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
I have a 2017 Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid; meaning it has an electric engine and a small gas engine. When I bought it in 2019 it got 60 miles of electric. Now it gets about 30. You can't buy a new PHEV that has more than 35 miles of electric. Electric car batteries are the only technology that gets worse with science. But it sure does encourage buying more cars. Thanks Corporation.
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
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
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%
Local Funeral Home Offers This $85 Cardboard Casket. What A Great Way To Not Waste Money And Resources
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
Your Life Has Already Been Designed
Made A New Cat Scratch Pad From Trash
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...
Yikes
Vaping is stupid and this is super stupid. This must be a bad joke or a nightmare.
The Recycling Shop Near Me Has Free Used Paints And Chemicals!😊
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"
As Seen Elsewhere
This Mother’s Day Ad I Received In The Mail Made Me Sad
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!
Sushi Place Put My California Rolls In A Tupperware Container I Brought Them!
Pretty Much Sums It Up
♻️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 ♻️
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'
Courtesy Of A Canadian Grocery Chain
We Can Do It Again!
Pulled From A Local Pet Stores Dumpster
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
My Wife With A $4 Toy Basket
Shows How Outrageous Pricing Has Gotten, But At Least This Is A Small Step Towards Sustainable Consumerism
The Irony Of These Items Is Too Much
I Wouldn’t Care If People Vaped If They Weren’t Generating So Much Plastic Waste
Prime Day Be Like
This Smoothie Place I Went To Gives You Mason Jars To-Go, And Fills It Each Time You Bring It Back
From My Days Working In A College Dining Hall
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
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
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.
"Work, Consume, Die!"
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.
Neighbors Threw Out Their $5400 Play Set Because It Was “Rotten”. Just Needed Some Paint, Good As New
But I’m A Creep 🎶
No Words
In some cases wouldn't that trap the ethylene making it go bad faster.
Five Below Propoganda
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 🙄
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.
We're Doomed
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.
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
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...When I was growing up, jelly came in glass jars with lips sized and threaded to accept canning lids to make them reusable. Soda came in reusable bottles with a nickel deposit. Us kids would get spending money by picking them up along the road to turn in, helping keep the roadside clean. Flour came in printed cloth sacks to be sewn into clothing items or used as kitchen towels. Cereal came in a cardboard box with a heavy wax paper bag inside. There was a distinct lack of plastic packaging. We reused, repaired, and recycled directly. I was actually talking about this with the wife earlier this evening. Our family of 5 back in the day sent less garbage out in a month than a couple today sends out in a week, or even a few days now. And so much of it is plastic packaging.
I was thinking about the same. I can go over a month without my trash being picked up and still not be overflowing. we recycle anything/everything possible. my neighbors though have overflow after a week. they will not pick up what gets spilled out during trash pickup. mainly I see cardboard, plastic, and paper. I also see a lot of good clothes that I take home wash and leave places for free to anyone who wants/needs them.
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...When I was growing up, jelly came in glass jars with lips sized and threaded to accept canning lids to make them reusable. Soda came in reusable bottles with a nickel deposit. Us kids would get spending money by picking them up along the road to turn in, helping keep the roadside clean. Flour came in printed cloth sacks to be sewn into clothing items or used as kitchen towels. Cereal came in a cardboard box with a heavy wax paper bag inside. There was a distinct lack of plastic packaging. We reused, repaired, and recycled directly. I was actually talking about this with the wife earlier this evening. Our family of 5 back in the day sent less garbage out in a month than a couple today sends out in a week, or even a few days now. And so much of it is plastic packaging.
I was thinking about the same. I can go over a month without my trash being picked up and still not be overflowing. we recycle anything/everything possible. my neighbors though have overflow after a week. they will not pick up what gets spilled out during trash pickup. mainly I see cardboard, plastic, and paper. I also see a lot of good clothes that I take home wash and leave places for free to anyone who wants/needs them.
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...