{"id":3181,"date":"2008-07-16T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T12:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3181"},"modified":"2008-07-16T06:00:42","modified_gmt":"2008-07-16T12:00:42","slug":"the-environmentalists-old-clothes-reduce-reuse-do-not-replace-the-things-we-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/the-environmentalists-old-clothes-reduce-reuse-do-not-replace-the-things-we-own\/","title":{"rendered":"The Environmentalist’s Old Clothes: Reduce, Reuse, Do Not Replace the Things We Own"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In my striving for sustainability, I often have been guilty of going a bit replacement crazy. If something or other should come to be less natural, efficient, or eco-friendly than I think it should be, then I am quick to get it gone and get something more satisfying to my environmental ideals. For example, I got rid of all my incandescent light bulbs, though they worked perfectly well, so that compact fluorescents could enlighten me. Or, in another case, I closeted all my old T-shirts and got hemp\/organic cotton blend shirts, since they were more \u201cnatural\u201d and pesticide-free.<\/p>\n

This last replacement indulgence in particular brings to mind something that Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden<\/em>: \u201cIf you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.\u201d1<\/p>\n

Thoreau\u2019s point is a very useful one for folks like me. Our hearts are in the right place in wanting to do good for the Earth, of course, and we can reap some benefits from the changes (i.e., replacements) we make. But in the end, we may end up doing more harm than good by adding to the current flood of human material waste and wasting our own money unnecessarily. And it is even harder nowadays to resist the replacement urge, since technological developments and the growing trendiness of sustainability have produced a bevy of new, better, greener products for us to drool over. So yes, we want to do good\u2026but, as Buddhist teaching puts it, we also may well be greedy<\/em> to do \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes it might be much better–and much more sustainable for me and the planet–if I could find some way to use my \u201cold clothes\u201d more wisely rather than simply hide them away in the closet, give them away, or throw them away. Rather than running out to the store and forking out more money, a terribly scarce personal resource, can I do some real good by making due<\/em> with what I already have? For example:<\/p>\n