As easy (and understandable) as it is to complain about paper straws and the like, the truth is that it’s overall a new positive to not create trash that will outlive multiple generations of humans. However, the bad news is that we all have a long way to go.
The “Anticonsumption” online group shows the environmental effects of producing, moving, and buying too much stuff through memes and insightful posts. Hopefully, these images might be some good food for thought, so get comfortable, be sure to upvote the posts that caught your eye and comment your thoughts below.
This post may include affiliate links.
My Haven
Came Across This On Facebook
Exactly
Looking at all the examples here might lead someone to despair, so it’s worth also highlighting that it’s not all doom and gloom. For example, just this week (November of 2024) Australian scientists have developed a method to recycle old textiles into concrete. The fashion industry and fast fashion in particular create mountains of waste, so this is a great step forward.
Remember, many of us purchase cheap clothing that tends to not even last a year, creating monumental water waste for products that end up in landfills at the end of the day. This is a good and sustainable way to turn that junk into a considerably more valuable commodity, construction materials.
"The Heroes We Deserve"
True True True
Local Funeral Home Offers This $85 Cardboard Casket. What A Great Way To Not Waste Money And Resources
Speaking of emissions, researchers from the University of Massachusetts are working on “agrivoltaics,” a method to help farmers utilize even more of their farmland. The crop? Energy, gathered from solar panels placed across the land. Farming does come with its own emissions, but let's face it, we need food, so might as well make it more efficient.
Because Of The Anticonsumption Mindset, I Have So Much More Respect For Someone Driving A Normal-Sized Old Truck Than A Brand New Gigantic One
Blue Shell The 1%
Made A New Cat Scratch Pad From Trash
You may have noticed that behind most of these developments are researchers and scientists. It’s easy to get lost in the promises of green entrepreneurs, but at the end of the day, it’s research, both privately funded and publicly funded that is going to end up helping our environment.
My Mother's Blender, Still Choochin Just Fine After 4 Decades Of Use, With All The Original Parts
It’s All Of Our Responsibility, As Inhabitants Of Earth, To Reduce The Impact We Make Upon It! If You Love This Earth, And Want To Make It A Better Place, The First Place To Start Is Living And Shopping More Sustainably! Creating Less Waste Is The First Step In Making Our Earth Healthy Again
Your Life Has Already Been Designed
Yikes
Vaping is stupid and this is super stupid. This must be a bad joke or a nightmare.
A Book From The 70s Based On A Computer Model Based On Just A Few Inputs Roughly Predicted The Next 50 Years, We're At The Brink Of Ecological Breakdown, Billions Live In Dire Poverty And The Rich Own More Than Half Of The World's Wealth. If That's Not An Alarming Bell, I Don't Know What Is
There will come a point where the impoverished will no longer have money to buy from the rich, and the whole thing will just collapse. I'd hope that the issues will get solved before it comes to that, but looking at the world's current state...
Should This Be Implemented Throughout The World?
"Should This Be Implemented Throughout The World?" You mean offering paying jobs to homeless people to help them get back on their feet? I realize picking up garbage isn't a dream job for most, but it's a start to get them food, a place to stay and be able to look at other jobs that won't see them as "homeless" but as actual "potential employees"
This Mother’s Day Ad I Received In The Mail Made Me Sad
The Recycling Shop Near Me Has Free Used Paints And Chemicals!😊
Which Would You Rather: Cheap Clothes, Or A Habitable Planet?
We had a couple of decades to fix the crisis in the 70's. (Thanks Reagan /s) A decade or so to mitigate the crisis in the 90's or not hit any tipping points. Now we have a 'decade' to keep the crisis from becoming 'too bad'
As Seen Elsewhere
We Can Do It Again!
♻️a Drain In Karachi, Pakistan. Hard Work Can Go A Long Way In Cleaning This Earth! Use Less Waste And Work On Picking Up Litter During Your Day! Live And Shop Sustainably ♻️
Pretty Much Sums It Up
Sushi Place Put My California Rolls In A Tupperware Container I Brought Them!
This Is A Great Incentive To Get More People Recycling And Cleaning Our Earth! However, We Must Keep Working To Limit Our Plastic Production And Live Sustainably!
My Wife With A $4 Toy Basket
This Sculpture Represents The Amount Of Plastic Found On Only 2 Miles Of Coastline In The UK. We Can Do Better! Live And Shop Sustainably
Pulled From A Local Pet Stores Dumpster
The Irony Of These Items Is Too Much
Courtesy Of A Canadian Grocery Chain
Shows How Outrageous Pricing Has Gotten, But At Least This Is A Small Step Towards Sustainable Consumerism
"Work, Consume, Die!"
Prime Day Be Like
Surely They Would
"And what good does it do you to own the stars?" "It does me the good of making me rich." "And what good does it do you to be rich?" "It makes it possible for me to buy more stars, if any are discovered." - Antoine de Saint Éxupery, The little prince
From My Days Working In A College Dining Hall
Now There Are "Disposable" Vapes You Can Play Games On
Aside from being even more wasteful than the already egregious disposable vape, this thing is clearly aimed at children (and others whose brain hasn't developed past a certain point) and is designed to try to make vaping even more addictive. Vaping products should be legally required to be boring and uncool. They're already d***s. We don't need to make them more exciting.
The Weight Of Different Breeds Of Chicken Over Their Lifespan
The natural lifespan of chickens is about 7 years, but some chickens have been known to live up to 15 years. On production farms, chickens are killed when their productivity declines, i.e. at about 1.5 years of age.
This Smoothie Place I Went To Gives You Mason Jars To-Go, And Fills It Each Time You Bring It Back
We're Doomed
Five Below Propoganda
But I’m A Creep 🎶
I Wouldn’t Care If People Vaped If They Weren’t Generating So Much Plastic Waste
Nice, we went from seeing cig buts everywhere to vapes everywhere.
No Words
In some cases wouldn't that trap the ethylene making it go bad faster.
What Was The Point Of The Plastic Bag Ban If They're Simply Going To Rebrand Them?
The good plastic bags are still better than the single use (and the not even an entire single use, break immediately, completely useless) bags that can't be reused. Even if it's technically identical to the disposable bag, if people are actually using it multiple times, it makes a difference.
On To The Next Fad
I would be embarrassed to own one of these now. After watching those videos of people jumping over the counter at Starbucks to steal one and pushing people over to grab one on sale. No thanks. I feel like your life lacks meaning if you need to do this. And for what ? How low is your self esteem that you need to show some random product as a win.
A Whopping 58% Of Food Is Wasted Or Lost In Canada Every Year. The Pandemic Has Put Extra Strain On An Already Inefficient Food System As We Saw Farmers Forced To Dump Milk And Abandon Crops Due To Plummeting Demand
In plastic bags though - shame! (I believe I'm legally obliged to put /s at the end of the comment) /s
Making It Look Like A Bigger Amount Is More Important Than Using Less Plastic
I hate companies that do this. You open it up and it is just dead air under the photo.
2 Billion Dollar Home In Mumbai Built On Orphanage Land Worth 10 M, Sold For 2.5m, Overlooking Slums
That's the building of those a******s who recently had the wedding for several hundred million.
This Just Completes It
What we all need to understand is that we DON'T have to buy what they advertise (looking at you, BP). Nobody holds a gun to our heads and forces us to buy all the junk that's pushed on us. Don't buy anything in an ad. Make them spend the money for nothing. Actually, by putting out more and more ads, they're achieving exactly the opposite of what they want - we're learning to totally ignore what's being shoved into our faces morning, noon, and night. Ask yourself this: when was the last time you actually looked at BP's big pop-up ad before Xing it out? I've deleted two of them by now and I couldn't even tell you what they were. And that's the way it should be. If you get in my face, make it an annoyance to be on your site, then don't blame me if I'm going to ignore those annoyances. If you make the ads more annoying and less avoidable, then don't be surprised if I leave your site entirely.
Neighbors Threw Out Their $5400 Play Set Because It Was “Rotten”. Just Needed Some Paint, Good As New
Found At The Park And Grabbed Before My Daughter Could. Turns Out It's Disposable. What A Waste Of Material For One Use And Screw People Who Leave These At Parks 🙄
Note: this post originally had 94 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
How is not being materialistic somehow equate to communism or socialism? I think it’s called being an adult. Deferred gratification. Living within your means. And all the other, boring, hated, moderation ideas of generations past.
Capitalism requires constant growth to perpetuate itself, minus the baked-in economic collapse every decade or so. It needs people to buy random things, otherwise line not go up ):
Load More Replies...Back in my day, growing up Catholic meant growing up anti-consumption. Comedians make fun of Catholic parents for teaching guilt, but yeah, don't put it on your plate if you aren't going to eat it; question if you really need it before you buy it; and the fashion of jeans hasn't changed that much since your older sibling got them.
And fashion comes back around. Really wish I still had some of my outfits from the 90s.
Load More Replies...I remember when the local government brought in the recycling bins. First they said it was to reduce the cost of the 'Council tax'. A few years later it was then 'Better for the environment'..so people put the rubbish in the appropriate bin. The council then comes around, collects the bins for recycling and they all go in to the same vehicle. Companies, governments and organisations will say anything to make them seem better than they REALLY are.
Your local government? Well that socks. As a resident though you have so much power in creating awareness and change. Working locally is rewarding, the results are right there to experience.
Load More Replies...How is not being materialistic somehow equate to communism or socialism? I think it’s called being an adult. Deferred gratification. Living within your means. And all the other, boring, hated, moderation ideas of generations past.
Capitalism requires constant growth to perpetuate itself, minus the baked-in economic collapse every decade or so. It needs people to buy random things, otherwise line not go up ):
Load More Replies...Back in my day, growing up Catholic meant growing up anti-consumption. Comedians make fun of Catholic parents for teaching guilt, but yeah, don't put it on your plate if you aren't going to eat it; question if you really need it before you buy it; and the fashion of jeans hasn't changed that much since your older sibling got them.
And fashion comes back around. Really wish I still had some of my outfits from the 90s.
Load More Replies...I remember when the local government brought in the recycling bins. First they said it was to reduce the cost of the 'Council tax'. A few years later it was then 'Better for the environment'..so people put the rubbish in the appropriate bin. The council then comes around, collects the bins for recycling and they all go in to the same vehicle. Companies, governments and organisations will say anything to make them seem better than they REALLY are.
Your local government? Well that socks. As a resident though you have so much power in creating awareness and change. Working locally is rewarding, the results are right there to experience.
Load More Replies...