To be bothered by how much we consume as a society...

[Cakelesswonder]

Don't get me wrong I love a retail therapy session but today just felt utterly gluttonous in the amount of ads for Black Friday, the 'deals, I couldn't move for emails offering me 20% off lots of things I don't need. I'm not suggesting everyone knits their own yogurt and lives like Mormons but I really feel we don't have the resources on Earth to keep consuming, throwing and consuming like we do. Everything is disposable, straws, clothes, we buy water in bottles then throw them away polluting the oceans and planet for ourselves and future generations. I have no idea what the overall solution is but it really got to me today .

What is the obsession with food?!

The problem with food is a combination of a lack of basic cooking skills,
and lack of time to cook, so the plastic heavy takeaways and ready meals come in.

Cooking is a spectator sport viewed on the telly.

dontblameme hope you don't mind I nicked your photo so I could message Morrisons on twitter basically being like that's ridiculous -_-.

On takeaways about 10 years ago when I lived in china, our local takeaway used to come on actual plates/bowls you'd leave it outside the door and they'd pick it up later to take back and wash and use again , seems much better then plastic containers but I doubt they do it anymore

Just unsubscribed for 35 emails from companies trying to persuade me to buy stuff I dont really need. Like the op the black friday emails tipped over the edge, I think I had around 60 that day alone.

This thread has inspired me to up my game but to also start complain to businesses about their awful over packaging and I am going to join my local transition network.

Will also include more meat free days, less driving when we could walk (when weather warms up brrr), will be switching to shampoo bars. Great idea for a thread op!

Pompadoo Not at all, that's great! I don't use twitter but I did think about it just for that pic.

Chardonnay Cooking as a spectator sport, you're so right! I'm no Nigella but I do batch cook and freeze, lots of soups and veggie lasagne etc.

Someone said up thread about plastics as a way to use oil waste. I think it's just money. Aren't many of the richest companies the ones who make plastic packaging? Their owners feature heavily in rich lists etc.

Re plastics, it may well sort itself out. In a few decades when most vehicles are electric instead of petrol/diesel, the price of raw plastic products will rocket as plastic will become "the product" rather than just a by-product of oil production. When raw plastic rockets in price, that'll be the time when manufacturers use other alternatives and plastic use will plummet.

karriecreamer, even better, if the price rockets it might even be worthwhile 'mining' the sea to recover all those zillions of particles?

I know it isn’t to everyone’s taste but I use Lush products. The shampoo and conditioner are solid bars, so less water and no packaging. I’ve got a small stash of pots and tubs and they’ll all go back to be reused. I just packed for a trip and I could have wrapped my toiletries in a hanky.

Just catching up. Disposable fruit bowls. Packaged toastie kits. Advice on how to wear clothes more than once. WTF. :(

I ran out of conditioner today and so have ordered a lush shampoo bar and conditioner bar. Hope they work since I have very long thick hair and I get through a tube of conditioner a week. It would make a big difference to the amount of plastic we get through.

I will say I did laugh when I had a pop up about the DoC wearing her boots once again. I find it comical that her wearing something more than once is newsworthy.

I hate that reindeer food thing too. I'd not realized until the other day about how they just 'stay' like microbeads, but FFS surely it's obvious anyway that putting glitter on your garden where birds and squirrels etc try to eat is a nasty idea :( WTF is wrong with leaving a carrot out FFS (or preferably an apple, as apparently reindeer prefer them!) :(

Not so much an environmental concern I suppose (other than the extra manufacturing processes) but I just remembered a total WTF moment walking past a bathroom store... Advertising a free Bluetooth mirror with a threshold spend. Why does a mirror need Bluetooth?! I just had an 'I don't understand this planet' feeling.

I think these days people value convenience over everything else, which is why packaged, ready prepared food/ready meals are so popular. Cooking food from scratch is perceived to be complicated and time consuming (although I can make a delicious and nutritious cheese and veg omelette in not much more time than it takes to unpack and reheat a microwave meal).

It's also why takeaway hot drinks/sandwiches are so popular. People can't be bothered to put the kettle on and fill a flask/make sandwiches and put them in a box before they leave home.

Bluetooth mirror!!! Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

NewtsSuitcase: Just wondering if you've tried Apple Cider Vinegar as a conditioner? ( I've long hair too, not yet tried Lush bars).
I do like the leave-in commercial type, and usually alternate with the American one which is delivered to your door....

I used to use a bottle of cheap malt vinegar swiped from my mum's cupboard when I was a teenager EmNetta . Only as a finishing rinse though, not as conditioner itself.

My hair is seriously thick. It would be a frizz bomb without proper conditioner. I am keen to reduce our plastic consumption but not to the extent that I scare small children in the street. I'll feed back on the lush bars though.

What about all this spam email, my spam folder with Yahoo gets quite a few a day, Gmail folder is pretty much empty though. How can people stop spam.

I have to use proper conditioner as well, happy to try a bar but not vinegar - the smell!

I am going to make a couple of purchases for green things - decided to get the yogurt kit and will buy a bar conditioner - but after that I'm on a massive mission to buy as little as possible. I feel very anti consumerism right now.

My parents have a bunch of stuff in their house that we were going to look taking to the charity shop but now we will have a look at the weekend and see what we can all use as a family.

I’m all for the reduction in plastics - the amount around food in the supermarket is ridiculous but I can’t and won’t give up my morning take away from Starbucks!

Could you take your own cup though Parker and get the coffee cheaper in the process

On the Lush bars - pop in the shop and ask for a sample. They’ve always been happy to load me up with samples.

I was using the last of my old bottled shampoo and conditioner and accidentally managed to fill my palm with conditioner first. I didn’t want to waste it, or stand under the shower for ages nudging it back into the bottle, so I managed to wash my hair with my right hand, then condition with the left. Glad I was on my own because washing hair with one hand raised must look really, really silly.

Anyone else overwhelmed by the amount of Christmas tat in the shops? When I was a child we had to make the fake tree and decorations last years but these days it all seems so throwaway.

That's true bluetongue, it seems a lot more, also because it's in the shops for longer, I think. Some stores have their Christmas merchandise in early November, so it's relentless.

But it's not only Christmas. As soon as that's cleared/discounted there will be all the Valentine day's stuff out, then Easter, then Mother's day and so on. The high street uses any excuse to sell endless plastic rubbish.

"When I was a child we had to make the fake tree and decorations last years but these days it all seems so throwaway."

yes, the posts here saying that a fake tree is only for a year etc give me the rage. We are just totally based on a throwaway society now. It amazes me that people think this makes for a magical Xmas for their DC and don't worry about the kind of life their DC will have in future when we've ruined the planet!!