Growing up in recent times usually means that we have been coached somewhere along the way about global warming and small steps we can take to make a difference. Most certainly everyone nowadays can recite the 3 R’s on demand: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.My concern is this: do we know how to rercite the 3 R’s so well that we don’t actually stop to think about what they mean?
In my opinion, judging by the what the people around me tend to do, Recylcing and Reusing are being done (although, for the most part Reuse is being applied to simply reusable bags when it can extend far beyond this). But the most overlooked R is REDUCE. This is one that is incredibly hard to implement, for a few reasons. One minor reason has to do with repair. In order to reduce our consumption we would have to repair broken gadgets, items, and so on. But when repairing costs almost as much as buying a brand new replacement, it’s difficult. As a result there are less specialized people around, making it even harder to repair our things – we have to travel farther and/or pay more. Most often times we opt for the newer, shiner version instead of repairing our scratched and outdated one. But this leads to 99% of goods manufactured and consumed in the trash within 6 months! This is not unintentional, unfortunately, it was all planned and perceived.
Larger and more disturbing reasons are due to Planned Obsolescence and Perceived Obsolescence, concepts created by economists and industrialists in the 1930s but “popularized” in the 1950s. Perceived Obsolescence is when things are “designed for the dump”. They used to be only single-use items like coffee cups and plastic bags but are now spreading to bigger things like cameras, computers, and music players with their everchanging technology. Perceived Obsolescence, on the other hand, convinces us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful. This is done by changing the way things look so that it’ll be obvious that you didn’t buy anything new for years (e.g. fashion trends, iPods, etc).
According to Annie Leonard’s amazing video “The Story of Stuff“, American studies have shown that the national happiness has been on the decline since the 1950′s, around the time this manic consumption started increasing. According to her, this is due to the fact that we have more stuff but less time for the things that really make us happy, like family and friends.
All this to say, reduce, reduce, reduce! The less you buy, the less money you’ll need, the less you’ll have to work, the more you can live. Since leaving the world of Marketing and becoming a Yoga teacher, I am so much more happier and healthier, and it is not because of money.
Please take the time to watch Annie Leonard’s video. It is well worth it and may even save you money.
