Atonement
Since I’m trying to document what I buy that has been made in an unethical way, here are my sweatshoppy purchases since January 1.
It has been weirdly easy. I haven’t needed much.
My pal Than asked for some “slippers” from Hawaii, three pairs. Without thinking, I bought a pair for myself (and happened to be wearing a pair I bought last year). $4 shoes. Sigh.
Back on the East Coast, I bought myself a space heater at the hardware store because I had this idea of doing hot yoga in my bedroom. And because it was 6 degrees here for a while. I’ve never had a space heater before—it’s amazing! It’s this magical summertime machine you can carry into whatever room you want! I have yet to and probably will never use it for hot yoga!
A space heater is just the kind of thing I think about when I wonder about whether or not it’s possible to live a life free of sweatshop-made products. Are there any space heaters that are made in friendly US factories? I didn’t even do a Google search. This is part of my plan with these posts: don’t make impulse purchases. Do your research.
I didn’t do it for the space heater, and I didn’t do it for the new mop and bucket I bought for the shop, which I also bought at the hardware store.
We were talking about it in the shop later, and Maresa said Fuller probably made a mop I could have bought instead of the cheapo one I got that will no doubt break in a few months. And yep, they do, and for just a bit more than I paid. So the project is working: it’s making me think about the little annoying things that slip through the cracks that I could be buying in a more responsible way.
On the other hand, I bought a lot of fabric for a cover for my (vintage, awesome, mid-century modern!) couch that my (awesome!) friend Jasmine is going to make. It’s a big splurge for me. Jazzy and Jacob and I looked at pretty much every upholstery fabric on the whole entire internet in order to find one we liked. I wanted to find one we liked that was organic cotton and made in the USA, but all the eco-choices were drab grey or avocado colored or something. Or they were linen, which will not work with three cats. I know dyeing cotton is a mega pollutant, but…dudes, I just wanted a cool couch cover. So we got this weird hot pink pattern, it’s cotton and washable and not eco-friendly (well, it could have been a more plasticky fabric—at least it’s not made of petroleum) and as it turns out, it’s made in China.
And I still bought it.
OK, confession time done.
Off to pretend I’m going to do yoga.
One Response to “Atonement”
[...] shop made in the USA, and a USA-made broom (gonna have to buy a Fuller mop soon too, because the one I just bought is already falling [...]