We are consuming more than any past civilizations, and we have problems they didn't have.
Doesn't that say something about our culture of nonsensical buying?
Every year billions of tons of waste comes into existence around the world, and what is it? Garbage? No it's the crap we buy to satisfy our consumerist souls.
We are so dependent on brands and labels now that whenever a new item comes out, if it doesn't have a logo we recognize it won't sell. The companies that make the worship-able items we fork out money or credit cards for are the worlds richest and most overly consumerist bunch of people on the planet.
But not all companies are the bad guys. For example 77% of Starbucks have recycling programs."Starbucks" is one of the most popular shops on the planet and there are 5 new stores opening every day.
More people these days can identify the symbol of a very successful fast food restaurant then a church.The very successful restaurant I mentioned is none other than McDonald's. Since 1955 McDonald's has sold well over 100 billion hamburgers.
Everyday hordes of useless products are sold to us the willing consumerists.The things we buy aren't always the things we need, these days we are buying more crap then usual.Our world is sick, this madness must stop, what are we teaching our children? And what will they teach theirs if our society keeps on living this way?
We are the ones to blame, not governments, music, TV, school, but ourselves. We are the cause and solution, if we talk about this problem now we can do something to stop it.
In amongst all this consumerism, are the largest spenders and the largest group of people targeted by advertising campaigns. Youth, they are the biggest group of consumers. Take this statistic for example, 60% of American teens have a cell phone, thats about 1 out of 3. They also account for 25% of the total amount of money made by the cell phone companies. 2min20secs
Cell phone companies are just one of the many companies making big money, the worlds leading brand in personal music players "APPLE" recently announced that their product the Ipod has reached sales of over 140 million. Apple also dominates 70% of the music player market with the ipod.
Teens these days view money and the whole buying stuff for the hell of it ideology as a way of asserting more independence.I'll leave you with a fact:
Americans discard 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour,
enough bottles to reach to the moon every three weeks!
From the book 50 Facts that should change the world, fact #45