We live in a consumer driven society.  We're conditioned to want certain things (cars, clothes, shoes, gizmos) and made to believe that if you don't have these things you're not as good as people who do.  The stress on the environment created by our over-consumerism is unfathomable.  It could even be argued that our over-consumerism is the cause of the dire situation in which we humans and planet earth presently find ourselves. 

For centuries we've lived off the land using up Earth's resources at our leisure to make 'stuff' to make our lives easier.  It used to be that this stuff-making didn't affect the earth so much but with the creation of industry, the combustion engine and now globalization of industry, our precious "stuff" is costing us much more than the money we exchange for it, it's costing us the health of the Earth.  And it seems that the amount of useless "stuff" (that we could really do without) being made, is outnumbering by no small terms the amount of essential "stuff" we produce.

So, what can one lowly person do?   STOP BUYING SO MUCH STUFF!  Opt for quality not quantity!  Don't buy it if you don't need it!  The most environmentally friendly product is the one you didn't buy!  These are good rules of thumb that will help you get into green spending habits.  Another good rule is to avoid 'Dollar Stores' and anywhere you can buy cheaply made stuff that you know won't last a month or two before breaking.

For a very elegant illustration of the global stuff industry.  Visit www.storyofstuff.com and watch the video.

Really, we don't need so much "stuff" in our lives.  Yes we need some stuff and when buying the essentials we need to do our homework and get the most sustainable products possible.  But we don't need as much stuff as we've been made to believe that we do.  Just look around this room.  See anything that isn't essential?  Plug-in air fresheners? Knick-knacks and decorations?  I'm not saying that you should forego a decent quality of life for the sake of conservation so don't worry about your furnishings and the art hanging on your walls but then again, where did they come from?  What materials are they made of?  Are they of quality design and workmanship or will they be in a land-fill in a month or a year? If you've redecorated recently, what happened to your old stuff?  Was there anything wrong with your old stuff or were you just tired of looking at it? 

We need to start questioning the things we buy a lot more.  First, we need to question their essentiality to avoid supporting this mindless consumerism that's gotten us this far down the proverbial hole.  And Second, for the things we really do need, we need to start questioning their methods of production, the materials they're made of and how they were grown and harvested, the distance they've travelled to get to their final destination and what is the cost to the environment and to the earth of that whole process. 

This may seem like a lot of work to do before buying a simple bar of soap or bag of apples but once you make it a habit it won't seem like work anymore and you'll be living life the way it was meant to be lived instead of attempting to fill an unsatisfactory life with more "stuff".

Also see: "Energy Efficiency vs. Conservation" & "To Reduce, Reuse or Recycle?"