My Stuff and Consumption

After watching “The Story of Stuff” I began to contemplate the collection of “stuff” I had obtained throughout my 24 years of life.  When I looked at it all, the majority of my stuff (by quantity) was clothes and cosmetics.  I don’t even consider myself to have a large closet or collection of clothing as I constantly find myself saying “I have no clothes,” or “there is nothing to wear”.  These statements are of course not true and are more of an expression of the unsatisfied consumer inside of me.  I have been made to feel discontent when I look at my wardrobe which contains clothing ranging from six months to five years old.  Our current economy runs on this dissatisfaction as to sustain the economy we need to keep consuming.  

While I’m writing this post my roommates are watching the cartoon movie “Megamind” and I happened to look up when Megamind, the villain of the movie gains power of the world after defeating the hero, Metroman and can have whatever he wants.  You see a clip with Megamind surrounded by all this “stuff” and yet he still isn’t happy.  Even though we know “stuff” does not make us happy we feel the need for it.  Advertising is partially responsible for inducing these feelings that our subpar things make us subpar.  Today, children are exposed to more advertising than ever before.

The concept of dematerialization is to lower the materials intensity of the economy.  Dematerialization will reduce the amount of garbage, hazardous materials and destroyed land.  Even renewable resources cannot be sustained and the pace we are demanding them.  Thus dematerialization of goods would continually support the economy without creating the destruction of the natural world.

More and more products are getting dematerialized with the use of computers replacing paper, but the sheer growth in consumption has led us to use a kilogram of paper per day.  The paperless office has failed.  One essay suggests that dematerialization needs to take place in four stages:

1)      Resource extraction,

2)      Industrial products,

3)      Consumer behaviour, and

4)      Waste generated.

The concept of industrial ecology is the study of the relationships between industry, their products, and the environment.  Current global accounting puts material consumption at 50kg/capita/day, excluding water and air.  Plastics have dramatically increased in consumption, and the transition from using metals to using plastics does not accurately reflect the weight of material consumption as they have increased the volume of consumption but are a lower density material.

Dematerialization is based on the Berardini and Galli theory that suggests research and material development will ultimately reduce the material flows in developing nations.

In order to reduce the materials being used in industry four suggestions have been made by a study conducted by Rockefellar University:

1) Reduction of primary materials can be attributed to materials substitution, efficiencies and the use of scientifically selected materials. These may be lighter, but do not reduce the volume (like plastics).

2) Reduction in industry can be attributed to efficient material use, functions, and products.  The taste for complexity and higher performance may increase environmental problems while reducing materialization.

3) Consumers show no significant signs of dematerialization as the level of consumption increases.

4) Waste reduction has potential.

They also suggest that the development of a self-consistant scenario for a dematerialized economy and the changes in technology and behavior needed to achieve it needs to be studied.  Humanity has changed from using resources of ages of a few elements to a resource complexity that uses all elements on the periodic table.  They suggest using all these elements responsibly.  I think they are wrong here, we need to go back to using the elements recycled in nature, as nothing we have dug-up from the deep earth has done us any good in creating sustainability.  

The most important take home message of this study was their 3^rd observation, that on a consumer level there is no evidence of dematerialization.  This is something we have the power to change.  We can vote with our money and reduce our total consumption of material goods.  One of the coolest things I ran into while researching dematerialization was the book “The 100 thing Challenge” by Dave Bruno.

In this book Dave suggests many ways you can reduce your consumption and your amount of “stuff”.  He also tells the reader of his own personal journey to reduce his “stuff” to 100 items.  I thought about reducing my own personal things and wondered how much stuff I really did have.  I tried to estimate but really have no idea. I am contemplating trying minimalizing my “stuff”. 

I dare you to try to....

Reduce your life to 100 things.