# CONSUMPTION
Website 
Let’s reduce our use of finite resources by eliminating unnecessary consumption, fighting against planned obsolescence, and resisting the forces that are spreading a consumer monoculture worldwide.
# Highlighted Consumption Actions
* [ ] Join or start a neighborhood sharing network.Expand Action
* [ ] Be part of a gift economy.Expand Action
* [ ] Practice simple living.Expand Action
* [ ] Policy action: Eliminate single-use plastic.Expand Action
# Explore the Consumption topics
* [ ] Transportation
* [ ] Waste
* [ ] Community spaces
* [ ] Beyond money
* [ ] Business ownership models
* [ ] Resisting consumerism
# The Big Picture
One reason modern economies are so environmentally destructive is that they **must keep growing, forever**. This means that consumption, too, must increase without end. But in highly industrialized societies, most people’s material needs have already been met. How are they convinced to keep consuming more and more stuff?
The solution hit upon in the 1920s involved sophisticated marketing and advertising methods aimed at creating a “psychic desire to consume.” [1] These techniques make us feel inadequate if we don’t have the newest gadget, wear the latest fashion, drive the coolest car. Even if we have a closet full of clothes, in other words, we’re still induced to go shopping for more.
A related solution is known as “planned obsolescence” – products intentionally designed to be replaced after a year or two of use, even when they could be made to last a lifetime. Some companies make it almost impossible to repair their products even after a minor malfunction. In other cases there’s something even more nefarious going on: many printers, for example, have been designed to stop working after a predetermined number of copies are made. There’s nothing wrong with the printer – it has simply been programmed to stop working. [2]
Combine technological innovation with sophisticated advertising campaigns, and you get another form of obsolescence. The smartphone you buy this year – so much more advanced than last year’s model – will seem woefully inadequate when you hear about next year’s even more advanced model. As one tech writer put it, constant innovation means that “in two years your new smartphone could be little more than a paperweight." [3]
Planned obsolescence works so well for industry that 150 million cellphones are discarded in the US every year – most of them ending up in landfills or incinerators. [4] Apply that to all sorts of technological products, and it’s easy to see why e-waste is growing so rapidly. In fact, 2019 set a record for the amount of e-waste generated worldwide: 53.6 million metric tons of discarded phones, computers, appliances, and other gadgets. [5]
Reducing the environmental toll of consumerism will require, among other things, active steps to break free of the “psychic desire to consume”. Because advertising is so effective at promoting the idea that consumption is the key to happiness, it’s important to reduce our own – and especially our children’s – exposure to advertising whenever possible.
We can also reduce consumption by repairing the products we already have when they break. This Action Guide includes projects like community “repair cafes” where broken goods – from electronic devices to appliances, clothes, household objects and more – can be brought for repair. It also describes some of the efforts to stop corporations from making their goods difficult or impossible to repair.
Another way to reduce consumption is by sharing ownership of costly goods that we only use occasionally – like cars and pickup trucks, power tools, farm and garden implements, and even some household appliances. A number of projects described in this Guide aim to make such sharing easier.
Local economies can be highly effective at meeting people’s real needs, but they are not suited to satisfying the artificial desires created by the consumer culture. For that reason, strengthening communities and local economies goes hand-in-hand with reducing unnecessary consumption. The initiatives in this section of the Action Guide aim to do both.
# References [1] Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976). [2] David Schrieberg, “Landmark French Lawsuit Attacks Epson, HP, Canon And Brother For 'Planned Obsolescence'”, Forbes, Sept. 26, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidschrieberg1/2017/09/26/landmark-french-lawsuit-attacks-epson-hp-canon-and-brother-for-planned-obsolescence/?sh=38806b2a1b36 [3] Andy Walton, “Life Expectancy of a Smartphone”, Houston Chronicle, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/life-expectancy-smartphone-62979.html [4] Nathan Proctor, “Americans Toss 151 Million Phones A Year. What If We Could Repair Them Instead?”, Cognoscenti, December 11, 2018. https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/12/11/right-to-repair-nathan-proctor [5] Justine Calma, “Humans left behind a record amount of e-waste in 2019”, The Verge, July 2, 2020. https://www.theverge.com/21309776/record-amount-ewaste-2019-global-report-environment-health