The organic dilemma

I have come across a bit of a problem with things that are organic. Firstly, food. I can go into a supermarket and buy organic apples which also good for the environment they were grown in (which is often the USA or South Africa) really aren’t good in the carbon footprint department. It seems ridiculous to me that major supermarket chains can market these ‘green’ foodstuffs when they have been flown half way round the world. And that not even considering that they are yet another chain. So, I think I’m going to ignore most organic stuff and just try to buy as much as I can from the farmshop down the road. They had strawberries there the other day which were grown just a mile away from my house! Surely it’s more important to support a small local business that to pay over the odds for organic food, wrapped in plastic, from a chain store?

Secondly, I was most annoyed a few weeks ago when the organic dress I bought from a small independent shop in the Brighton lanes was being modelled on a manikin in the window of New Look. For a start I thought I had something a bit more unique that the unusual high street stuff and does that mean that the profits have gone to a New Look supplier? It’s so complicated just trying to buy the right things and there isn’t a labelling system on clothes. For all I know my organic dress could be from a sweat shop and there’s no way to tell. So, back to the charity shops for me. At least with charity shops I’ve saving the clothes from the landfill, donating money to charity and I’m not adding any demand for new clothes.