First and foremost, I recommend you take some time to watch The Story of Stuff: (it’s about 20 minutes, but worth it!)
Second, check out StoryofStuff.com for more information and how you can help. They also have an awesome reading list available.
This all goes back to my goal of reducing my consumer appetite for “stuff” & my love of the planet. I just look around these days and see all these things that we’ve become attached to that just complicate our lives.
For example, when you reduce the amount of clothes you have, you free time, because you have less clothes to choose from, less to wash, and less to put away or find space for. All that “less”, pays dividends in time. Time to do things that are more important and more fulfilling! My challenge is to find at least one thing a day to recycle or reduce. It’s amazing how much it frees up- space, time, attention, money, worry, etc!
The added bonus- our EARTH! We are, ugh, being awful to our home. We’re paying for it too. Reminds me of a bumper sticker I had when I was younger- “If your not OUTRAGED, your not paying ATTENTION.“
Ever wonder why so many cell phones at the store look almost the same? They are!
That cell phone you think is the latest thing on the market has the same guts as your old one, they’ve just changed the plastic mold that creates the shape, colored the plastic a different color and updated the programming.
It is far to expensive to totally redesign electronics products so manufacturers just change the programming and the visual aspects to convince you it is something new. As consumers we buy into the idea of “new and special” thus trashing lots of good cell phones in the name of vanity, not user features.
Too bad for the environment.