Feeding The Consumption: We’re Killing Each Other & The Planet

We live in a consumer nation. “Stuff” seems to be our generation’s newest mantra, with each person in the U.S. producing an estimated 4.5 pounds of garbage per day. That is twice the amount that was produced 30 years ago. We are bombarded by hundreds to thousands of advertisements per day ($435 billion is spent on advertising worldwide annually,) which is blatantly intended to influence people to continue consuming more and more things. From food to clothing, to cosmetics and automobiles, we just can’t seem to get enough material items to satisfy our ego desires.

The impact of this societal obsession is vast, affecting the people and the planet at a disturbing rate. In the past ten years alone, one third of the world’s natural resources have been used up. This fact should raise the hair on anyone’s neck. In addition to the environmental impact, mass consumption is affecting our health as thousands of synthetic chemicals and materials are being deposited in most of our food, clothes and cosmetics which can be linked to the influx of health problems the population is currently facing.

The Dhaka garment factory disaster was a wake-up call for many, forcing people to question their role in the consumerism that is destroying the planet.

The problem doesn’t seem to be getting better either – last Spring more than 400 workers were killed and thousands were seriously injured in the collapse of a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Dhaka is one of the poorest cities in the world, which is why many of the top international retailers situate their manufacturing headquarters there. The workers are paid practically nothing to work in unsafe and inhumane work conditions. Joe Fresh, a Canadian company, was one of the retailers employing a large portion of the injured factory workers. Some of the other top sweatshop offenders in North America today include Forever 21, The Gap, Levi Strauss, Nike, and Guess, all which contribute to Canada’s annual $450 billion dollar retail industry. That’s a lot of “stuff” being bought. Yet even after devastating events such as the Dhaka factory collapse we continue to feed and buy into a system that is not only enslaving the majority in a debt paradigm, but it is also killing people and destroying our planet subsequently.