Buy cheap or buy green?

With the whole up-and-coming recession thing, I'm seeing two retail trends.

1. Recessionista: Making it trendy to pay less for stuff. [Pictured here: Coco Chanel in the 30s. Buying accessories was one way to make dresses last longer during the Depression.]

" Grant Barrett, a lexicographer who specializes in new words and slang, said the word is being used to give Americans an excuse to buy more stuff. “It’s kind of permitting consumers to have justification for their spending habits,” he said. Mr. Barrett included “recessionista” as an up-and-coming catchphrase earlier this month on his Web site, DoubleTongued.org. “The idea is, because they are spending less or getting more value, it is still O.K. to shop,” he said in a recent phone interview. “It’s a very self-serving message.”

2. High End Eco Brands: The other trend is putting out super-duper eco friendly products, which cost more (with the idea that people are more willing these days to pay the *real price* for Christmas cards, wrapping paper, and such. Click here for example.)

[Pictured here: A dissolvable dress!]

Not sure how I feel about both. On one hand, they both continue to promote buying more stuff than you need. Crap in landfills is still crap in landfills. Or even if it's recyclable, it still requires money and energy to recycle-- the first R in the green trio is "reduce" (reduce, reuse, recycle.)

I guess I still lean slightly more towards Option 2--pricier goody-tqo-shoes stuff--since pricier usually means you'll buy less, won't buy impulsively, and the products have a smaller footprint to begin with. And then for things you need to buy more frequently, perhaps the Recessionista option works better. I've switched over to higher priced products in my goal to go greener, organic and vegan--ee-er, but I can't afford to buy everything this way.

Option 2 is also, more often, made locally. Making stuff that's eco-forward and local is where many western politicians are trying to move their countries as a way out of the financial crisis. For example, the US economy was once built on Ford Motors--can the economy be rebuilt on green technology imagined and built in the US? Option 2 would support that kind of innovation and job creation.

Anyway... interesting!