Good AND Green?

For the past several years, Lake Street Church of Evanston has participated in Heartland Alliance's Adopt-A-Family program during the holiday season. This year, the Peace and Justice Committee (which coordinates the congregation's involvement in the program) decided to adopt TWO families. This was a very ambitious undertaking, as Heartland Alliance selected two families of five persons each. They provided us with the names, ages, needs and wishes of our adopted family members. We decided to split the congregation in half alphabetically into the "Green Team" and "Red Team". Each team is responsible for gifts for one family. The "Green" family consists of a single mother and her four small children. The "Red" family consists of a mother and father and their three teenage children. The friendly competition within the congregation spurred us forward and we have obtained almost all of the gifts for both families. But we are still missing winter outerwear for the mother, father, and daughter of the "red" family, along with clothes for one of the boys, and a comforter for the parents. Everything must be purchased new, of course.

This is all really wonderful, but it isn't very green. It is both fiscally and environmentally irresponsible to go out and buy new items when slightly used ones would cost less, keep waste out of landfills, and lower emissions of greenhouse gases into the environment. Another greener option would be to purchase from local, sustainable sources. Unfortunately, this would cost more (at least to the buyer), because of the economy of scale and externalizing of costs by big box retailers. :-(

So, what to do? Since we can't give them used items, we could give them gift cards that could be used at second hand stores (ie, non retailer-specific cards), and they could purchase those items cheaply themselves. Another option would be to suck it up and purchase items that are more expensive in the short run, but much less costly in terms of environmental impact. Finally, we can work to change/enforce laws such that environmental, health, and other costs are internalized. Then we will all realize that it isn't "cheap" to buy petroleum-based products produced by child labor in rapidly developing nations.