How do our consumption patterns need to change?
Our greed is destroying the world. Perhaps the time has come to change the things we value; to spend money on trees and gardens, not on cars...to value things made with love and craft more than goods that are made with factory efficiency then sold with supermarket impersonality. Perhaps the next few decades will see people reduce the rate at which they consume the world's resources, and realise that this can mean a richer, not a poorer life.
- Jackie French, author and gardener
We need to develop purchasing and consumption patterns that allow us to live within our natural limits without the gross resource over-use and inconsiderate waste that currently accompanies them.
We also need to be much more considerate about the items we buy and use in terms of their sustainable production, ability to be recycled and responsible disposal. On average, re-using, reconditioning, recycling and buying sustainable and renewable products not only minimises waste and conserves resources, but reduces the energy used to make a product by between 35 and 95%!
Here are some suggestions for reducing consumption:
Food. Food is estimated to clock up a whopping 41.4% of the total eco-footprint of each Port Phillip resident. Eat in-season, organic and locally grown where possible. Also consider more careful consumption of some types of food:
Meat. The average Australian eats the equivalent of about 300g of meat per day, while the current global average meat consumption is 100g per person per day. 90g per day is proposed as a working global target, shared more evenly, with not more than 50g per day coming from red meat.
Sustainable seafood. Global fish stocks are under pressure, with marine scientists estimating that continued current seafood harvesting levels could see the world's fisheries collapse within 30 years. It pays to throw undersized fish back in the water and eat in-season seafood that is not threatened. To find out more about sustainable seafood, check out the AMCS Sustainable Seafood Guide.
Bottled water. Australia spends $385 million each year on bottled water. Australian bottled water is about 2500 times more expensive than tap water. Italian bottled water is 7500 times more expensive than tap water and that is before you include the transport costs. The process of making bottles, filling them and then transporting them emits around 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas.
Clothes. Each year we each spend about $1,000 on clothes. Clothing has a significant environmental impact of our product purchases (in terms of land disturbance, energy and water use), estimated at about 8.4% of each Port Phillip resident's eco-footprint. The amount of water used in the production and transport of clothes bought by an average Australian household each year is 150,000 litres.
Goods and services. Everything we buy has an environmental impact. The home accessories, personal care items, furniture, paper, banking and hairdressing services we buy equals about 32% of each person's total eco-footprint. This does not include construction and renovations.
For more information about consumption patterns, read the following articles, available online at:
The Australia Institute - Wastefull Consumption in Australia (2005)
Water footprints of nations: water use by people as afunction of their consumption pattern http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Hoekstra_and_Chapagain_2007.pdf
