One of the most mindless buzzwords of our generation is “eco-friendly.” Everyone expects you to buy environmental sustainability products, use plastics which are easily to degrade, pay more for fabric bags rather than use plastic bags at the check out, and spend time organizing your garbage into a myriad of different recycle boxes. This buzz of recommended planetary conscious social activity allows us to believe that we are having an impact while over 7 billion humans are throwing over half a billion tons of carbon emission into the atmosphere every year. We desperately want to believe that these recommended actions have an impact on saving the environment, however we live in a system that doesn’t want to change the gravy train of consumerism.

Simple Solutions Cause More Problems

You may have bought a Tesla, and because you think you’ve moved into an electrical car you have therefore contributed to reducing your carbon imprint. The construction of the Tesla required significant amounts of oil to operate all the factory equipment; all the plastics that are involved in Tesla are petroleum-based products which eventually go back into the environment. Grease used for lubrication of all parts are again petroleum-based. Getting to the car to the place where you purchased it required fuel for the ships, and flatbed super trucks. Airplanes fly new parts oversea when the car breaks down. And doesn’t a Tesla need a nice flat road to operate on? How much pollution is created as they repave a road with cheap tar and asphalt, something they will have to do again every 5 to 10 years. But we can ignore all of that because we feel that we’ve done our part for the environment by buying a electric car.

Being friendly to the environment and being conscious of our impact on the planet is becoming a major issue in this generation; the way we think about our behaviour and the environment may be the difference between survival and extinction for the human species. What are we to do? I do not believe that complaining about a problem is useful unless it leads to actionable solutions to remedy the situation.

Consumerism is the opposite of environmental sustainability

The first thing that we must understand is that consumerism is at direct odds with environmentalism. The need to possess the newest, the latest, the best, the trendiest (insert any product here) then you are buying into advertisements that are engineered to influence you and keeping that entire mechanism of industry moving with your buying decisions. Think of all the processes involved in bringing any product to the end user. Tons of oil is used just in manufacturing and shipping of supposedly “eco-friendly” products. If you really want to help out the environment, simply cut down on how much you spend. Here’s some helpful tips which you can do, which actually make a difference.

Look for Alternative Solutions

Why do we have to rush out and buy the latest and greatest? We want to have the feeling of status, of feeling that we’ve got the best available, of not feeling like we are getting behind (others) with outdated equipment. It’s very common for people to change cars every 5 years; yet there’s actually nothing wrong with a well-maintained automobile in the 10 to 15 year range. Several cars can go up to 20 and 25 years. Now which one you think requires more fuel, a person keeps the same car for 25 years or a person new changes a car every 5 years. On the surface you could argue that an older car is not as fuel-efficient as a newer models. But how much fuel goes into costs to manufacture of each and every part, then transport to the plant, then more fuel is used in the assembly process. New cars are then transported all over the country, stored in heated show rooms and taken for test drives (all requiring fuel). Eventually these new cars become old and find their way to a scrap yard, heavy oils and metals are sooner or later find their way to a land fill.

Yes, you are using a little less fuel when you personally fill up that new ‘eco-friendly’ car. But the need to swap cars every few years means you are creating a demand. This demand engages a massive infrastructure to produce new cars and each and every part of that infrastructure requires fuel to operate. Except it isn’t just cars; that is only one example. Shoes, Clothes, knickknacks, time saving whatnots, things that come in hermetically sealed plastic wrapping. Is it any wonder that our consumer based society throws 5 billion tones of carbon into the atmosphere every single year?

The Simple Answer

The simple answer is: buy for the long term. Getting bored with old stuff, throwing it out and buying new, is a cultural habit that is extremely damaging for environmental sustainability. Not a long time ago laundry machines (washers and dryers) were build to last. An individual machine was designed to operate for over 50 years. Then the manufactures discovered that they could make much more money with ‘planned obsolescence.’ So they started creating machines that would expire after 5 years, and guess what… the demand for new machines increased. They made far more money. However the manufacture / consumer relationship is influenced from both sides. If the majority of consumers demand high quality machines with warranties that exceed 25 years, then the manufactures will start producing them. Currently what we want is cheap, cheap, cheap. Something that solves our immediate problem, but with little to no consideration for a long term solution.

Reuse OVER Recycle

Recycling is not a solution to the environmental problem. Imagine this: A plastic bottle is produced in a Chinese Factory, filled with water and eventually finds its way to where you drink. You toss it into a recycling bin. There it undergoes an expensive process (involving fossil fuel burning machines) where the plastic is reused in another product. It is then sold to you again as an eco-friendly product. Eventually you may recycle it where it goes through the loop again or it gets thrown out. New plastic is constantly being created for the factories and eventually (through a convoluted route) it finds it’s way to a land fill, or disintegrated and dispersed into the atmosphere. Rather than buying new things find ways to REUSE things you have already bought so you don’t need to buy more stuff.

• Plastic shopping bags can be reused as garbage liners, wet swim wear carriers, temporary gloves, twine for a water proof rope (or as a bag for your next trip to the store.)
• Packing peanuts make excellent spacers for water at the base of house and garden plants.
• Old clothes can be donated to the local thrift store. Very old clothes can become the base for a Halloween costume.
• Old knit sweaters can provide you with lots of wool to create a different article of clothing or a blanket if you wish to learn knitting for stress relief.
• With the help of a handy composter all food waste can be converted into valuable soil nutrients. Used cat litter too can invigorate nitrogen depleted soil.

There are probably 101 more ideas that you can think of which would add to this list. The point is to start thinking in terms of “How can I reuse rather than toss it in the garbage.” It is a small effect with just me doing it. Our family produces less than a third garbage per week than other families on our block. What would happen if the majority of people think in terms of reusing over recycling?