One step from consumption to consumerism – Business – Kommersant

Black Friday, following Thanksgiving, traditionally marks the start of the grand shopping season. Last year in the home of the holiday, in the United States, almost 180 million people (more than 80% of the adult population) made purchases on the holiday weekend and Cyber ​​Monday, having spent an average of $300 each. This tradition is being continued on an increasing scale in other countries of the world.

However, sales are not for everyone. Simultaneously with the “Black Friday” in the world is the day of refusal to buy, designed to draw attention to the problem of overconsumption. The idea of ​​this action originated in the early 1990s, but the popularity began to gain in recent years.

According to The World Counts, the purchase of various goods and services in the world spent about $44 trillion a year, or $1.4 million per second. The consumer class, which includes people who are able to spend money on material goods beyond the satisfaction of their basic needs, will increase from the current 4.45 billion to 5.6 billion by 2030. At this rate, humanity will need the resources of the two planets Earth to meet the growing demand and recycle the remaining waste. Even now, the level of consumption in many developed countries cannot be called adequate.

Consequences of irrational consumption

Electronic waste is the fastest growing category of solid waste in the world. More than 50 million metric tons of electronic waste (small and large household appliances, IT and telecommunications equipment, lamps, etc.) produced in the world every year, which is equivalent to 7 kg per capita. Only 17% is properly collected and disposed of.

fashion industry every year releases more than 100 billion items of clothing, approximately 14 for every person living on Earth. This is twice as much as in 2000. Only less than 1% of the total volume of discarded clothing is recycled into new. Separate research in the US and UK show that an individual item of clothing is used an average of 7-10 times from purchase to wastebasket. At the same time, production has a disproportionately high burden on the environment.

By data UN, 17% of all food produced in the world (about 1 billion tons) is sent to the trash every year. Most of it (11%) is thrown out of household refrigerators. Another 5% falls on public catering, 2% – on shops. In 2019, the mass of such waste amounted to 931 million tons. That would be enough to fill 23 million 40-ton trucks. Parked bumper to bumper, they would circle the Earth seven times.

About 1 million plastic bottles are bought in the world every minute. The number of used plastic bags reaches 5 trillion a year. By data According to the UN, about 400 million tons of plastic waste are produced annually in the world. Nearly half of this waste (46%) comes from single-use packaging. About 10 million tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans every year. According to experts, by 2050 there will be more fish there by weight than fish.

You can estimate your personal level of consumption using calculator on the Global Footprint Network website.