apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I decided to check out JC Penny the other day (thanks to Danny Seo) and because it is a few blocks from our home. I rode by bike over, but they don't have any bike racks (almost all stores in the area do), so I locked my bike to a pole out front. They advertise organic cotton jeans on their website, but in the store they only carry "recycled" jeans that are made from pre-consumer cotton waste. Which probably means that the Arizona brand already made jeans this way, they just decided to mark the price up and use it as an advertising gimmick. The jeans/shorts were more expensive than other Arizona jeans there, but really, does recycled fabric, swept up from the floor deserve or need to cost more? Next, I hunted down the Danny Seo display, which was in the back and out of site (out of sight out of mind?) and a total disaster. The display was all over the place, the towels disheveled, and one blanket had a stain on it. I considered asking if they'd sell at discount but envisioned a store clerk saying "sorry that's what you get with organics" as I once had a grocery store clerk say about some beat up organic apples. In other words, because Danny appears to be genuine, I thought that JC Penny might be giving more than lip service to the green movement, but at the least, my local store couldn't give a darn.

Greenwashing is so insane....I work in PR and my boss made me write a "green release" for a hotel opening and it was common things and nothing significant but I had to just write more and more fluff about how it was a repurposed building and they intend to recycle oh and make sure the lights go off when no one is around. Duh! These things happen all the time, it's not "green" persay. Meanwhile, the next day I'm writing about the hair on hide custom benches and custom leather headboards being shipped from overseas...environmentally friendsly? Ha! Obviously the hotel wasn't meeting LEED qualifications so I just felt like a fraud writing about how wonderfully green the hotel is...haha.

I hate this idea - it's the "fat free" of the eco conscious. The term "fat free" sounds good, but doesn't mean you can eat as much as you want. Same thing with "green". Just because something is labeled as "green" doesn't mean it is in fact, eco friendly. Yes, the lights may turn off if no one is in the room, but that is something they do to cut corners financially - not save the planet.

Greenwashing gives everyone and all products that give a shit, a bad name. Truth be told, yes it costs a fortune to do the right thing environmentally, but in the long run, it pays for itself.

I'm a recent grad of FSU interior design program and we were talkin green and sustainability before all this hoopla. I've always been a little bit of a "Treehugger" and I was excited when people embraced the bring your own reusable bag to the grocery store, or when CFLs were popping up everywhere. But I'm afraid that all this is growing so rapidly that as fast as it expands it will implode. I hope as time goes on the everyday folk learn more and more about sustainability and things are given a thorough thought like the solar powered scale example mentined above. Only then will things stick around.