Free” has long been the most powerful word in marketing. Look up “free stuff” or “freebies” in a search engine and you’ll join tens of thousands of other searchers. But free will cost you something. And very likely cost the environment something, too. It’s a hidden cost. You have to take time and effort to notice it.

You don’t have to go online to look for free stuff. Stores offer “buy one, get one free.” You get coupons in the mail, in your newspaper, or email inbox. Friends give your gift cards.  Sometimes people even pile stuff in their yard and put up a sign that it’s free.

• If you get a free chair that you don’t really need, you have to find a place to put it. It costs space.
• If you have to stand in line for a freebie, it costs time. An online site’s free shipping always takes more time to arrive than the options you pay for.
• If you have to subscribe to something to get, say, a free phone, you’ll pay money for the subscription. There are plenty of other ways you may have to buy something to get any use from your freebie.
• If you have to give away your email address or other personal information, it costs you some privacy. How much spam must you already delete without reading every day? Besides privacy, that freebie costs time.

I hate to admit how many email lists I have gotten on because of the lure of maybe winning a free iPad. What does that have to do with green living? The hidden cost of the free item can be much more than space, time, or a bunch of extra emails.

The power of free stuff

Someone conducted an experiment with college students to measure the power of free. He set up a stand at the end of the dining hall checkout line. He offered to sell a choice of two chocolates: a Lindt truffle or a Hershey’s kiss. Lindt truffles are truly excellent candy. Hershey’s kisses scrape the bottom of the quality barrel.

He offered different prices but the price difference was always 14¢. Most students who bought paid the extra money for the Lindt. But when the truffle cost 14¢, which made the kiss free, most students chose the free kiss.

Getting something desirable has positive value. Parting with money has negative value. So it requires some thought to decide if the exchange is worth it. But when we don’t need to part with money, it feels like accepting a freebie has no downside. But it does.

In the case of the candy, the hidden cost of free stuff is getting an inferior product instead of a very affordable good one.

College students make an easy target for that kind of survey. What other demographic would have most people choosing a free Hershey’s kiss over a 14¢ Lindt truffle, but most people choosing a 15¢ truffle over a kiss that costs a penny? My guess is just about any other demographic would show the same pattern as the students.

Some environmental costs of free stuff

Think of “buy one, get one free.” Is that a good deal? Maybe. It’s a good deal if it is something you planned on buying anyway and you will be able to use both of them.

What if you’re in the produce department and pick up two sacks of potatoes, say, when you only intended to get one? It’s neither a good deal nor green living if the most of the second bag rots before you finished with the first one.

Free food

Garbage pile

What’s the hidden cost of buying something that spoils before you use it? First, figure that you ate the free one first. The spoiled one costs what you paid for it. Only now, it’s a waste item.

If you have a compost heap, you only wasted space and money. If you throw it in the garbage, it does its share in filling up whatever landfill your garbage goes to.

When it is full to capacity, think of the controversy that will surround what to do next with the garbage! No one wants a new landfill nearby.

A few rotten potatoes may not seem like a breach of green living, but multiply them by millions of households and it adds up. Organic material does not decay quickly in a modern landfill.

Some fast-food sandwiches have more salt and fat than anyone should eat in a whole day. Some of them aren’t very filling, either. So if they’re buy one, get one free, and you eat both of them, is that a good deal? If it’s not good for you to eat one, what kinds of medical bills lurk down the road if you make it a habit of eating two at once?

Non-perishable freebies

What if you buy something (non-perishable this time) you didn’t intend to get in the first place just because you could get a free one at the same time? In that case, you didn’t save half the cost of the item. You spent money you didn’t intend to. A spouse or parent or someone else who lives with you might object, so there’s a potential social cost.

But now you have these two whatchamacallits. You have to deal with the space cost. If you actually use them and get some benefit of having both of them, well and good. Chances are, however, that unneeded objects will simply be in the way. You can give them to someone else. You can donate them to a charity. And of course, you can throw them out. See landfill shortage above.

Gift certificates and coupons

Suppose you get a gift certificate or a coupon for a free breakfast at a really nice restaurant. What the hidden cost to use it? You have to get in your car and drive there. It takes time, gas money, and adds car exhaust to the atmosphere.

Did you know the federal government allows tax payers to write off some mileage expenses? Being the federal tax code, it’s not a simple matter of declaring that people can claim so many cents per mile. The rate varies depending on whether it’s business purposes, charitable purposes, or whatever else. The point is, those amounts allow you to estimate just how much a single trip to anywhere really costs. That, alas, is just the money it costs to buy the gasoline and wear and tear on the car. It doesn’t count any of gasoline’s environmental costs.

An old forgotten sign from the days of gasoline rationing during the Second World War raises a question worth asking again:

Is this trip really necessary?

Only don’t ask it just about driving. For the sake of green living, ask it about any purchase that seems like a bargain or that might come on impulse.

What’s a green lifestyle? It means many things to many people. It’s possible for two people to seek to live a greener life and not make any changes in common with each other.

There is at least one thing that can be found in nearly any definition of green, however. Green people want to simplify their lifestyles and get out from under the acquisitiveness and consumerism that runs rampant in our society.

Buy one, get one free? Stop and consider any possible hidden cost. It might be a great choice, but no one ever does the green thing on impulse.