On Ethical Shopping

So I was talking with my boss about shopping (well, what else would we be doing, working?!), and she was telling me how she went to Primark and it completely freaked her out and made her feel really quite depressed. She said there was just so much stuff everywhere and it was all in a mess and everything was so ridiculously cheap. And as she pointed out, clothes that cheap seem to make people think it’s ok to throw them about and treat them with disrespect. Much the way the people who make them are. (Well, perhaps not thown about.)  Both of which seem wrong. How disrespectful to buy something and think, ‘Oh well, if I get bored with it/spill something on it/don’t wear it, it doesn’t matter, it only cost me a fiver.’ Someone worked to make that item, quite probably in horrible conditions and living a considerably harder life than the person who bought it at the other end.

I’ve shopped in Primark. I loved it; that feeling of leaving a shop with seven items and only having spent thirty odd quid. Then I thought, someone must be paying for this, and it isn’t me. And I did some reading (well you can’t not really, can you, it’s in the press all the time, as it should be), and came to the conclusion that I would no longer be shopping there. If I am paying £2 for a t shirt, it’s a fairly safe bet the person who made it probably wasn’t even paid that. So as much as Primark shopping is fun, that’s not the kind of fun my conscience feels comfortable with. Oh well, I shall just have to buy expensive clothes instead. Ha ha.

I do try to shop consciously, but it’s still very much the case that ethical goods, whether they are clothes, household products, food items or skincare products, are usually more expensive than the alternative. Not everyone can afford to shop ethically, and until that happens, shops like Primark will continue to be full of people sucking up the bargains. New ethical/eco friendly shops and websites are popping up all the time, so hopefully a time will come when choosing something that gives back to its creators is easy and affordable for everyone. Unrealistic? Maybe. I just know that I can’t in all good conscience buy something that at best doesn’t benefit, and at worst harms someone else while it gives me pleasure. There’s no real pleasure to be had from that.