Environmental Technology

I have not been guilty of using the excuse that I "buy green" to justify slacking off later, because I avoid any product labelled "Green" like the plague, since that label is most likely nothing more than marketing hype. Have I been guilty of using the fact that I have performed a REAL socially responsible act as an excuse to slack off? I am afraid that is a question for an objective independent observer to answer...

In the US, we get a government discount for buying green. Plus you get better operating costs although I don't know if you get better maintenance costs yet. I just bought a washer last week and my Kenmore series 800 was actually cheaper than the Kenmore series 600.

As for slacking off, I try not to but I think everyone does it. Unfortunately, my work ethic is kind of like a roller coaster. Some days, I can outperform anyone at work and some days it's hard to get 8 hours out of me. In the long run it averages out. However, I reserve my lying for poker so I guess I don't fit the study.

On a side note, I have heard that energy companies produce energy based on what they expect users to use. If the users don't use all of it then what is not used is wasted. Anyone know if this is true? If so, does buying an energy efficient washer really make an environmental impact?

When being "green" is more of a religion than a science, you can expect people to repeat the propaganda even when they know that it is not all true.

This is the same as the guy who buys a "insert your favorite car brand" and clame all of its virtues to the neighbors while hiding the flaws. You don't want tho tell others that you made a mistake. You prefer bringing them into your mistake. You feels right when everybody makes the same mistake you made...

Being objective and recognising one's mistake is difficult and dangerous for the career of the people in the public life. This is why governments keep on pushing flawed concepts even when it is obviously wrong.

Being green is just another herd mentality thing just like peace and love was in the 60's. It will eventually pass. Hopefully, something good will come out of it.

There are good things to do about energy saving but as a previous post said, what we ear about is mostly marketing.

"This is the same as the guy who buys a "insert your favorite car brand""

I recently bought a dishwasher too. I brought my parents since it was my first dishwasher purchase and they directed me to "good products" based on brand name. Typically, I like to check customer reviews of products to see if they are actually good products.

When I asked the salesperson if they could provide any customer reviews or historical maintenance problems, she just laughed and told me that people typically don't ask for that. Maybe, I'm just naive and didn't know that brand name is enough information to make a purchase.

I bought environmentally friendly white paint, and boy did I get mad when I found out it was green!

Good one!

You just pointed out an irony that I missed last weekend. "We" decided to paint the outside of our house (front door, window trim, and wood above garage door). I managed to talk the fiance into low VOC Valspar paint. She had them mix to a pine green. Our "green" paint really was green!

As regards to smart purchase worth for the money spent, many people count on LABELS and source from reputed outlets.For them cost is secondary.

Likewise people get imitates and compromise on cheapness.

There is always a status quo between the smart buyers and smart sellers and it is more of a compromise game.

No hundred percent greener product is produced because the basic chemistry remains same.

Greener or eco friendly nature has got only gradings and it is purely a customer / consumer experience.

Legal impositions, standards and laws mean a general safety and goodwill to consumers and only an experienced consumer can decide on the intensity of safety to him.

Leaving all these, just apart from partial relevance, GREEN products are mere SLOGANS for business propaganda and the consumers also over estimate their purchase based on labels.

Literally speaking like two faces of the coin any product has positive and negative influences one got to choose a net positive and not a 100% safe product.

Animals and plants have no such discretions and lead a natural life. Man kind seems to so choosy.

Ultimately it is a question of afford-ability.

I disagree that Green Products are mere Slogans.

Lots of businesses are making a real effort to produce more environmentally friendly products.

It is clearly mentioned that green products have got partial relevance and high prices being affordable to the high end customer.

For example- natural dye used textiles- even though natural dyes being used, it is not clear the dyes have banned azo or not. The fastness improvement calls for mordanting in which heavy metal salts are after treated, a practice in crude traditional sector. 100 % organic cotton with synthetic dyes used colours[ no 100% natural].

100 % green product has got selective technical problems also.

Present technology is just a compromise between natural and synthetics and the costing is hectic taxing on customer.

For example no 100 % replacement for chlorinated solvents, just the intensity of chlorine presence can be minimized.

There exists lot of technical choice of alternates.

It is prevalent in all substances like food colours, use of preservatives and so on.

Sounds like they only tested politicians.