Thinking About Our Footprint
So I’ve never before felt the same “Chicken Little” emotion around the environment going to pot, but the longer I’ve been on the west coast, the more curious I’m becoming about waste: where it goes, how it’s managed, and how we all contribute to the Great Pile. I recently watched the promo video for The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. It’s a little campy, predictably biased but gets the message across without too much brow beating – always a nice benefit.
There was one segment which particularly resonated with me, her chapter on Consumption. It wasn’t a suprise that our nation’s identity is driven through shopping and consuming. However it was a surpise that only 1% of the things we consume is trashed within 6 months – I believe it given that the consignment stores are always packed, . I know that the US definition of quality is far lower than say, Germany’s. We plan for obselence because we like to buy new things – “Keep it bright and shiney and give me the new color please!” They buy for the long haul, their decision on a quality product bringing them contentment that they no longer have to worry about that (dishwasher, camera or car) again.
Shortly after WWII when we were figuring out how to ramp up the economy, a retail analyst articulated one of the most demonic sentences that (I believe) has set this country on a crack habit of consumption that no AA program can solve:
Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate.
- Victor Lebow, 1955
There is something so niave, short-term and small-minded about this statement. Is it because we are such a young country that we followed such advice so literally? There are several sites, all ending in dead ends saying Viktor is speaking critically and giving warning and some said Lebow was an environmentalist.
Resources:
Why Consumption Matters
Prior article from Viktor Lebow and a pretty comprehensive post on this topic…
