HOW TO SHOP

This is a biggie. Are you ready?

STOP. BUYING. SO. MUCH. STUFF.

Depending on your mindset, this could be a negative, like a craving that needs to be suppressed - or you could look at it with HUGE relief! The burden of Must-haves and Too Much Choice has been lifted people! Frankly, who gives a toss if you’re not perfectly on-trend, if mass cotton farming is raping land somewhere in Eastern Europe and paying children a pittance to pick it in back-breaking conditions?

Ok, I know, it is so simple on paper, but the really hard part is convincing ourselves we don’t need certain things, when the clever physiology and marketing gurus have worked out EXACTLY how to get us hooked. I am still trying to perfect this myself. We are not perfect, but we can at least aim in that general direction!

So why is consumerism bad? Here are just a couple of horrifying stats to explain:

It has been calculated that to sustain the spending habits of the USA we would need 4 planet earths!

When it comes to fashion 1.5bn tonnes of carbon emissions were produced in 2015 manufacturing clothes for us to wear.

If you want to learn more, take a look at the brilliant Story of Stuff. https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-stuff/

HOW TO BUY LESS STUFF
- Buy second hand. 
- Be mindful when you’re around the shops. Question yourself. Do you REALLY need it?
- Try and think about the potential damage that the creation of an item may have caused (environmental or unfair trade) This may be enough to block the work of those clever marketeers…
- Set up a Swishing event or a nearly new sale in your area.