Low Impact

If you can resist the lure of the non-stop television advertisements and news promotions encouraging you to participate in the Boxing Day sales, not only will you save some money but you can also reduce your impact on the environment.

Last night, the news was showing the yearly spectacle of people queuing up at a department store, before running in to grab the “incredible, once a year bargains”. But the reality is that in a lot of cases the “bargains” are not that incredible, and the items purchased not that indispensable after all.

A study on consumption by the Australian Conservation Foundation found that our direct usage (lights, heating, travel, etc) accounts for only 30% of the greenhouse gas pollution we are responsible for. The remaining two thirds is embodied in the things we buy. That must-have leather handbag was once a cow that had to be fed while it was growing, the n slaughtered, the leather hide cured, before being shipped by boat over to China, where it was assembled into the handbag, then shipped all the way back here. Each one of those steps involves electricity consumption, fossil fuel usage, and water usage.

In fact, on average, each dollar you spend has 720 grams of CO2 emissions, and 28 litres of water usage “hidden” inside it. Your Boxing Day “retail therapy” of $300 requires 216 kilograms of carbon dioxide to be emitted, and 8,400 litres of water. In greenhouse gas terms alone, thats the equivalent of driving your car around 1000 km!

Thats not to say you necessarily need to live a monk-like existence, surviving on the bare necessities. But it might be worth thinking carefully about how much you really need that “once-in-a-lifetime, incredible bargain opportunity”! As an alternative, why not take the opportunity of the Christmas holidays to catch up with friends and family, rather than fight the crowds in the shopping malls?

Categories: environment, reduce

Tags: consumerism, consumption, reduce, simplify