Going green

The buzz word these days is "green," in case you didn't know. "Green" used to be the color of money or spring or leprechauns, but not any more. I'm just discovering that frugal is green. We've been doing it for years, but we thought we were just saving our money.

Not so any more. Yes, you can be frugal and green, but you can be green and be anything but frugal.

I picked up a new magazine that promised to show us how to live "more lightly on the land." In it was a couple of pages of recycled goods made from a variety of throw away things like newspaper and plastic.

There was some nice stuff and some things that I thought I would like to have... but the price! Yikes. Maybe I'm just too frugal, but I wasn't enticed any further.

Now there's nothing wrong with a rug made from recycled soft drink bottles, but what's wrong with wool? The last time I saw a sheep, I really thought that wool was a renewable product and I'm pretty sure it's cheaper than the rugs I saw made with recycled plastic!

Small baskets made of recycled newspaper for fifty bucks? I don't think so.

I have no problem paying for quality products, but just because they're made of something recycled doesn't make them quality.

This is just my rant, but doesn't recycling itself take resources? And why not go for raw, renewable materials (wool, wood, cotton) and not have to replace the product every year or so? That seems "green" to me and it puts money in the pockets of tradesmen and crafters, not in some faceless corporation's green machine.