I like to be “green”, “environmentally friendly”, “sustainable” and lots of other buzz words that you hear constantly lately.
But I don’t think it always makes sense.
I have been watching the Planet Green network and am particularly fond of a little show called “Living With Ed”. (I think Kevin and I are related to the guy in a round about way actually.)
At any rate, a couple featured on the program wanted to remodel their master bedroom. They wanted sustainable flooring. After much deliberation, the couple chose bamboo flooring. I understand the benefits of bamboo flooring. I think it’s great. But this couple put the bamboo flooring over top of their existing wood flooring. (The existing floor looked great anyway but could have been changed up with paint or stain as well.)
Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Isn’t that actually the opposite of being green? Isn’t that wasting resources? Remember the three R’s that Jack Johnson sings about? Reduce, reuse and recycle?
I just wish people preaching the green theology would look to the obvious. It isn’t really helpful to remodel everything.
Sometimes the really environmentally friendly thing to do is to leave something the way it is.
I would have died if I had left my kitchen the way it was…. DIED! really… Atleast we kept the origional floors
I don’t think your kitchen counted as something that you could “leave the way it is”. It needed your help. Badly.
This kind of stuff drives me crazy! I recently saw a couple replace their countertops with an environmentally friendly top from somewhere like Malaysia. Really? You think it is better for the environment to ship it all the way from Malaysia, package it up, drive it to the store and to your house? What about the quarry right down the road? I don’t have any problem with being environmentally smart, but sometimes we are being stupid by smart.
Being green is all about others knowing that you are green. It has nothing to do with environmental stewardship. I have been tasked at my job to waste resources on communicating to the public our “no idling” policy which probably reduces our emissions by less than .05%. But it makes us look good. So even our attempt to protect the environment becomes an opportunity for self promotion- the true motivation.