At the start of the year, I began to seriously evaluate how I can start living more sustainably and living a more environmentally conscious and sustainable lifestyle.
This has caused me to seriously consider my consumerism habits, and while I love shopping just as much as the next person, I realized that if I want to make the move towards living an environmentally conscious lifestyle, it’s essential that I learn to manage my consumerism habits.
Related: Cutting Back on Consumption
Why do our consumerism habits matter? Well, because our constant need for more stuff has profound impacts on the world around us. Our consumerism habits, especially in the West, fuels the infrastructure for child labor and unsafe working conditions with little pay in third world countries, in addition to also playing a role in the deterioration of the environment. Whether we like it or not, western countries including the US play a significant role in the global economy, and as consumers, it is our responsibility to begin to make more conscious decisions on what we choose to support with our spending habits. Our collective overconsumption of goods also contributes to large amounts of waste, with nowhere to put it which puts a strain on our environment.
Consumerism culture has impacted all of us, and collectively as a society, we have become dependent on the purchasing of stuff to fill a void. Shopping culture has consumed us all. With a constant influx of sales and new releases, we feel pressured to buy without stopping to think if we even need this item at all. Look around you and evaluate how much stuff you have. How much of it was impulsively purchased? How much of the stuff around you is absolutely necessary to have? We get so overwhelmed by such a constant overload of new products and releases that we never stop to think if we actually need it before buying it.
You may be wondering how you can make the step to start fixing your consumerism habits. The best way to start is by cutting back on your consumption of fast fashion and fast beauty. Yes, that new eyeshadow palette that was just released is stunning, but if you look at your collection, you’ll realize that you probably own most of the shadows in the palette. Fast fashion is also extremely bad for the environment. Cheap and fashionable clothes may feel good for your wallet, but workers and the environment pay a heavy price for us to have these clothes. Fast fashion has also played a role in how we value our clothes when we buy cheap clothes from fast-fashion retailers, we don’t invest much in it emotionally or monetarily, it serves to be used for a purpose, whether that be a party or because it would photograph well for an Instagram pic, and then is tossed to the side.
We can actively make lifestyle choices to limit our overconsumption of goods. We should make a conscious effort to research the brands we are buying from, who is making our clothes, whether they are being paid a livable wage, were the materials used to make these products ethically sourced? Although on a college student budget, it can be hard to understand the reasoning of buying a $50 good quality dress vs a $5 cheap quality dress. If you think about it, when you go for the more expensive option, you are paying for a piece that will last you longer, is made of ethically sourced materials, and was made by workers who were paid a livable wage. Meanwhile, with the cheaper option, it will ultimately last you only a couple wears before it is discarded, and was probably a product of child labor or made by workers who were not paid a liveable wage.
Small choices like this may seem insignificant but ultimately can create a significant impact on the ethos of the global economy.