21 Feb Why do we keep buying pointless stuff?
Put your money where your heart is
WHAT ARE YOU SPENDING YOUR $$ ON?
Now we don’t mean to ask that literally.
What we mean is when you are spending and consuming products and services, do you ask yourself about the journey of those products, the people who made them and the humans who offer them?
Most of us are spoiled for choice! Products and experiences exist in countless shapes, colours and price ranges. It’s tempting to fall into the trap of buying and buying more. Throwing away to buy more of the same. Stuff is so cheap now. We can afford to live that way. Right? But did you know that we currently:
- Create around 2 billion tons of new waste every year
- Create around 92 million tons of textile waste every year
- Use around 250 billion tons of water annually to make more cotton for the textile industry
- Create around 380 million tons of new plastic every year
So stuff is cheap and easy to get but of course there’s still a price to pay. There always is. It might not be burning a hole in your pocket. But the bill is currently being delivered. Because
- What are we going to do with all that trash?
- What are we going to do with all those limited natural resources that we’re using up?
- What are we going to do with all of the literally indestructible plastic?
- What are we going to do about the unstoppable loss of artisanal skill because it is not valued by consumers anymore?
- What are we going to do about the disappearance of a strong middle class in many countries because people cannot run family businesses anymore and are being eaten up by the big fish?
Of course it is not one individual who can save the planet.
But we all have a part to play and we are all responsible for starting to understand and question what we are spending our money on.
This message is not to say stop buying, move to a farm and make your own everything with no waste whatsoever. That kind of lifestyle is for a particular type of person (who deserves everyone’s utmost and eternal respect).
The message we would like to send today is, see if you can:
- Buy less of the same
- Support the skill of artisans
- Support small businesses
- Opt for natural materials
- Choose better quality and wear/use it for longer
- Do more research about where things come from and who makes them
We have never had better and easier access to information and education.
It is a privilege to use it to our and the world’s advantage.
And it would be a tragedy to just continue living without thinking about what we consume every single day.
A lot of us spend fortunes to receive supreme tertiary education. One of the things most scholars will drill into you, is to question and critically evaluate everything they say, media says or other scholars say.
It is only logical that we should start doing this more in our day to day.
If you start questioning your daily choices, will you still make the same decisions? Will you still buy the same products? Will you still eat the same food? Will you still live the same life?
