How much ‘stuff’ is enough?

Spring has sprung! It is time to get moving again, to plan and get organised. It is the perfect time to clean-up and declutter. For many of us, decluttering – getting rid of the stuff we don’t need – has really positive outcomes. We feel freer and less stressed. Things run more smoothly when we are not surrounded by clutter and chaos. But there is more we can do than clean out our cupboards and cars.

Now is the perfect time to rethink our relationship with ‘stuff’ and our tendency to treat shopping as a leisure activity. Wasteful consumption has serious and damaging consequences, not least the harm to the environment and on our hip-pocket.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t buy anything at all. On the contrary, there are many things we need and buying goods and services plays an important economic role in raising standards of living. Localised commerce is an important part of a strong local community. But it is worth asking how much stuff do we really need? When is enough stuff, enough?

Much of the ‘stuff’ that we buy are not necessities. They are discretionary or luxury purchases. To put it another way, it is stuff that we want but don’t exactly need in order to make our lives better. If we base our purchasing decisions on what we want, rather than what we need, we are more likely to over-consume and make wasteful and costly mistakes (for both ourselves and the environment). This is not an argument in favour of austerity. It is, rather, an appeal to make more ethical decisions.

A good way to proceed is to separate our needs from our wants and to base our decisions to buy on the premise ‘do the least possible harm’. In doing so, we may choose to ‘buy local’ to cut down the environmental impacts of transportation or to buy second-hand clothes instead of new so as not to support sweatshop manufacturing. It might be as simple as avoiding plastic bags – saying no to these and other unwanted or single-use items. Other decisions, like electrical appliances and clothes and food, can be more complex.

In order to ‘do the least possible harm’ we need to do our research – and that takes more time than making quick decisions merely based on our unlimited wants or other impulse triggers. But it is important to remember that our decisions have far-reaching (often unwanted) consequences. The payoff is twofold. On the one hand, we minimise environmental damage and other unethical outcomes such as harm to workers and animals. On the other, we win too. In addition to making ethical decisions we save money by avoiding buying what we don’t need or can’t use! By making conscious choices everyone wins.

One of the easiest ways to make more ethical buying decisions is to simply buy less.

It is worth keeping in mind the adage ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and by adding ‘rethink’ and ‘refuse’ to the list we will be able to make more ethical decisions about the myriad things that we buy. That has to be a good outcome for everyone.