Three Steps for Buying Home Goods Environmentally
When purchasing most products, consumers often face decisions over how to balance the requirement for new goods and environmental concern, especially when purchasing a product with a fixed life expectancy; this is often the case with electronics. There are, however, areas that can commonly be researched that can indicate the products environmental effects before and after you purchase it.
The first and easiest step in determining the environmental effects of a home good is to check the where the product was manufactured; shipping goods overseas contributes significantly to global emissions that can be avoided when purchasing locally if possible.
Even if you must purchase internationally, affirming if an environmental supply chain is used, with carbon neutral factories and recycled materials, is preferable.
A US assembled Cortelco desk telephone is an example of a repairable, domestically made home good.
Another consideration is to determine if one product is expected to have greater longevity than another: the ability to keep something longer and repair it prevents waste and the subsequent need to replace the item. Regarding electronics, repairability varies significantly, which negatively impacts the life expectancy of the product. Many electronics are increasingly using fused circuits, which cannot be removed or updated with add capacity, limiting the ability to upgrade the device. This forces the consumer to purchase a newer version of the same item.
The most important factor to review before purchasing anything is whether you need to purchase it in the first place; purchasing items needlessly also increases ones waste levels and can be combatted. For example, instead of buying landline telephones, you can lease from QLT, a company that succeeded Bell Systems; by leasing when you want a new telephone, they will refurbish that telephone and it will be reused. QLT also provides a lease rewards savings card for eye care and vitamins, allowing customers to pay off the costs of leasing.
By researching these points and evaluating whether you need to buy something in the first place, you can reduce longer term waste and even reduce costs.