Week2:What is Consumerism？ What is the problem of Consumerism ?

 <Definition of 'Consumerism'>

Do you know "Consumerism"?

Consumerism is the belief that it is good to buy and use a lot of goods and services.

I chose this topic because Japanese people, including me, tend to be the one who live in the society of Consumerism. Also, I think most people don't realize that they are captured by consumerism.

What is Consumerism?

For example,

・buy clothes, shoes, and bags too much (more than the number you really put on)

・eat too much (more than the amount you need to live)

Think about yourself !

You may be captured by consumerism unknowingly.

Consumerism causes pollution of environment and makes us forget the gratitude for things.

However, breaking out consumerism is very difficult because the greed people have doesn't disappear...　

<Problems caused by Consumerism>

Do you know what is the Goal12 of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) ?

It is 'Responsible Production and Consumption'. Like this, we can get to know that consumerism is a big problem for us to solve.

Then, why does this problem occur ? The answer to this question is very easy. Because of the increase of population. In fact, it causes several problems; mass production, mass consumption(consumerism), and mass disposal. These problems are related to each other.

Firstly, mass production and mass consumption make us have suspicion about the safety of the production. Also, it encourages us to lose generous mind to treat something with care and cherish things. Of course, we will lose a lot of money unknowingly as I said last time.

Secondly, mass disposal, which has deep relationship with consumerism, is also a big problem. In 2016,  2,01 billion tons of the garbage were produced and the amount will increase 70 percent more than the one of today. In addition to that, Food loss problem is also caused by Mass disposal. In this world, 4 billion tons of food are produced. This amount of food can make all people in the world live. However, many people are suffering from food shortage. This is because we have a problem of food loss. The amount of food waste, including food loss, is 1.3 billion tons per year. This is one-third of production volume. 

In this way, consumerism makes us forget the gratitude for things and has deep relationships with the environment, mass production ,and mass disposal. In addition to that, all four problems I have written are big ones and should be solved by us.

Question:

Do you think you are captured by consumerism? If you think so, tell me the experiences which has its tendency.