International Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Do you pay attention to where your stuff is made?
Just wondering if you pay attention to what country the things you buy are made in. If so do you try to buy locally made stuff and/or to avoid goods from certain locales? I'll admit we usually don't check where things are made and we have wound up with quite a few things made in China--it'd be pretty hard to avoid though especially when you're on a budget like we are.
Re: Do you pay attention to where your stuff is made?
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
Try for food (although certain quasi-local areas, which have extreme pollution issues, I avoid. Even if you're not particularly "environmental conscious" the industrial (north's) sh!t, which was wholesale dumped in rural parts of Caserta, is appalling).
For clothes, etc, I agree w/ neeps... it's really hard to understand just what 'made in' v. assembled in v. from products originating in, etc mean. In Gomorrah there's a really interesting discussion of high-end (designer) "made in Italy" fashions. Basically, the products (wool) is from the north, is shipped south (Naples), loaded on to a ship, sorted/processed/dyed/etc and primarily assembled in China, shipped back to Naples, "finished" (small sewing) in, essentially, Neapolitan sweatshops (often with illegally trafficked labor), stamped "made in Italy" (because, if the resource and finishing takes place here, that's enough for the label).
Really terrible. I'm paraphrasing/summarizing, but, I've seen the shops, so I've gotta believe the essential premise is accurate. Certainly not up to EU standards. I don't have first hand knowledge, but I would guess France and other Western fashion capitals have similar systems. Really disappointing... especially when you consider the retail price of the goods produced. I don't want to give away the story, but Gomorrah has an amazing example (let's just say, specific Oscar red-carpet fashion).
No, not really, although I do try to buy Fairtrade as much as possible. Also, a friend of mine here was telling me that Primark is horrible for transparency on where their clothes are made and Next ranks really high with trying to follow guidelines to ensure that their suppliers are treating their employees well. Gap is suppose to be pretty good as well.
I have another friend who is super passionate about this and she says you can get an app for your phone who will tell you their rating. I will look this up if anyone is interested.
We try to buy local food, especially during the summer. We also tried really hard to hire locally when we built our house.
But, when it comes to where our consumer items come from, we don't really check. DH and his father are co-owners of an import business from the far east. Pretty much everything comes from the Far East, and like others have brought up, even if it is "made in country X" doesn't mean much more than it is simply assembled there. The quality issue is also semi-bunk. There are very high quality items made in the Far East and there is crap made there as well.
I pay attention to where our food comes from too, I prefer to buy local.
For general products I do check, but just out of curiosity. Where something is made wouldn't stop me from buying it.
From what I heard about a lot of factories in Vietnam is that the products were mostly produced in Vietnam and then assembled on the ship that was sending the products to headquarters in whatever country, this would allow the products to be labeled "made in country xxx" and not Made in Vietnam. Things are not always as they seem.
I agree with ctgirl, that very high quality items are made in Asia. H manufactures his products in Asia, they are all high end. He even had some products made for the French Presidential offices.
I don't look.
But if I were to hear that a certain product was made in a sweatshop by slaves or something like that, I would refuse to buy it.
Rambley Blog