Most shops are just landfill waiting to happen.

[SummerDaytoNight]

I mean, all are to a point, but I’m talking about the non essential ones.

Our society is engineering its own collapse. We only need food, health, house basics and clothing. And I suppose, technology.

Fast fashion could go. Housing should just be the essentials.

My friend took me into a shop called sostrene grene. It was lovely, but nothing was essential. Most shops are like that.

The horse has bolted, but I wish we could limit the unnecessarily stuff and just have the basics. Im not talking Amish level, but there’s no need for all this waste. It would be so much better if only the essentials were produced.

At the point of production, it’s already basically landfill.

Totally agree. Not helped by youtubers and their 'haul' videos encouraging young people to buy more unnecessary garbage destined for landfill.

I feel sorry for the poor people having to make this stuff too knowing that it's all just destined for western consumption, greed and waste.

People are entitled to buy whatever they want.

But it is not correct to say this really isn’t an issue.

We are running out of landfill space, and plastics are poisoning the seas. We are so dependent on getting things from overseas yet the supply chain can be broken by the slightest disruption. It is an issue in countless ways.

Again, this is just not true. Nobody is forcing people down to these retail parks or to the arcades or whatever. It’s your choice to get the bus down to shop for a day or to spend the day online shopping rather than going for a walk or cooking from scratch or gardening or whatever. I can already hear the cries of “oh no that’s boring…!”

Always blaming someone else, the faceless “them”. Sick of it. Take some ownership of your choices.

I think this may well be how things go. Companies will have to shoulder the costs of disposing of their products, and will make things to last rather than to be replaced. The second hand market for goods will grow as buying new becomes more expensive, and in general people will just buy less.

I’m not sure how that fits with capitalism, though…

I totally agree, I'm currently decluttering for a house move and I'm disgusted with how much stuff we've accumulated in just a few years, mainly clothing.

7 bin bags to charity, 50 items sold on vinted just on clothing and shoes. Boxes of stuff for charity shops, things given away on marketplace and olio. It's made me determined to change and be much more mindful of what we buy.

I've already decided that instead of buying new furniture I'm just going to upcycle my current pieces, and I'm definitely looking to get my existing sofa reholstered. I do already buy from Vinted, and only tend to buy cleaning products/toiletries from the likes of b&m. I never use Temu or Shein and I've told my dc that we're implementing a more need than want mindset.

I think you’re missing the point that when you’re horribly, horribly fucking trapped in your life, spanking £5 on some plastic shit that makes your house look a teeny tiny bit like the one you saw on instagram for 3 minutes, if you ignore the black mould in the corner where the housing authority have let your roof leak for 5 years, absolutely will make you feel better briefly. And that will feel worth it to you.

Look it’s not how I live, I’m very much someone who is now privileged enough to be able to priorities a sustainable lifestyle, but I grew up in a home where nobody had any money, and a bag full of B&M tat was a much needed mood boost. It’s shit. Shit for the planet, shit for people.

But lots of people virtue signaling about their own low consumption on this thread, need to recognize that it’s a privileged position to be in.

@TiredEyesToday I mean I agree to a point, but the climate crisis will not spare the poor, it will affect them disproportionately, so we all have a reason to give a fuck.

I do think art and decoration are important OP, but I agree that we need less but better, more handmade and less mass-produced.

Housing should just be the essentials.

Don't really know what this means. I disagree that housing should be entirely utilitarian. We can express our creativity through our surroundings without being environmental disasters.

I have some gorgeous plates and cutlery. I don’t need anymore.

Yes, and you may well have got them from a similar shop to start with? So it does have some function?

Agreed. George Orwell talks about this a bit, how people thought the poor should spend their money on wholewheat bread and veg, and techincally that's true, but they spent it on tea because the worse their circumstances were the more they needed that tiny mood boost to bother keeping going at all.

I have this feeling every time I watch so called influencers showing off their "hauls" ( I hate that word) on YouTube and Instagram. I watch in shocked fascination as they unload all this useless, mainly plastic crap from Temu, Primark, Home Bargains and I think to myself that it is all heading for landfill in a few months time. All this Easter stuff really does my head in, the way it is being marketed as Christmas Mark 2 with trees, baubles, special mugs, signs, wreaths, and even bloody cushion covers!

I’ve been that poor. I had to buy cheap stuff that didn’t last and I had to buy it again.

I didn’t buy tat that needed to be thrown away. I didn’t replace my clothes every year. I didn’t buy seasonal tat. I bought only the essentials because that was all I could afford. I mended clothes because I couldn’t afford to buy new.

In a way my poor lifestyle is what I’m going back to (except now I have the money to buy better quality when I do buy).

Listen, I can’t remember the last time I went shopping. I buy vintage wool, linen and cotton clothes on vinted. I’ve got an allotment. My furniture is second hand. I have a Christmas tree I dig up out of my garden every year.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t see how the problem isn’t individual consumers- it’s the entire socioeconomic system.

@TiredEyesToday there might be some people in that position and I’m sorry if it was the case for you, but plenty are not. As pp said the scale of it is such that a lot of the tat is being bought by people who are in a comfortable enough position and who are just making the choice and not thinking of the consequences.

Ditto
My kitchen chairs, glass containers to keep tea and sugar fresh and crafting supplies come from there.

I hear what you are saying. The two things are not mutually exclusive, though. If the demand drops the supply will follow.

If you are poor, you cannot think about an existential risk that is abstract for you, in the present moment. You can only concentrate on the issues at hand.

I don’t like it, I don’t disagree that it will affect the poor disproportionately, but you are asking too much, to ask people who are trying to scrape their rent together today, to think about sea level rise and climate catastrophe in X years. Until it’s at the door, really.

30% of children in Britain -4.3 million- are growing up beneath the poverty line. That’s a lot of families who do not have the headspace or wherewithal to give a fuck. And I don’t blame them - at Christmas for example- for spanking the few quid they have on a sack full of plastic shit in B&M that looks vaguely like what the kids asked for, rather than one wooden toy that will have them roundly bullied by their peers (for instance)

I follow dumpster diving uk on tik tok. Honestly it is criminal what some companies bin, ultimately for land fill. The guy collecting the stuff gives it to charity.

Watch and weep what corporations bin 🗑️ 😢

So what is your suggestion for a solution? Some kind of action at a societal or national/global level?

It is a mentality but previous to over production/consumption of cheap plastic tat for everything, most everyday items were of good quality not not extraordinarily expensive. Fir a example a plate would be much thicker and sturdier, a shirt would be made f think good quality natural fabric, flooring would be made from ling lasting natural materials and so on. Stuff you need and would last a good time.
Even washing machines.
There is a place for good quality strong compose materials in the construction or even decorative industries. For cost, speed and durability factors.
But basic plastic rubbish is so unbelievably wasteful. The energy and dyes used to produce these plus transport, all really really bad for the environment. That's before we get to the landfill stage.
Pets at Home is full of plastic. Stupid unnecessary pet toys, 'care' products and all the little plastic film lining the inside of food bags.

Oh come on. it isn’t a choice between one wooden toy and a load of plastic shit and we all know that.

Again, the one issue doesn’t excuse the other. We have to find a way through.

I agree. I don’t know what the answer is. We are wrecking the planet aren’t we?

Yes. I think- as with the climate crisis more broadly, which likes to pin the blame on individuals not turning off their white goods on standby, rather than the actual criminals, which are the oil
and gas companies- we have to look past individuals, for two reasons

1. actually it won’t make THAT much difference unless you tackle the issue at source
2. the entire socioeconomic system is constructed to make it nigh on impossible to live a sustainable life - or low consumption life- on a low/modest income

do I have The Answer? Not in detail. But broadly yes I think it needs international action and accord similar to attempts to establish fossil fuel targets that will have a meaningful impact on global temperature rise / climate breakdown - but sadly we all know how that’s gone, so I think unlikely to happen.

Totally agree with this.
We’ve ’influencers’ encouraging consumerism, influencing shopping of fast fashion, sponsored products etc social media itself has a lot to answer for.

I try to buy second hand as much as I can (Vinted & FB marketplace) though it’s defeating when that itself can be more expensive than buying new on certain fast fashion sites.

Eco brands for cleaning and such also can be more expensive which again isn’t encouraging.

We’ve all a part to play but I do think companies and governments have a duty to do SO much better and take responsibility.

Thank you for engaging in a proper, robust debate though! Feels like ye olde mumsnette!

Agreed - in the meantime though we need to try and tackle individual choices too … we are all contributing. All of us.