in mind that some people just don't believe or care. Many times when I'm getting rid of something I have friends or family ask for it, knowing full well the reason I'm getting rid of it.

Keeping all this in mind makes it easier to donate those items. How do you guys deal with this issue?

2 comments:

Andrea Frazer said...

Hi - Thanks for stopping by my BabyCenter blog. I am starting small with the going green. But now that I'm doing it, it's hard to not start opening up my eyes to other areas of my life. I mean, it's a good thing - this living more consciously. But I still have so much more to go. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.

Anonymous said...

I freecycle (freecycle.org) the stuff I want to get rid of, with a note as to why I'm dumping it: "Using paraben free/non-toxic now." "Don't want the plastic leaching into my stored food; maybe you can use them to store your craft supplies?" And then just let people make their choices.