4 ms·
Yes, but the fault lies with both personal decisions and large corporations. The argument you've made is most often made in bad faith to guilt consumers into in
by vzidex 7y ago
Yes, but the fault lies with both personal decisions and large corporations. The argument you've made is most often made in bad faith to guilt consumers into ineffective actions, shifting the blame from the systems that mould wasteful lifestyles to the "weak" individual who is trying their best.
Most of the items you listed are necessary or can be made to have little impact, e.g.:
>plastic packaging
Agreed here, most of it is unnecessary. However, it is a systemic issue - buying goods (especially groceries) that do not come in plastic requires significant effort i.e. shopping at bulk food stores or farmers' markets.
>cosmetics
Sure, a lot are unnecessary, but I'd hate to go into work where nobody wore deodorant, showered, or washed their hands.
>Non-seasonal fruits/vegetables
Depends on the fruit/vegetable. Where I live in Canada buying non-seasonal/local is essential - otherwise I'd be eating apples 6 months of the year. Fruits and vegetables that can be transported by ship often have a lower impact than locally-grown.
>Having pets
Most pet food is made from by-products that would be wasted by the animal murder industry. I'm vegan, but as long as people eat meat (which, let's be real, they will) owning pets brings huge positive impact to peoples' lives, with little impact - as long as you're not feeding your dog steak.
- 11235813213455 7y agoThe point is really honestly not to guilt people, it's really about the environment and a common shared effort, almost all the pollution is more or less directly coming from end-users, consumers, thus we have a huge impact. The other day I discussed with someone at supermarket in front of fruits, about reusing plastic bags, or bringing reusable bags, they told me they do reuse those small plastic bags, for picking their dogs poop. Now with a bit of distance, you realize the nonsense: poop, which is more or less good fertilizer, wrapped in plastics, all that thrown in the common bin, collected by trucks, and brought in the incinerator. And this multiplied by a bunch of people Yes pets food is often made of secondary parts, but it's still an accelerating factor in fishing/animal farming (some suggest insects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#cite_note-8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#cite_note-8) maybe), we also always forget the indirect cost and pollution, like the transport, the packaging needed to feed daily those 1 billion pets or so worldwide, and their other services, let alone side-effect like feral-cats, ... Yes in some cases pets are useful, but not all For cosmetics, just see how uncommon has become a basic soap bar, which is however the most efficient cleaning product, and likely less polluting Ok for fruits in winter, I can understand you as a huge fruit eater (I'm in the South of France), it's still a win-win to eat seasonal, seasonal fruit/vegs are much more nutritive. I think apples is not the best example as with a few variety you can cover the whole year, maybe not locally in Canada though, your gray Canadian apples are excellent tho