The wonderful Alison from Sustainably Simple Life has shared the fifth post in the series being run by the Climate Change Collective.
We live in a world that is dominated by capitalism and consumerism–and it is ruining our planet.
Not everyone reading this post will live in a capitalist society, but I bet a lot of us do.
Saying that money is the root of all evil is for another conversation, but saying it is a root of our environmental problems is a reality. Am I saying we need to abolish all of our current systems? Not necessarily. But we do need to change the conscious consumer catchphrase from being a marketing target to an actual practice.
Read on here to see what Alison has to say…. We live in a world that is dominated by capitalism and consumerism–and it is ruining our planet.
I think we’re all aware of the impact of buying things that are the result of lots of air miles – fruit out of season, clothes from the far East – and goods with lots of packaging. My supermarket is getting a lot better about packaging and I see mail order items coming with recyclable paper packaging rather than bubble wrap. However, wouldn’t apples with zero packaging be even better? Recycling isn’t without cost, it still requires resources. So wouldn’t it be even better for sustainability to reuse the same bags over and over again? The sheer amount of plastic packaging has been starkly clear in this house since I start recycling soft plastics. Our mail waste bin now only gets full about every 10 days (rather than every 2-3 days before) and I take a large bag full of soft plastics to the supermarket every week. I’m horrified (as well as both smug that we’re doing it and militant when other people in the house put things in the wrong bin!)
Please read Alison’s full post for lots more information and considered thoughts on this important topic.
Smelly Socks and Garden Peas 
Spot on
Recyclable valuables
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It’s great to bring awareness to help the environment. I think people should stop buying stuff they don’t really need and stop throwing things aways as fast as we do. We don’t need new clothes every season or year. And with food, I think it would be a big step if we could stop wasting and throwing things away. Many people don’t finish their food and half of it goes to waste. There’s still much to do about it all.
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I eat all my food, every last bite. 😆
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You’re spot on about soft plastics. Our main bin is exactly the same! Much better now!
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I agree that plastic bags are a problem. It is good that they are scrapping best before dates for fruit and veg as we can tell when they are no longer edible, as was the case in the traditional fruit and veg shops of the eighties haha. We need to stop throwing stuff away that still has usefulness or can be repurposed.
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agree…I wonder with the higher the cost of living goes, if we’ll all realize that we don’t need everything all the time?….and as a guy that sells running shoes, there are still so many issues with that, but with caster bean oil and so many manufaturers now using recycled or recylable products, well, its a start….
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A recent article about the area where I reside included a startling note about the recycling of plastic, that most of it went to the landfill because recycling it into other things cost more than making new from petrochemicals. I checked this out with one of my intensely environment-positive friends who shook his head and said, “sad but true.” Apparently getting common folks like us to recycle was a way of shifting the burden of guilt from the producers to the consumers. Kind of like making tobacco addiction a problem of smokers instead of suppliers.
Last week I cleared out a basement-corner’s worth of aluminum cans and glass bottles, taking them (in plastic bags, as recommended) to a local charity that supports at-risk youth. I also took copious amounts of soft plastic to the supermarket that collects such. Though I felt morally superior and environmentally righteous, I know that I haven’t really done much of anything.
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