Would you? Could you be an environista?

We’ve been having a lot of laughs lately. But I feel a need to bring back an old post from January and get a little serious.

Thrift is easy on the pocket book. It’s a sustainable economic practice. It drives funds into charities that repurpose lives. Thrift is an eco-friendly practice and this is not always discussed.

The act of thrifting can be silly and light and fun. But, it is a serious endeavor and we need more people participating because, trust me, American homes have enough inventories to feed our nations thrift stores for a good long while.

We need to change our retail ways and going to the neighborhood thrift is one of the easiest ways to start.

January 28, 2009
For months I’ve been brainstorming a sister for frugalista. I’m a proud frugalista. But, it’s not just frugality that drives my thrift store pulse. As mentioned before, Shopping Golightly is also Shopping Go Green.

I’ve been hard pressed to find a word that describes a person who “shops with the intention of reducing their personal carbon footprint.” I’ve thought and thought and thought. I’ve banged my head against my desk. I went on a week-long vision quest in Death Valley without water, food, clothes and sunscreen. (Well, okay, I did that my dreams.) I even got punchy and fell into Rob Schneider’s SNL Copy Guy persona, “The Greenster, the Eco-ater, the Green Meister savin’ the planet, protectin’ dolphins. Greenorama, Green!”

I tried eco-thrifter on Wikipedia and the wiki police eventually gave that humble attempt the boot. Admittedly, I didn’t think it all that great but had to try something.

Then it hit me, environista! It rolls off the tongue just like frugalista! We need environistas! We need a whole lot of environistas!

I kindly ask you to comment to this post and pledge that you too are not only a frugalista but a smart and beautiful, handsome environista too! Okay?

For other references on this topic, please see my commentary in The Christian Science Monitor on March 2nd “Green shopping, Don’t Say ‘eww’ to thrift stores” and on May 3rd “We count calories. Why not carbon?”

We count calories. Why not carbon? Golightly's opinion in The Christian Science Monitor

It's been on my mind for several months. On every store shelf, in every product, I now see energy and imagine over-sized atomic models spinning about the store. Hey look, there goes oxygen! Cool! Check out the carbon in those bananas!

It's not frightening. It's perplexing. Why do we pretend that the daily product market is devoid of energy? Is it because physicists and engineers of energy don't go shopping? Do they leave their ideas at work? I find that hard to believe, I always have stuff simmering on the back burners of my brain.

I tossed my thoughts over to The Christian Science Monitor. They caught them and published them online, "We count calories. Why not carbon?" This article will appear in print on May 3rd.

Please read this and perhaps you'll start to see these giant atomic models in layman's terms and realize we have to slow down and overhaul the information flow between manufacturers and consumers. Wait! We need an infrastructure for this information exchange because manufactures are not sharing.

When points like mine are raised, many people find them overwhelming. Well, some things in life are just that, overwhelming. My point is certainly one of them.

We have become an impatient culture and become annoyed and find a hundred reasons not do something that might make a healthy difference when we cannot have results on demand. We bark at our PC/Macs when they don't load fast enough! I often see adults pitching fits of impatience made for a toddler.

My answer? Recognize that we need to mend our ways for a healthier world and, in the least get on the road of continual improvement. It's a long road but someone has to walk it.

Why would anyone have a problem with consumer carbon education given the current energy crisis?

What about Global Warming? Don't tell me Global Warming is all in my head. Someone hand me a fan! I'm getting warm and no it's not menopause quite yet. Ladies, remember when we were told hot flashes where in our heads?

Until the debate that will be raised is settled and the fits of impatience are tossed, I can write with certainty that if you wish to do right by the planet in your shopping carbon footprint, get thee to a thrift store where we reduce the flow of items to landfills and reuse and recycle perfectly fine products.

Looks like money is not the only thing we need to be thrifty about.

Frugalista has a sister. Environista!

For months I’ve been brainstorming a sister for frugalista. I’m a proud frugalista. But, it’s not just frugality that drives my thrift store pulse. As mentioned before, Shopping Golightly is also Shopping Go Green.

I’ve been hard pressed to find a word that describes a person who “shops with the intention of reducing their personal carbon footprint.” I’ve thought and thought and thought. I’ve banged my head against my desk. I went on a week-long vision quest in Death Valley without water, food, clothes and sunscreen. (Well, okay, I did that my dreams.) I even got punchy and fell into Rob Schneider’s SNL Copy Guy persona, “The Greenster, the Eco-ater, the Green Meister savin’ the planet, protectin’ dolphins. Greenorama, Green!”

I tried eco-thrifter on Wikipedia and the wiki police eventually gave that humble attempt the boot. Admittedly, I didn’t think it all that great but had to try something.

Then it hit me, environista! It rolls off the tongue just like frugalista! I quickly searched the Internet and found an environista on the web. But, you know what? We need more environistas! We need a whole lot of environistas!

I kindly ask you to comment to this post and pledge that you too are not only a frugalista but a smart and beautiful, handsome environista too! Okay?

Shopping Golightly is also Shopping Go Green

Most people think thrifting is merely a way for the poor to afford clothes or a short-term solution of tightening our budgets to get through hard times. Among many other good things, thrifting is a way to reduce our personal carbon footprint.

When we think of carbon footprints, energy usage comes to mind. We think of renewable options like wind, solar, natural gas. While we certainly need to exercise these (and other) options, we need look towards a sustainable economy that produces low carbon products. So then, we think cars. Plug-in hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell, natural gas, and now – even compressed air.

But to really take hold, we must go beyond the power plants and transportation systems of our world. Finally, issues like food security are being addressed in the media. This is good (ever think of how much fossil fuel it takes to bring a 2 calorie grape to the US from Chile?). But, how do we start addressing everyday items? I’m not talking about recycling newspapers or bringing a bag to the grocery store; I’m talking about the clothes, dishes, and furniture we buy or maintain.

Call it re-purposing or re-use, but buying products in thrift stores is one way I know for certain consumers can shop green with confidence. Products from thrift stores:

1. Have already made their manufacturing stamp. No additional energy is required to make this product. Done! Fin!
2. Have already burned the fuel of transport in the bellies of jets, ships and trucks, often from the other side of our planet. The only fuel attached to item is the car ride over, which more likely than not (in an urban or suburban environment) is probably less than five miles.
3. Do not carry the weight of excessive packaging of new products. Ever liberated Barbie from that plastic and cardboard hell? Ever thought about the energy that packaging took to make and then assemble, and the associated material and human footprint? Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes to my mind when given that box to open. People in a factory halfway across the globe put every appendage in place with a twisty-tie! They sew the hair in place to a piece of plastic so it fans out! (I do not buy Barbies. But my daughters have received them. Don’t buy my daughters Barbies - they really do not have a long interest life.)
4. Divert reusable items from landfills.
5. Support charities, many of which directly turn around and support our communities.

I believe people want to do right by our planet. But, psychologically, we often equate this “doing the right thing” with an extra cost we, personally, cannot afford. Here is the irony; a dining room set or carpet bought at the thrift store is a gift to the pocket book and puts more carbon credits in the world bank. So we need not equate our participation in a green economy on the same level as those who have the means to buy a Prius.

Being green is not something left to power companies or those who can afford a next generation car, being green is available to the masses in ways we have yet to truly grab hold. Saving energy is not solely in the domain of the entities that produce it. And saving energy goes beyond turning off the lights or switching out bulbs. This is an energy savings that can be achieved in our shopping habits. This savings has yet to come to the forefront of our national discussion. It is a part of our personal training program we need to make routine for that steep climb that President Elect Obama spoke of. See the November 6th post on The Thrifty Chicks.

During the peak of the American shopping season, spend your energy wisely! Become an official first generation Eco-thrifter and make reducing your carbon foot print a part of your shopping agenda.

Thrifting, the New Black that keeps you in the black, and a little more Green.

1. Thrifting is Green, the fine art of reuse, recycle, and re-style. Americans need to shed silly, spoiled, wasteful notions that if it’s not NEW it’s EWW! America’s waste stream is massive and we’re not talking potty.
2. Thrifting supports charity. Don’t have the funds to make direct donations to worthy causes? Your shopping habits can.
3. Thrifting is economical and can knock thousands of dollars off an annual budget without knocking the quality of many products.
4. Thrifting diverts mass market spending into a market of one-of-a-kinds and originals. This dares shoppers to learn more about their own preferences and sense of style. Why allow anyone else that opportunity?
5. The thrift store just may be the only store in this country without pushy sales people with fakey smiles acting like they really care about the shopping experience. The floor staff at a thrift store has but one purpose: stock items.
6. Thrifting is a lesson in the treasures our culture tosses and the crap people keep. Looked in your own closet lately?
7. Once immersed in thrifting couture, shout a big, “Say what?” to department store prices, and run from a commissioned floor staff!