The plight of an eco business

 As small business owners we want to sell items that people want and need. Hopefully products that people need a lot of, ideally something they use once and then need to purchase again. This is exactly in conflict with our mission at Our Green Home. To be an environmentalist is to continually be trying to use less. To discover ways to use less paper, plastic, water, energy and anything else that contributes to greenhouse gasses. In fact the whole idea of consumerism is repugnant to environmentalism. An environmentalist is to go without to some degree, to use less and use more labor intensive, but less disposable products for our needs. An example, reusable diapers vs. disposable diapers.

Our search for “green” products has taken us in different directions than I first thought we would go. I thought we’d be selling solar panels, wind mills and LED light bulbs. We have evolved into more everyday home items that save paper, plastic and energy on a more micro level. We have found a few consumable, items that people need to repurchase everyday like gift wrapping paper made from recycled paper. It’s a little more expensive than the plasticized single use gift-wrap you get from Target. Our paper having been made from recycled, post consumer paper products and can be recycled again into new paper products. It is consumable and eco friendly.

Another product is bar shampoo, conditioner and lotions. Our bar products are consumables that customers need to re-purchase. These are made by small, some local craft soap makers using all natural ingredients and packaged in paper or cellophane. Another environmental advantage being you are not buying a plastic bottle. With the oceans clogging with plastic waste, every plastic bottle not created is a small victory. We also sell recycled plastic products, but not creating disposable plastic material is our first goal.

We have found some one-time purchase items like Green Toys^tm. Green toys are made from recycled plastic milk jugs. Recycling plastic into a sturdy, safe toy for your children is the kind of consumerism we are trying to promote.  These toys use no BPA, PVC, or phthalates and are packaged using only recycled and recyclable materials. This is a great company with products we are proud to sell.

We are obviously a small player in the retail consumer product space. We do not to ever expect to compete with Wal-Mart or Target or thousands of other retailers. However if they were to start handling some of these products our mission would be half done. If Target for example started to sell exclusively products with green properties (recycled, renewable, biodegradable, save paper, plastic, water and/or energy) then our mission would be done and we would have succeeded in making the world a better place.

By the way we do sell LED light bulbs, water saving shower heads and other hardware for your home.