Our relationship with consumption — A reflection based on an interview with Vaclav Smil featured on the Guardian
By: Bibiennu Shu
Tags: Bill Gates Quotes, Consumerism, Fast Fashion, Climate Change, Black Friday

I decided to share this interview here because I felt so enlightened by the wise words of Vaclav Smil. My thinking goes if I could benefit from it, other people could too. Because of this interview, I have begun contemplating on our relationships with consumption.

A key word of the interview, stimulated consumption, deserves our special attention.

My understanding of stimulated consumption is there is no organic need on the consumers’ end, but as a result of psychological manipulation and marketing initiatives, consumption takes place. Our lives are penetrated with adverts all over the place, from old-fashioned TV, radio, to native adverts on WeChat posts, live-streaming sales events, celebrity endorsements, you name it. Phrases such as “buy 2 get 1 free”, or “buy 1 get the 2nd half price” has become out of place. Man-made shopping “festivals”, 11.11, Black Friday, and the likes are all means of consumption stimuli. So much trash are sold on these shopping sprees and lots of which are discarded for they are absolutely useless or of the worst quality possible. Consequently, waste is generated. Why digging out materials from the Earth for something that is of no value?

Screen shot of 11.11 celebration event

Way before I came across this interview, I had long despised these so-called shopping festivals. In my eyes, 11.11 is more of a “waste-generating festival” than it is a shopping “festival” . Behind the glamorous ever-climbing revenue, just how much stuff was purchased for their low price yet ended up being returned as sobriety restored? Double 11 in 2016 generated at least 1 billion delivery boxes to be delivered, which required 2 million trees (or the equivalent of straws or waste paper) to manufacture. Among all the boxes, only 20% was recycled or reused(1). Year 2018 saw e-commerce and express delivery sectors using 9.4 million tons of packaging materials, 95% of the plastic ones was non-recyclable and all ended in landfill or incinerators(2). Prosperity of e-commerce industry, including online takeaway businesses, comes at the expense of planet Earth, and that is a price we cannot afford.

Chucked-away delivery boxes after 11.11

A modern epitome of stimulated consumption has to be fast fashion. The last thing the Earth needs is one more sub-category of garment industry, yet there it is, fast fashion. It brought us brands like H&M, Zara, Forever 21, and those online-only apparel retailers such as boohoo.com, which sells clothes at a jaw-dropping low price — 3-dollar mini-dresses, really? A common characteristic these corporations share is extremely short turnaround time between when a trend or garment is seen on the catwalk, or in celebrity media, and when it hits the shelves, hence the name fast fashion. It is common practice that fast fashion brands introduce new styles on a weekly basis, which means consumers are constantly lured to update their wardrobe. As a result, more garment rubbish gets created. According to Common Objective, a fashion business intelligence network, we buy 60% more clothes than we did in 2000, with life span of the clothes halved. Such shopping behaviour directly contributes at least 39 million tons of textile garbage, among which 25% gets incinerated and over half (57%) dumped in landfills(3). Many years ago, I met a lady who told me she never washed her t-shirts because she’d always throw them away after a few wears. She said that with such entitlement now that I think about it I feel she owed her fair share to our environment and she ought to feel truly guilty about it. Any garment made will bring about damage to us and our environment, including water use, non-renewable energy use, agricultural land occupation, carbon footprint, fresh water toxicity and eutrophication, toxicity, air pollution, acidification, and more(6). Never ever take anything for granted, they all come at a price, a price that cannot be paid by money.

I’ve always thought discarding should only come to our mind when and only when all options are exhausted. I was particularly moved by what Mr. Smil said in the interview: there is a deep tradition both in the eastern and western traditions of frugality,living within your means and a contemplative life. Growing up, I have always been told to save on water and electricity, not to waste any food, wear clothes that were too small for my older sister. However, the reality, at least in China, seems that these virtues have been long forgotten, instead people love to flaunt their materialistic possessions, and it appears being able to throw away things as we please is a way to show off one’s wealth. HOW ABSURD!

It goes without saying drastically lowered prices made such behavioural shift possible. But what made such low prices possible? Turns out those fast fashion retailers have their way. Behind cheap price tags are child labour exploitation, withholding/refusing wages and low quality fabrics. Data published by UNICEF suggests there are at least 120 million children working(4); in 2017, Zara’s customers found in their purchased clothes notes saying:”I made this but I am not paid for it.”(5); as for materials, in order to keep the cost as low as possible, these retailers often opt for low-quality fabrics which directly lead to clothes degrading much faster and getting thrown away after just a few wears. Come to think about, buying fast fashion clothes isn’t getting anyone benefits but those big brands. They make enormous amount of money while we are essentially encouraging exploitation of child labour and involuntarily create more burden to the environment. I say involuntarily because I feel our shopping behaviour is a product of market manipulation. A short yet powerful slogan I once came across really summarises it well: BUY WELL, BUY LESS. We may end up paying a little bit more on good things than we would have on cheaper ones, but good-quality stuff last longer. It really is a simple math problem.

A classic example of irrational consumption would be lipsticks. For some reason in the last 2 to 3 years or so, there was a trend of collecting all possible shades from brands like YSL and Tom Ford. I was so baffled! More than once I witnessed Chinese customers asking for specific lipstick shades and being told they are out of stock. There were even cases where people buy lipsticks by boxes. I was genuinely wondering: wow, are they going to finish them all? or are those lipsticks to be cast aside once there are more popular brands/collections out? We need to own our own lifestyle, not to be owned.