Thank you for staying through our entire series of blogs for the past few weeks. We hope you were able to glean some interesting thoughts and facts about our consumerist culture, in the specific aspects of Fast Fashion, Food Wastage and disposables, and how they are affecting our environment.
With this last blog post I’d thought I’d take a spin on our blog name, ‘The poison of consumerism’. By now, I am certain you probably know what we mean by poison. It is evident in our highly consumerist societies, we are producing an exponential amount of waste and continually straining our world’s scarce resources. Its degrading effects on our environment, as mentioned in our previous blogs, are shocking and its poison is our brewing reality.
Think about the chemical dyes that seep into our oceans, do they only affect water bodies and not the water we drink? Think about the methane contributed from food wastage, do they only contribute to air pollution and not affect our health? Think about the microplastics in disposables, do they only affect marine life and not the food we eat?
Speaking of such things honestly saddens me. The fact that some (many) people still think that environmental costs aren’t theirs to bear, the idea that social or economical effects seem superior to environmental effects. This is the very poison of consumerism. Where people disassociate consumerism to its environmental impacts (because it’s not directly harmful socially or economically), unknowingly (or ignorantly) poisoning the whole of humanity.
While we can sit here all day to criticise the whole of the consumerist population (us including), and pose the easier-said-than-done solution of ‘stop consuming’, another reality we must acknowledge is the very culture of consumerism. I’ll speak of an unpopular opinion that some of you might not agree with.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be overly critical of our consumerist habits, but acknowledge it as a catalyst to environmental productivity. This is similar to the opinion of Esther Boserup (1920-1999). Realistically, it would be very difficult to ‘stop’ consumerism and wish for life to go on as usual. In many affluent countries, the concept of consumerism is the key to success in economies and deeply embedded into culture. Therefore, maybe moving forward is not to harper on the poison of consumerism, guilt-tripping people into reducing their ecological footprint, but to confront the environmental problems of consumerism and invest in solutions to tackle them. This would be a momentous opportunity for progression in our society as we discover new ways of designing products and managing waste into something sustainable.
Of course, I have to admit, I speak optimistically. I base these hopes on the small glimpses of progress I see in sustainability projects. I do recognise that in our current day, reducing our consumption has a significant part to play in reducing the poison and we should all strive to play our part, whenever we can. But, in the circumstances that we cannot seem to reduce, maybe we don’t have to be too pessimistic of the poison, but be optimistic about its progression.
References:
Mayell, H. (2004) Consumerism Earth suffers. Accessed 24 Jul, 2020. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2004/01/consumerism-earth-suffers/
