Mindless Consumerism
It’s not that I didn’t really *care* about the environment….. actually maybe it is that I didn’t really *care*. 
What’s that saying? When you know better, you do better. I hope now that I *know* better, I’m doing better.
Rather than looking at things from a global perspective, I want to blog today about my own journey into understanding more of my impact on the earth. I’m sure someone else can and will cover things from a political and a global perspective.
Now I’m the first to admit that back in those days I was a consumer extraordinaire. I wasn’t considerate of the amount of landfill being created. In fact, I LOVED Christmas Day because it meant that all the packaging on the new toys could be removed from my home and annoy me no more. The fact that that packaging had to go *somewhere* didn’t even enter my mind.
The biggest impact for me came one day when I went with DH for a drive to our other farm. The farm where he had dug a hole to bury our rubbish. There, staring me in the face was around 12 months of our own rubbish. Believe me, there is NOTHING like coming face to face with your own waste to make you really THINK about the impact you’re making on the earth. One garbage bag doesn’t seem like all *that* much but when you add garbage bag upon garbage bag to a pile (or a hole in the ground in our case) plus a few major clean outs - you get quite a LOT of garbage. I began to wonder how long it would take us to run out of room in the scrub.
We had a similar experience when it came to water consumption. The farm we are now living on (which isn’t the same one we originally moved to) has no piped water. All of our water has to be caught and stored in rainwater tanks or carted in a truck. When you have a FINITE supply of water it really makes you aware of what you’re using.
The fact of the matter is that we all have a FINITE supply of water. We all have a FINITE amount of land in which to store our waste. But by outsourcing these problems, I wonder if we’ve made them too “out of sight, out of mind” for people. They’re not MY problem – someone else can deal with that.
I wonder if it would make a difference if we were all brought face to face with the effects that our choices make? If it were made *OUR* problem once again (like it would have been in Pioneering days). Do you think maybe we’d all wake up to ourselves and change some of the choices we make? I wonder if it would help us to switch from “mindless consumerism” to “mindful consumerism”?
Well, one thing I do know. I have a long way to go before I can even begin to consider myself “green”. I only hope that as I learn more and know better I can do better.
Here’s one from me. We had to go to a regional centre for an appointment today and I resisted the urge to “browse” the shops and just stuck to my list. I’m a terrible one for purchasing items that I didn’t even know I needed (or wanted) just moments before. And I didn’t set 1 foot inside Toyworld even though I know they’re having a 25% off sale. Believe me, kids toys are my biggest weakness so that was quite a feat for me!
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Awesome post! I have never really thought about my waste and landfills before. Thanks for making me aware! For my babystep, I’ll take my lunch to work in a plastic container (that I can wash and reuse). As opposed to gladwrap, which gets chucked straight in the bin. Its only a small thing, but hey, every little bit helps hey!
Luv Lil xox
I think it would do everyone a lot of good to ’see’ the amount of waste they generate as you have done so - certainly made me stop and think and that is always a good thing - thanks for that post.
Madly Saving
Hmm well I am going to go and find what i have done with all those “green bags” you know the material ones that you can buy instead of using plastic shopping bags. I know i should have heaps of them as that is the new “in” thing, to give them out as advertising, so i have a number of bunnings, scu, and other company logo “green bags”.
See i have heaps of them but have never used them for shopping other than once, because the handles broke on two of them dropping sixteen cans of cat food (i buy in bulk when its on special) on my feet and a 2 litre of milk (which exploded all over my shoes and lower part of my pants.
But that was the very first ones that I was given and I know that some of the newer ones did seem a lot stronger, so will dig them out and start using them for the shopping and will clean out my rectangle bucket and put it in the car to put the tins in, so that i dont have to worry about the bags breaking from the weight of the tins.
That should mean at least 12 plastic shopping bags less that i have to deal with each fortnight.
I totally agree about “out of sight, out of mind”. Wouldn’t we all be a lot more aware if we had to deal with our own garbage!
Great post. I read a book a few months ago about where our garbage goes. I can’t remember the name of the book, but I did learn the term “Coney Island whitefish” which refers to used condoms found as litter outdoors. I haven’t found the situation to use the term in conversation…until now.
Kudos on your environmental awakening. I think about the environment a lot, but I fall short in making big or small changes. Gotta work on that.