My Stuff And Consumption Habits

My Stuff And Consumption Habits

The sermon conducted by William McDonough titled the design, ecology, ethics and the making of things opened up my eyes on how things are manufactured and do not necessarily reflect sustainability whatsoever. He states in the sermon that we must honor the earth for which it gives us all things that society needs to survive. The things that are made must not only rise from the ground but return to it, soil to soil, water to water so in which everything that is received from the earth can be given back freely without causing any harm. I believe that this is a good moral to stand by however it is not done whatsoever with regards to the massive “consume and throw away” morals in which we live in today. A prime example is the big corporation box stores such as Wal-mart etc etc. The entire baseline that stores like this run on is to provide the cheapest product and prices to the consumer to buy and have to throw away within a very short time scale. Therefore they will go back repeatedly in order to keep buying these cheap products while the old gets thrown in the trash only to reach a landfill. This is a never ending cycle, especially with certain types of products. Electronics comes to my mind, generally because with most things such as ipods and computers, within a short time they become obsolete and not worth a penny to anybody.

My stuff and consumption habits are generally that of which would not be desired by William McDonough. I like to have nice things, am always influenced by trends and “the next new thing” out there. I have a large array of old electronics and clothes which usually end up being thrown out or placed into storage to sit where they will probably never be used again. Also, now that I am a full time student and not making my own income I have also resorted more to heading to Walmart to buy these cheap consumerables. I would make more conscious decisions if I had the income to do so, like buy something for a bit more that I knew would last a lot longer and also items that are more environmentally friendly, but right now I have been kind of forced to buy based on quantity, not quality.

However, I am just one person in a large world full of consumers whom probably do not think about the effects of buying these cheap items. The norm of the society nowadays is to buy the things that are the cheapest so that they will have more money to spend on other stuff, seems like a no brainer to me. However, the problem with this scenario is that the products that are made with the environment in mind, out of non-toxic materials and built to last generally cost a lot more. Therefore these products do not sell nearly as well as their counterpart and this cycle continues on.

In order for things to change, a total shift in society needs to happen and quite frankly, I don’t see this happening. People are more concerned with making their dollars stretch to the absolute maximum and purchasing these cheap/disposable items seems to be the most feasible solution for your everyday consumer.