Poppin’ tags
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
-William Morris, Textile designer
All we need is less! We are awash in products – for every one bag of rubbish we put out, another seven bags of waste have been created to make the goods that filled it. Consumerism is the primary contributor to global environmental issues such as: deforestation, ozone depletion, pollution,(especially plastic), water and grain shortages, and soil loss. Unsustainable over-consumption has led to rising Greenhouse Gas emissions and the resulting global crises. It’s time we start reducing our usage and consumption and minimizing our footprint.
What can I do?
How can one individual change an entire culture you may ask? Let’s think smaller picture to start with, here’s some tips on reducing individual consumption:
- Before discarding, can it be re-purposed or can someone else use it? Support local opportunity shops
- Share, swap or trade before you buy new (e.g. Trade*laide, Gumtree, Facebook buy, swap, sell groups)
- Watch the short movie: The Story of Stuff about the way we make, use and throw away all of the ‘stuff’ in our lives.
- Wherever possible, source locally.