What Are Your Environmental Consumer Concerns?

One of the interesting things is that environmental/ethical consumers tend to get lumped together, but we all have very different priorities. As an ethical consumer, my concerns tend to center around climate change and environmental degradation related concerns (what is the carbon footprint of this boombox) and labor concerns (who made my boombox and how were they treated and how much were they paid?)

Because of this, I try to pursue two different strategies when shopping: buying used (because it has less of a carbon footprint if its already used) or buying goods produced under fair labor conditions (ie fair trade.)

On the other hand, I'm on a listserv with many environmental concerned moms, and their concerns tend to focus a lot on environmental health. Are these plastics potentially toxic? Are there unhealthy chemicals used in the manufacture of this product?

Sometimes all these priorities converge, but at other times they can diverge quite substantially. Witness the numbers of people who threw out their plastic water bottles and bought new stainless steel water bottles. Although this might make sense from an environmental health perspective, buying a new stainless steel bottle does add to one's carbon footprint.

So I'm curious. When your principles diverge, what do you do? Do you throw out your plastic bottle, or keep it? Do you replace your non-stick pots, or just live with it? Where do we draw the line between protecting our health and needlessly consuming?