Nobody’s Perfect!
When discussing all of the options to make your life more sustainable it is important to consider that it is impossible to reduce your impact on the environment to a point of perfection. Shoppers should keep sustainability in mind, but allow themselves forgiveness. There are many factors that affect what paths of sustainability a person can take. For example, purchasing first-hand clothing made sustainably from companies that reduce their carbon footprint is unaffordable for many people. The same thing applies to products that I suggest in the articles, specifically microplastics filters for washing machines. Also, sometimes when researching sustainability you begin to feel like you cannot win. If you purchase secondhand clothing the fabric is likely unnatural, ordering clothing online involves pollution caused shipping, and any production of new clothing will have some environmental impact. However, concentrating any effort on sustainability reduces your personal environmental impact. So, there is no reason to stress about small issues such as those when you are still making an effort.
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Also, I want to recognize that the focus I am placing on consumers in my articles is solely to help suggest to readers ideas for how to feel better about their environmental impact, and begin making the changes they can and want to. Especially because I understand not wanting to contribute to environmental issues.
However, a majority of issues with the environment stem from large companies. Companies are making the decision to produce clothing unsustainably with a goal to keep up with fashion trends and make their clothing as cheap as possible to expand profit margins. Blame should not be placed upon anyone who does not have the money for sustainability sourced clothing, or even shoppers who just do not place personal emphasis on sustainability. Especially considering the fact that although personal choices do add up they will never be equal to the environmental impacts that large companies can have. A common factory will produce more pollution than a group of individuals.
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Big corporations rely on the fact that many shoppers want to purchase clothing for as cheap as possible, and as quickly as they can. Therefore, competition between companies for sales causes many environmental issues as well as ethical ones. Companies will often move to areas with relaxed labor laws, and take advantage of them because they can pay workers less and use unfair working conditions. Additionally, in the process of producing clothing as cheap as they can, companies often do not take environmental factors into consideration and create pollution through their methods of production. Both of those issues are caused by economic competition. To help the environment to the fullest extent possible, companies should be held accountable for their business practices, and the best way to achieve this is through government regulations on pollution and carbon emissions. The Green New Deal is a great example of a bill being proposed for this purpose. The Sierra Club has a great collection of information about the Green New Deal: here.
Overall, forgive yourself for your shopping patterns because no individual is responsible for the environment. Your effort to do the best you can in making sustainable choices has a positive impact and is always better than nothing. Along with making personal choices for sustainability, you can focus on protesting and speaking up for change in government regulations. No one can live in a perfectly sustainable way, so individuals should place focus on which methods for sustainability best suit their lives.
