Consumed by Consumption
In our capitalist society, we are constantly encouraged to buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume. It’s something that feels inescapable, from social media to constant advertisement being thrown at you. Every day, we are told to consume.
We need to consume to live, but constant consumption – and overconsumption – can have some detrimental effects on our environment. This is because consumption encourages production, and creates waste, which negatively affects our pollution levels and all aspects of the environment.
Consumption, sometimes, is just not sustainable.
Therefore, in the spirit of Canta’s Sustainability Issue, we’ll look at the consumption habits of a sample of UC students. This data was taken from a survey I wrote, which was posted to Canta’s Instagram story (@cantaiscool).
Because we’re constantly bombarded with products, and, well, everything costs money, we can find ourselves buying products that aren’t a necessity.
Source: Maia Aramakutu.
45.1% of respondents identified that they buy items they don’t need monthly, with 24.4% responding that they do so weekly. When asked what these unnecessary purchases were, a vast majority of these students responded with various food items: “Takeaways”, “Little sweet treats”, “caffeine”, and “Copper kettle BBQ chips go so hard”.
Some of the other recurring items were “skincare”, “room décor”, “shoes”, “alcohol”, “makeup”, “collectibles/toys”, and “clothing”.
Clothing was the second-most frequently mentioned item. In a conversation about consumption, clothing is an important topic of discussion.
Why? Well, because of fast fashion. Fast fashion companies mass-produce clothing at a low cost to keep up with popular trends. The low cost of these clothing items often make them low-quality, and most of the time, they don’t last very long.
The goal of many fast fashion companies is to get individuals to buy, buy, buy, like most business. We asked students how often they buy new clothes.
Source: Maia Aramakutu.
47.6% said they buy clothes monthly, and 36.6% buy new clothes twice a year. Clothing was not just a common response to the question “What are examples of stuff you buy that you don’t need?”; it also came up frequently as an answer to “What [on-trend item] have you bought and has it been useful?”
“Outfits from places like Shein for night out in first year - regrets!” said a respondent. “All [of the clothes] don’t last and haven’t really worn more than once.”
This response perfectly sums up the issue with clothing consumption of fast fashion: it’s not made to last. These clothes are not just a waste of money – they’re also horrible for the environment.
One of the key reasons behind fashion overconsumption, other than clothes constantly falling apart, is social media. With trends cycling every week, it feels like things are constantly changing and it’s hard to keep up.
We asked students if they buy items based on what’s trending online. Contrary to popular narratives regarding overconsumption, many of our student respondents –43.9% – responded “No”. 32% selected “Yes, but only if it’s something I actually need”. Only 3.7% of students responded “Yes”.
This is an interesting response, since it’s common to hear is that some of the harms of social media are the encouragement of consumption and the romanticisation of overconsumption. Another narrative is that social media will influence you to buy things you don’t need and which aren’t useful. However, many students said that they found what they bought based on a trend to be useful.
Some of the responses to “What have you bought and has it been useful?” were: “Brought a hydro flask because everyone has one and it has been very useful at keeping me hydrated daily,” “Noise cancelling earphones – lifesaver in the library,” and “Apple products”.
Finally, in a discussion about overconsumption, it’s important to identify waste. Waste is one of the main contributors to environmental issues.
Source: Maia Aramakutu.
Source: Maia Aramakutu.
It’s evident from these graphs that the majority of these UC students have made conscious decisions around waste. 51.2% replace household or personal items when they are completely unusable, and about half of respondents throw out or donate items around twice a year.
These decisions can be seen as environmentally aware, as students aren’t just replacing and disposing of items constantly. They are doing it sparingly. Obviously, it would be basically impossible to never get rid of items that we own; items break, or stop working, we grow out of clothing, and things need to be replaced. But in terms of sustainability, it’s important to make conscious decisions around disposing items.
I’d like to offer a reminder to make conscious decisions when consuming products. This planet is the only planet we have, so we need to try and preserve it.