Consumption. Waste. Trash. Killing the Earth. One of the leading climate problems impacting the environment today is waste and overconsumption. As someone who loves fashion, clothes, and shopping it can be hard to learn about where items come from and where they end up. Overconsumption can happen with everything from food to clothes to Amazon packages that show up at our doorstep in just one day. These are all examples of how humans in an affluent society can create mass amounts of waste. The human desire for more as well as the joy and instant gratification that shopping brings can become dangerous when considering the state of the environment. Landfills, garbage patch islands in the middle of the ocean, and overflowing trash cans full of wasted and unused products are evidence that we have too much consumption and trash in our society. What does this do to our planet, and what can we do to fix it?

50 years ago, scientists discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. An article by ScienceNews from February 1973, states that scientists on an ocean voyage in the North Pacific came across millions of pieces of plastic littering the ocean. The current article from ScienceNews now states that there is an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic which is double the size of Texas. This garbage patch has proven to negatively affect ocean ecosystems and is just one example of how overconsumption, improper recycling and disposal, and waste can harm the earth. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is directly linked to the landfills and overconsumption of the human population.

Being a primary consumer of goods, I believe it is important to be mindful and cautious of how our purchases impact our earth. Many people do not think twice about throwing items away, but the constant buying, repurchases, packaging, transportation, and disposal of products we do not seem to really need calls for greater attention to be put on our buying and recycling habits. The Guardian article, ‘Overconsumption and the Environment: Should we all Stop Shopping?’ states, “Consumption – of fast fashion, flights, Black Friday-discounted gadgets – has become the primary driver of ecological crisis. We are devouring the planet’s resources at a rate 1.7 times faster than it can regenerate. The US population is 60% larger than it was in 1970, but consumer spending is up 400% (adjusted for inflation).” It seems that today, the influence of social media and being able to purchase items in seconds by pushing a button allows for more consumption and buying that sometimes seems unnecessary. Building a system that could support smaller amounts of buying, spending, overall affluence, and more concern with recycling should be the main goal of a commerce-driven society. We do not need to stop buying everything, but we should be more mindful of what we use, what we need, and how to reuse or recycle it.

One of the things I do not stand for is the criticism of women in a consumptive society. One of my bigger issues with this take is the idea that overconsumption and shopping are driven by women. It is no secret that the fashion and beauty industry is intentionally targeted at women and the pleasure consumer goods bring aka ‘consumer culture.’ The journal article, ‘Just Use What You Have: Ethical Fashion Discourse and the Feminization of Responsibility,’ claims “young women’s frequent characterization as the ‘unwitting’ participants in what has become the poster child for the worst machinations of ‘late capitalism’ does not stop them from being simultaneously identified as more responsible for its ills…it is not surprising to learn that ethical fashion consumption is highly feminized.” Women and shopping are characterized in the media to be a main source of overconsumption. Is this a way that society blames women for a collective problem that concerns the overconsumption of a whole population? At the same time, it seems that women are tasked with the responsibility to make life changes for the environment. There is a major consumption problem that needs to be dealt with, but it needs to be tackled as a collective group to strive toward the goal of more mindful buying and recycling practices.

Consumption at an exponential rate is difficult to cap. Consumerism, affluence, and accumulation of wealth, all contribute to a decaying environment. Overconsumption is heavily based on self-interest and mindless buying, and the incentives of self-interest have no alignment with sustainability and the environment unless significant effort is made to provide for it. Efforts that play against these societal norms will help change consumer culture. Positive externalities, steady-state growth, and ‘green capitalism’ make it seem possible for affluence and consumption to achieve sustainability. But changes need to be made in both the expectations and the mindset of changing over-consumptive buying habits.

The Guardian, interviewing author JB MacKinnon, suggests that we do not need to completely change our habits, but a shift in buying is necessary to improve our impact on the environment. JB MacKinnon claims, “If you’re producing durable goods, you still need considerable labor. Then there’s the secondhand market, the repair of products, taking items back in and recomposing them into new products.” A big step toward sustainable purchasing could be buying more durable and reusable products and trying to repair products instead of throwing them away. JB MacKinnon also states, “Getting people to believe that this can be a satisfying existence will be the biggest hurdle.” It is very difficult to break habits, especially when it is so ingrained in society and its norms. The challenge to changing ways of consumption is changing ways of the instant gratification that comes with shopping and buying.