Fixing our obsession with new, shiny ‘stuff’

This weekend, just a fortnight before the LondonAware event kicks off, I somehow managed to get a couple of days away with my wonderful and long suffering girlfriend, Caroline. I got home on Friday an hour later than I had promised after answering one last phone call before walking out of the office. I packed my weekend bag in one and a half minutes flat, made my apologies and threw our duvet, pillows and clean sheets into the car. A quick food stop for weekend rations and we were on the road to Caroline’s family’s beautiful little seaside cottage in Deal.

There is a romantic, but sad, story which accompanies the cottage. Caroline’s grandparents bought it almost 50 years ago. They used to come and enjoy weekends by the sea together whenever they could. Caroline’s granddad sadly passed away when he was a relatively young 54 years old and her granny has not visited the cottage since. Although it has been well used by the rest of the family, the cottage has always remained the same. The same bathroom suite, furniture, fridge freezer, décor, kitchen utensils and crockery. It’s like walking into a 1970’s advert; I can almost imagine a very prim and proper housewife standing in the kitchen patiently waiting to explain how her new washing powder gets her husband shirts whiter than white. There is a comfortable, cuddly smell which greets you as you walk through the front door - it reminds me of my granny’s house. The visitor book, on the side in the front room, details each guest who has visited along with a short poem about their adventures and there is a television which displays moving images in ‘glorious Technicolor’!

Being at the cottage, with the temporary hiatus it allows a mind and the perfectly functional but very weathered furniture, really brought home to me how painfully wasteful society is. Rather than fixing something, we tend to throw it away. Rather than using until it until it wears out or has no more practical use, we replace with a better/newer/shinier model, simply because that’s what advertising and our consumer society has convinced us as a society we should do. It’s a sad proof that for many people it’s more important to consume than to think. So much energy is invested into earning the money to buy the new shiny thing, that anything outside our work, home, TV, pub, world somehow ‘doesn’t exist’. If the damage being inflicted on the earth to create the shiny things were ‘real’ then we might develop a conscience…and that might mean less shiny things. Horror.

I have no problem with people buying stuff they need, as long as they have the presence of mind to think about the choices they have. Much of the time it is possible to choose a considerate option, and often purchases are a luxury rather than a necessity. Ultimately I think it’s a person’s duty to at least consider the real, not financial, cost of a potential purchase. If they feel truly comfortable with this cost then buy away!

I was sent a link the other day from Katie at onegreenearth.com. It was so good that I had to share it. If you are interested in what shiny stuff really costs, then take a look at storyofstuff.com - it’s brilliant and explains it in a language that even I can understand. Let me know your thoughts…it really touched me.