Living Without 'Made in China'

Sara Bongiorni and her family attempted to live without goods made in China for a year, and found that it was no simple task. She has documented the project in a book called, A Year Without 'Made in China.

It wasn't motivated by a patriotic urge to buy American, but more as an experiment to see how global the sources of our goods are. Bongiorni said, "I wanted our story to be a friendly, nonjudgmental look at the ways ordinary people are connected to the global economy." In the foreword, written by economist Joel Naroff, it's said that 15 percent of the $1.7 trillion spent on imported goods the US imported in 2006 came from China.

This book would certainly be worth a read if you're at all interested in buying more local products. The same problems involved with not buying Chinese goods would apply to purchasing local goods. Purchasing a pair of shoes made in your own country is likely to reduce your footrpint, so to speak - transporting goods half way around the world is not green, even if it is cheaper. ::Reuters