Consumption =
1) Act of eating or drinking - the eating or drinking of something, or the amount that somebody eats or drinks
2) Act of using something up - the use of natural resources or fuels, or the amount of resources or fuels used
3) Consumer expenditure - the purchase and use of goods and services by consumers, or the quantity of goods and services purchased (Encarta Dictionary)
Consumerism is all around us. Anyone living in North America is especially surrounded. You cannot go anywhere without seeing an advertisement for something. They are seen on the internet, radio, TV, in the newspaper, on public transit, buildings, billboards, and even at hockey games along the boards! They want us to believe that we need, need, need their product and if we don’t buy this new product, we are “out of the loop”. For most of us it is a constant struggle to spend money in a way that is sustainable to our own financial situations and also sustainable to the earth’s ecological balance.
Consumables: products that are eaten or decompose. A package that turns into dirt is infinitely more useful, biologically speaking, than a package that turns into a plastic park bench. Designing for decomposition, not recycling is the way of the world around us.
Durables: products that are designed to last. Currently many durables are designed to fail.
When my wife and I moved to Victoria this past summer, we were shocked by how much stuff we had. Between the two us, we filled up the cab and box of a borrowed half-ton truck pulling a 20 foot U-Haul trailer! We loaded everything including: electronics, kitchen supplies, sports equipment, books, clothes, furniture… All of this stuff can make a person feel spoiled and guilty. By seeing everything you own crammed into a measureable space like a truck and trailer, it really puts things into perspective. It makes you ask questions. Do we really need all of this stuff? What kind of things can we do without? How do we go about living in a more sustainable manner? Moving can really open your eyes to the things that you own! Personally, I feel most guilty about our car. It’s a massive chunk of metal, rubber, glass, and petroleum products that spews GHG’s out its rear end!
“Americans produce six times their body weight every week in hazardous and toxic waste water, incinerator fly ash, agricultural wastes, heavy metals, and waste chemicals, paper, wood, etc. This does not include CO2 which if it were included would double the amount of waste.” I know I’m not American, but I’m pretty darn close. This is outrageous! Six times my own weight in waste a week! When we moved to Victoria, our landlord (we share a house with) offered us a compost bin. This is the first time we have composted, and we can’t believe how much it has reduced our garbage output. But the compost bin isn’t the only reason for less waste. Whenever we go grocery shopping, we try to buy things with the least packaging possible or that can be recycled. For example, instead of putting all of our vegetables in plastic bags, we bring our small hemp baggies that can be reused. Just recently, our landlord changed the households’ garbage pick-up to every two weeks instead of every week.
As stated before, people struggle with the amount of stuff they have and their consumption habits. I truly do not see an end to this soon. Humans are very stuborn and set in their ways. If they want to spend their earnings on new vehicles and TV's they wiil! It seems the only way this will end is through a catastrophic event (the end of oil). The only hope we have lies in the education of sustainable practices and living by example.
We have so much stuff... there is a book of photos of the stuff that people living in different countries have, where they took EVERYTHING out of their houses and put the stuff in front of the house. You can imagine the difference between the stuff in front of a North American or European house and that of an Indian or African house.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen the video "The story of stuff"? http://www.storyofstuff.com/
"It seems the only way this will end is through a catastrophic event (the end of oil)."
This is where the transition town folks offer us a good idea: to deal with the transition through a descent plan rather than the collapse that could otherwise ensue.