As I walked down the aisle through piles of notebooks, a gray carbon notebook stood out and caught my eye. It had a green earth icon with the word “sustainability” on it. Printed on the bottom were the words: 100% recycled , 30% post-consumer waste. I looked at the price tag, and as I expected it cost more than the other notebooks. I walked to an eco-friendly section with binder paper, sticky notes and all those school supplies you can think of, but ended up with the same conclusion I had of the gray carbon notebook, green always costs more.
During these past few years, the awareness of environmental issues has gone up. The increase in awareness caused an increased in the demand for and supply of green products, however, I just couldn’t understand why most of the green products always cost more. The gray carbon notebook is made out of used paper; shouldn’t it cost less than those regular notebooks? One of my favorite eco-friendly products, Bio corn starch bags, are 100% biodegradable. If everyone uses these rather than plastic bags, this will help reduce the millions of plastic waste every year. But the price of the bio bag made it undesirable for the public. Who would want to pay a lot more for just a garbage bag? People also have doubts on hybrid cars, not knowing if they would save their money on gas, or were worth buying. Even though I do want to own a hybrid car in the future, I do have doubts because of the high price. Far back in 1996, Electric vehicles (EV) began to appear on roads, they were fast, produced no exhaust, and had similar prices as the conventional cars. However, the oil companies were afraid of eventually losing trillions in oil profits; it worked with the GM and even the governors to kill off all the EVs. It may seem shocking but the greed in human does eliminated all the EVs in 1999. This whole conspiracy makes me wonder, if all the green products are really suppose to be expensive or it is just a scheme by the manufacturers.
No matter if the biodegradable bags or the hybrid cars really deserve their high price. In fact, there are a lot of greedy manufactures using the Eco-label to encourage consumers to buy their products, when their products are not eco-friendly at all; this misrepresentation of Eco-products is unacceptable. I just hate it when the manufacturers use morality in others to benefit their own good. Governments should authorize the Eco-label and stop the manufacturers from manipulating all the consumers!
I did not notice those eco-friendly products are more expensive than the other product. Even though those products are made from recycled materials, I still feel those are very cool. If the governments really want to go green, they should lower the prices in order to attract more people to buy.
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