As I waited for my large iced
coffee, an essential luxury for “long” days of class, I made my way to the
extras table so that I could grab a little green straw before stopping short,
remembering at once that I had a stash of environmentally friendly, rainbow
stainless steel straws in my backpack. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to
display to my peers that I was making a conscious decision to save the
planet, if I could do it, why weren’t they? The irony of this situation,
however, did not escape me - I was willing to give myself a pat on the back for
replacing the straw while still using a plastic cup and lid that, while
“recyclable”, were still designed as single-use.
Even more, I had
a healthy collection of various drinks in aluminum cans in my fridge that were,
like my coffee cup, single-use products. As a college student, I consume reams
of paper on my own each academic year, but rarely save articles and papers in
their physical forms. When I buy groceries I justify using plastic bags because
I “reuse” them when I’m cleaning the litter box. As I made a mental list of all
of the things I had thrown away over the past few days, I felt a sudden sense
of guilt overtake me; sure, I had some fancy reusable straw, but there were
still plenty of other things I was consuming that ultimately ended up in a
bigger plastic bag destined for a landfill. Even so, considering the future of
my recyclables would probably end up being the same as non-recyclables, the
result of recent Chinese cut backs on the purchase of international
recyclables, it felt like nothing that I did would really matter. I was, after
all, a consumer in an economy that had prioritized convenience and immediacy
far more than it did the concerns of “future” consumers.
Therein, it seems
to me, lies the root of the problem. Although there has been a rise in
lifestyle influencers promoting “no waste” lifestyles, those in which the
individual consumer creates little to no tangible waste in their acquisition
and use of goods, the economy hasn’t seen a large enough shift in demand to
make this kind of lifestyle accessible, affordable, or even generally feasible
for most consumers; for starters, a bulk grocer that allows customers to bring
their own food containers is generally a prerequisite for participation in
no-waste consumerism. While that certainly isn’t the only issue individuals
face in pursuing a lifestyle with little, or no waste, it’s enough to bring the
larger problem into focus; there isn’t enough infrastructural support for
everyone in America to make these kinds of lifestyle changes. Here, in rural
Kentucky, having two grocery stores seems like you’re living in a metropole,
and the local market likely isn’t large enough to support the introduction of
more competition into the market.
So, what does
this mean for the Earth? Are we all doomed to live or die by the will of
corporations to adopt more sustainable practices starting from the top so that
the goods and services that we purchase will in turn, be more sustainable?
While yes, or even maybe, would be the easy answers, it’s times like these in
which it’s important that each consumer remember the power of each dollar put
into the economy. As individual players participating in the economic system
(aka, as people with cash who are looking for things to spend it on), we vote
for what we like and don’t like, what we want and don’t, with our purchases.
Hannah Reis
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