My stuff and other sources and consumption

Consumerism. The newest toys and gadgets. Throw away society. This is all too common in everyday life. The United States is a great example of this.



The common reaction to products that are no longer desirable is to throw it away. Buy a new one. Walmart has the cheapest goods, though often break and become "use-less". Products are also designed to last longer, such as plastic. Durable, yet disposable. Manufacturers have been creating toxic products like BPA in plastic bottles. Which become useless.

People are being marketed the greatest and newest or sexiest new product.
Children are becoming targets of marketing more and more. They become spoiled brats that rebel if they don't get what they want.



So, how did we come to be consumers? It happened because of industry needed consumerism to drive the economy. The material economy was designed in order for maximum profit. Waste and environmental externalities are not paid for by the manufacturer.

One solution is to move from a sale based economy to a lease based economy. Products can be leased, which allows for the incentive of manufacturers to create products that last longer. Products should also been owned by the manufacturer, which makes them liable for their effects on the environment, such as toxins and persistent chemicals.

• Persistent chemicals are ones that do not degrade in the environment. Many of them are also lipophillic, which means they bind to fats, such as the fat in animals and people. As the food chain is dominated at the top with carnivores, the highest amount of these chemicals are present in humans. Human babies are exposed to these chemicals through the breast milk of mothers, where the highest concentrations of toxins are present. Crazy.

It is very difficult to convince people to lease products, as it may be impossible to stop some people from buying a new product if they are tired of the old one. This is common in buying the newest car. People also like to pawn stuff off to other people if they know there is an invisible problem with it, such as a car with a hidden issue. Ever have that happen to you? You hear it all the time. The person who buys the defective product is paying for fixing it if they want to keep it. This is also true in the manufacturing of products.  The people who are paid very little, such as those women in chemical factories, are paying for the negative health effects of exposure. The habitat degradation of the raw materials from third world countries is paid for by the poor citizens. Yet, in the West, we can buy those cheap products.

But do we really need to consume all of these products?  Think about it the next time you are at the checkout line.