Reflective Journal - The Consuming Hope and Sadness of Consuming

 The Consuming Hope and Sadness of Consuming

I have kept a journal of my consumption habits for a week. The feeling I get is a mixture of hope and despair. At one point this week, I was sitting at my dining room table, with my head in my hands, wondering if it was possible to make all of the changes I would need to make, in order to live as sustainably as I wanted. 

The amount of product knowledge I need to accumulate is staggering. It is helpful to know what I do not know. But it is also scary.

With that in mind, what follows is a week in my life as a consumer – the ads I see and how they influence me, the way I use water, how I travel, the products I use, how I spend money - everything I could account for.

A Note About Reading This Sustainability Reflective Journal

I will make general statements about daily habits and products I use here, to avoid repetition. That way I don’t have to write about brushing my teeth each day with the same toothpaste, or about travelling to work each day. 

Hygiene, travel, and two of my meals - breakfast and lunch - are always the same. I like structure. It helps me to make incremental changes. Large, sweeping changes don’t tend to take. They are abandoned easily.

The habits I have, I intend to keep, and here they are:

Travel:

I drive 7.2 km round-trip to work in a Mitsubishi Mirage and I get about 6.0 L/100km. That translates to about 2 liters of gas a week. It isn’t much. And there isn’t much I can do about it right now. I take three bags to work each day – a computer bag, lunch bag, and gym bag. I don’t have a way to carry them, and I can’t afford to solve the problem yet. With winter approaching, a bicycle won’t help me, and I can’t walk that distance in the cold either. 

My options to improve my travel related consumption are:

• Bike – not effective in the winter months.

• Buy a second EV – not possible in my current financial situation.

• Walk – 3.6 km is a long way in the winter. 

• Carpool – I may start to look at this as an option. This may be something I can do.

Personal Hygiene:

Showering: I take 5-minute showers in warm water. I use products that have minimal packaging and are made from natural ingredients. I’ve worked hard to find products that are made in Canada and have environmental packaging. All these products are purchased locally, mostly from a refillery called Juniper.

I feel pretty good about what I am doing here. But I’m hoping that there might be someone who will raise a question about my habits or a bit of advice for me about how I could be purchasing more sustainably. I welcome the advice. 

Grooming: I use Old Spice deodorant, Colgate Total Whole Mouth Health, Layrite Clay Cement for my hair, Prorasso shaving cream in a tube, Nivea aftershave balm, and I use a Parker safety razor. Most of these are not great for the environment. But there is another problem – availability.

It is hard to find good products with environmentally friendly packaging in New Brunswick. I want to switch to toothpaste tabs in a cardboard package but I can’t source any locally. The solution is to buy all my products from one company and have them shipped together, periodically, and to push for more sustainable options at our local shops. Even our local sustainable shops have a hard time sourcing products like toothpaste tabs.

I don’t throw out plastic razors anymore. I bought a safety razor twenty years ago. I replace the safety razorblades and recycle them when I am done.

When I look at my consumption habits here I see a series of small wins and losses. I need better toothpaste and hair products. I have found solutions for my shower and shaving routines though.

 

Breakfast and Lunch:

I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day. Breakfast is oatmeal (Quaker) made with Chocolate Oat Milk, Cinnamon, Raisins, and Flax Seeds. Lunch is carrots, chicken breast, spinach, mustard in a tortilla, an apple, and a banana.

I use Quaker Oats every day. I know there have been issues around Quaker Oats, and their use of pesticides (Weir, 2015). Can I afford to switch to a different company? No. And neither can a many people. It is daunting to find alternatives that are both healthy, packaging conscious, sustainable, and affordable. 

On top of that, I look at my banana every day and see that it comes from Honduras, and I find it hard to justify that I am eating food that travelled a greater distance than I have in my life. But what is the fix?

I have so many questions, and so few answers.

The Rest of My Consumption Behaviors

Monday:

Facebook – Northbound Adventure Pants – My thoughts ran like this: 

Do I need better hiking pants? Wow, it would be good to have pans with 4-way stretch… What is 4-way stretch? They are waterproof. That’s awesome… {click through} 

Oh my gosh, they are $119… NOPE… 

Twenty minutes later I have a digital cart full of cheaper ones that are stretchy and waterproof on another websites. And 5 minutes after that - with pants, a new Boston Bruins hat, and a pair of hiking shoes in the digital shopping cart - I’ve decided that I didn’t really need those pants to begin with, so I close the browser window.

I do this far too often. I fill the cart and then think about the shipping and the environmental cost of the packaging, and I question whether I actually need the thing. “Do I need this? Do I actually want it, or was I enticed by a good ad?” 

But that’s the thing. We have a lifestyle obsession where we are stuck in a feedback loop of hyper-consumption, looking for happiness in things. We think we can “consume [our] way to a better life.” (Mulligan, 2015, p.35) 

On another note, I received a book today. It looked like what would happen if  the Sears Wish Book  and an award winning children’s book had a baby. It was from Amazon. Which is funny because I’ve been considering giving up my Amazon Prime membership, and today I found this little, charmingly designed book in our mailbox. It looks like a children’s book with its cute, illustrated cover. It suggests that the story it tells is of an anthropomorphic bear and fox, and their journey to find affordable presents for their mouse children.

Inside, it’s just images of toys, mixed with stickers. I’m sure someone thought, “That’ll get them. Give the kids stickers! Then they’ll spend more time looking at the book and asking for things.”

 

The hard part of it all is the economics. Practicing ethical consumption on a budget is a problem we all face. We want to buy nice gifts for our children for holidays and we can sometimes find them online and with free shipping. It is enticing to not have to worry about going out to get the things you need. The most ethical option is to by secondhand – because it is hard to meet the expectations of our children and the society in which we live, while buying toys that are ethical. But when we look at the concept of ethical consumption, it points to a flaw in our system: “ethical consumption refers to a values-based approach to purchase and consumption which puts the onus on the consumer to exercise his or her choice wisely.” (Mulligan, 2015, p. 42) Why is the onus on the consumer?  

Because we are time poor; kept busy and exhausted by work and daily routines like cleaning and preparing meals, along with activities for our children – hockey and ju-jitsu, it is harder for us to make ethical consumer decisions. In our house, we feel the crunch of time and services like Amazon seem to make sense from a money and time saving perspective. But we know that they are not the right thing to do for the environment. 

We are lengthening supply chains and cocooning (Mulligan, 2015, p.37) further into our homes. Once we return from work, we don’t want to leave. 

The last thought I have for today is that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has me reevaluating my choices with Amazon – shopping, video, and music. I’m also reevaluating the ads I see in social media – why am I seeing these things and what can I do to tweak the algorithm, to disrupt the ads I see?

Daily Consumption Habits 

Monday, October 24th:

Compulsive buying: I bought nothing today, but I wanted to buy some hiking pants, but I always ask myself: Do I need this? Do I want this?” before I buy it. I usually don’t need it, and I usually don’t buy it.

Water use: Dishwasher – 12 litres. Laundry -  1 load of cold water laundry on low-water use cycle – 8.4 litres. A note about water: The laundry and dishes need to be done. I could switch to washing dishes by hand, but I need my shower after a workout for hygiene reasons. I keep it short, and I don’t use hot water. For laundry, iur washing machine is efficient and we use it on a cold, low water setting, with a fragrance free detergent from our local refillery – Juniper.

Meals: Breakfasts: This drive me nuts because I’m contending with our established habits of my whole family and it is a balancing act, trying to create change in our household without upsetting the whole family. Cereal boxes are a struggle for me. The plastic bag inside the cardboard box, the shipping cost, and the ingredients. It's a hard fight to win in my house, but I’m trying to move everyone over to eggs and oatmeal every day. It’s a hard sell. 

Lunch: There are some good points to celebrate here, but there is some room for growth. I cut out prepackaged lunch snacks this year for our boys’ lunches at school. No bear paws, no Quaker granola bars, no Welch’s fruit snacks. Just fresh food made at home, in reusable containers. 

Supper: The cauliflower bites are frozen and prepackaged. These are easy and accessible for a family of two teachers who lack time, but they are not ideal. I’m looking for a solution to this that is also convenient. The broccoli is frozen and in a plastic bag too. I need to switch to fresh produce. 

Tuesday, October 25th:

My wife came home with three bags of chips. For me this isn't good. It’s more plastic in my house and I don’t really want to be snacking on chips.  The real point here is that I don’t make all of the choices in my house and if we aren’t all making the same choices, then we are only seeing a partial change. I can avoid plastic, chemicals, and make better choices, but if I’m the only one making those choices, then the effect is minimal.

We then find ourselves with few options. We could discuss it. But if understanding isn’t reached, then we are at an impasse, and I’m not going to argue with my wife about a bag of chips. 

Compulsive buying: None. I debated buying a new hat, to wear to the hockey rink, but I convinced myself that I didn’t need it. Asking myself if it is a need or a want is an important part of how I try to save money.

Water use: No extraneous water use. No laundry or dishes. Just my 5-minute shower.

Meals: I have nothing to add about breakfast or lunch. They are always the same. But for dinner we had local grass-fed beef, local potatoes, and frozen broccoli. I feel like I’m making good choices here. The problem I’m experiencing as a consumer is that I am starting to feel like there is always a better choice. I could eat chicken instead of beef, but the chicken isn’t local. Is it actually a better choice? I am getting into decision paralysis and that is no way to live.

Wednesday, October 26th:

Compulsive buying: I was shocked today. My credit card was charged $700, and I was notified by email. I asked my wife what it was, and I didn’t know if I wanted it to be fraud or whether I wanted it to be an unannounced large purchase. I didn’t know which would cause more stress. 

As it turns out she bought a bunch of new glasses frames online. I don't wear glasses, and I don't really understand the purpose of having multiple frames. I feel like we are victims of hyper-consumption here. We don't really need these things, but they are pretty. We have deep rooted habits and desires related to consumption. We feel we need glasses to match outfits. 

The only thing I bought today was Halloween candy. We live in a new neighborhood and I’m anticipating a lot of children. I bought 150 treats. 

Standing at the cash, with three carboard boxes, filled with individually wrapped, little chocolates, I wondered if there would ever be a better solution. 

Water use: Dishwasher – 12 litres. Laundry -  1 load of cold water laundry on low-water use cycle – 8.4 litres.

Meals: Dinner – Pancakes (self-rising flour, eggs, white milk), local made sausage and bacon, and eggs.

Snack - Halloween candy – we have already started snacking on the tiny, treats. Aero chocolate bars, and Coffee crisp bars.

Dinner was good. The only thing that wasn’t local was the self-rising flour, and I haven’t found a good solution for that yet. As for snack. I love chocolate – particularly Aero bars. But I am being driven mad by Halloween. The waste is phenomenal, and I’m dreading next week. 

Thursday, October 27th:

Nothing of note happened today, other than an impromptu dinner purchase:

Meals: Dinner - It was such a tiring day that I just went into the superstore and bought a precooked BBQ chicken and some potato wedges. I didn’t have the energy to cook tired and I just wanted food for my kids so I could get my youngest son to jujitsu practice and take my dog to the dog track. Looking at the plastic packaging half of it is recyclable which is something but not all of it As for the cardboard container that the potato wedges were in it'll compost at least.

 Friday, October 28th:

Again, nothing to report, other than food, and drinks. It is Friday, after all, so I stopped at a local microbrewery – Long Bay Brewery.

Meals: Dinner - I bought dinner again today. I went to A&W And I purchased two plant-based, Beyond Meat burgers, and one kid’s cheeseburger. I haven’t managed to get my youngest son to switch to plant based meats. I’m hopeful that reducing our consumption of beef can be helpful. I watched the documentary Before the Flood (2016) years ago and in that film, Gidon Eshel Ph.D discussed that reducing our consumption of red meat could be very helpful. “In the U.S. 47% of land is used for food production, and of that, the lion’s share is just to grow feed for cattle (70%). The things that we actually eat… it’s a percent.” (Stevens, 2016) That is astronomical number in my mind, 70% of what is grown is just to feed cows, when that land could be used to feed people, who only get a percent.

Drinks – I’m so happy with the microbrewery scene in New Brunswick. It’s easy to take a growler to a brewery and get it filled with local beer and create zero consumer waste. At Long Bay Brewery, I also managed to buy a beer where some of the proceeds go to charity – Operation Feed Saint John Pilsner. 

Saturday, October 29th:

Saturdays are tough for consumer driven activities. Our family wanted to drive into the city. We took our electric car and feel good about not spending money on gas. We go out for lunch and support local businesses instead of big chains, investing in experience. I got this idea of investing in experiences, rather than things from Niko Stoifberg’s Ted Talk – “Stop Buying Stuff” (Stoifberg,2021) instead of products as much as we can. We take a trip to our local refillery to get more soaps, laundry detergent, shampoo bars, and bamboo toothbrushes. And with each purchase I still feel guilt at the amount of fuel used to ship these good to us. None of these things are local, and there is no other option for sustainable, or zero-waste products. I’d like to relocalize my shopping, but in some ways I can’t.

My mind is also drawn to the fact that my available funds limit the types of products I can buy. The trip to Juniper is expensive. We bought groceries today from the Superstore and try our best to buy local produce, but our options are limited. If we buy from a local market at this time of year, the quality of produce seems to be low, and we would have to buy fresh each day, instead of making one stop and buying for the whole week. Buying fresh each day doesn’t work for our daily schedule. There just isn’t time. And looking through the pictures below, I see that someone snuck some Bear Paws into the cart. There are times when I feel like I am fighting a battle in my house for sustainability and it isn’t… for lack of a better word – sustainable. I can’t keep fighting against the plastic produce bags – we have reusable cloth ones, but the plastic ones turn up in our groceries. 

   

That is enough about my frustrations. 

We do buy our meat from a local butcher. And the bonus there is that the meat is also local. We limit our beef consumption to one pound of ground beef for tacos and buy chicken and pork for other meals. One thing I want to do is have a meatless Monday. We used to do this during COVID, but we have stopped recently. It is time to bring it back.  

Consumerism and Advertising: A thing that caught my attention today was the Atlantic Lotto Corporation Scratch ‘N Win commercial. People were scratching tickets in bubbles. If ever there was a better metaphor for disconnection and cocooning, I have not seen it.

Sunday, October 30th: 

We bought nothing today. We did 4 loads of laundry though at 33.6 litres of water in total. Kids’ clothes, parent clothes, and linens. Thought – we change our linens each week, is there any way we can stretch that? After some research, it seems that the general answer is that we are doing the right thing. 

Reflection

There are a couple of things that I’ve reflected on after a week of journaling. 

1. Carpooling is an option for me and I am trying it out with my colleagues in the coming week. It won’t work every day, because the scheduling demands of each of our daily lives, but it will be a small thing we can do. We don’t travel far – 3.6 kilometers to work. But it will have an impact. 

2. Changing my grooming products -  deodorant, toothpaste, and shaving soap. I found a natural deodorant in a cardboard tube, toothpaste tabs, and a great shaving soap, from a Canadian soap company – Old Soul Soap Company. 

I spent the last week driving my family crazy about the choices we make, even though I know that this process was not supposed to be stressful, and it wasn’t supposed to devolve into negative thinking. The problem is that we are relying on ethical consumption as a means to solving larger problems. 

People can make smart decisions and try to impact the market through ethical consumption. Influencing the market with our behaviors can work. But, at the end of all of this, I’m wondering why it is the consumer who has to create change. Why not governments, legislating change, or corporations adopting ethical production methods and packaging, by and large?

References:

Environmental Working Group, (2022) , “EWG Responds to General Mills and Quaker Oats: 'Legal Is Not the Same as Safe'.”, https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/ewg-responds-general-mills-and-quaker-oats-legal-not-same-safe.

Mattison, M. (2012). Emancipation from affluenza: Leading social change in the classroom. AURA. http://aura.antioch.edu/etds/116  

Mulligan, M. (2018). Chapter 3. Consumption and Consumerism (pp. 33 - 49). essay, Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.

Norris, T. (2011). 1 - The Origins and Nature of Consumerism. In Consuming schools: Commercialism and the end of politics (pp. 11–38). essay, University of Toronto Press.

Stoifberg, Niko (2021). “Stop Buying Stuff .” Performance by | Niko Stoifberg , YouTube, TEDxBibliothekZug, 12 July 2021, https://youtu.be/QesWRLsWJA4. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.

Stevens, Fisher, director. YouTube, Fox, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCKEFbBmadg. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.