Do you know how you can help fight global warming? Buy products from local manufacturers and vendors. No matter where you live, you can make a difference in how we affect the environment by encouraging less use of fossil fuels to bring produces that are locally manufactured to home.
Let’s say you just bought a home that is a fixer-upper. Sure, you could go to your local construction supply depot — there is more than one “national” brand — and buy windows to install. But those products had to be trucked in from somewhere, possibly from a port where they were brought in from overseas via ship.
Even in major port cities, like Seattle in the northwestern United States, the environmental cost of shipping products over great distances adds up. Fortunately, people in the Seattle area can look at local alternatives, like Penguin Windows, for their housing needs.
That is not to say you should always ignore the cost of materials. If a national supplier can provide you with quality products that are as good as or better than your local providers for a considerably lower cost, a reasonable person would make the rational choice and save some money. But when you have the best quality products from local suppliers for about the same cost, you should help the environment. That helps us all.
