Slow Goods: A Movement to Preserve Handmade Products

Slow Goods is a response to the current pace of consumption. Mass production, cheap cost of materials, decreased quality, and increased availability of products has led us into exponential buying frenzy. Sustainability and current consumption aren't friends; a healthy environment can't be purchased.
The "slow" mentality has already begun to take place through the local grassroots foods movement aimed at making better connections between food, environment and community. According to Wikipedia, a sampling of the movement's objectives include: preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, organizing small-scale processing, educating consumers, encouraging ethical buying. This blog seeks to apply these concepts to the product industry.

The title "slow goods" combines the connection to the slow movement with the economic term for products. The use of the word "good" also a wide range of tangible offerings and reflects a more historical and traditional value that the word "product" doesn't. Slow goods aren't aren't mass produced and aren't made with built-in obsolescence. There are stories and people attached to them.

The blog will explore local small scale productions, the value of the DIY movements, and how communities are being organized around common hobbies. It will seek ways that reconnect people with products and add meaning to the way we interact with the objects that surround us to help improve the relationship between consumerism and sustainability.

Photos Credit: Jennifer Hattam http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/trash-improperly-disposed-in-istanbul.php