Why Can't we just STOP buying!

[Samarth Gupta]

Most of us buy products as we need them for our requirements, but many buy just to be competetive in this rat race to buy more fashionable products. We discuss to reduce the use of plastics and recycle them, why can't we just give a second thought to the whole concept of Corporate induced "consumerism". You buy a mp3 player with headphone, then you buy its charger, then you buy its cover, then its stand for table and the car and so on and so forth. So the act of listening to music has given way to the corporates produce so many ancillary things. If we really introspect we find that we perhaps don't need music everytime on the first place. Let it be some moments reserved in a day when you relax in your living/bed room. This apart from being an environment issue is a quite relevant social issue of today's times. We need to be more rooted to our ways of living and not swayed by the Western Lifestyle. At the end choice is ours!

[Paul Ortiz-Baca]

This fact is very true. In fact if we were able to fix the problem of a consumerist economy, one in which useless goods must constantly be made in a sough of overproduction, we would be well on our way to fixing the environmental crisis. The problem is, we need an economic system in which that is possible. I'm all for capitalism, but I'm not quite sure how it would work, at least not yet. We need to continue to advance technology and have basic material goods, but ones with much longer lifespans and that aren't just discarded after they're done with.