Week4:To get out of Consumerism

 As I showed you, consumerism causes several problems. I think that we have two choices to solve these problems. Firstly, to consider the solutions while admitting much consumption by people. Secondly, to preserve us from making much consumption. I'll show you these two ways!

< Considering solutions while admitting much consumption>

 We can recycle a lot of things, especially plastic garbage. As a big scale, EU is making the environment that can recycle plastic garbage by deciding quality standards of recycled plastics and announcing the guidelines. Japan is also taking various actions. By its measures, in 2016, 7.59 million tons of plastic garbage are recycled. This is 84 percent of the amount of all plastic garbage. As a small scale, we can practice '3R'; Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. These projects can be practiced by us because '3R' has deep relationship with our daily lives. I'll show you some examples.

・Reduce; bringing My Bag for shopping and reduce the use of plastic bags.

・Reuse; don't throw away your old clothes and give it to someone who can use it.

・Recycle; collecting bottles and changing them to new ones by melting them.

In this way, we can practice '3R' and making efforts to solve the problem of much disposal, which is caused by consumerism.

<Preserving us from making much consumption>    

 The second way does not admit much consumption. In the first place, what should we do to get rid of this problem, consumerism. What should we do ? 

〇consumer ... do not buy too much and buy sustainable things as long as you can. 

〇enterprise ... stop using the advertisement that encourages consumers to buy too much, do not lay a lot of products whose amount cannot be consumed by customers in stock, and sell sustainable products as long as it can.

〇society ... make a new model and the system to withstand slowing economic growth.

What I have said so far are abstract but we can learn that we have to make efforts no to buy too much things by ourselves.

<suggestion>  If I suggest a solution, I think we should make and use a new application, which can accumulate points when you endure buying too much. If the points can be changed into the real money, I think, the problems both of consumerism and slowing economic growth can be solved.

<impressions> By learning consumerism in this class, my way of thinking of this problem has changed. This is a big problem because it affects both outside and inside, in other words, society and our minds. Also, it has deep relationships with much production, much disposal, and pollution of the environment. Therefore, we have to make an effort as far as we can. To do it, first of all, we must recognize that we are captured by Consumerism unknowingly.

Question:

What should you do firstly to get out of consumerism ?  

<Summary>

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 are captured by consumerism unknowingly. Consumerism is caused by the increase of population and has a deep relationship with the environment, mass production, and mass disposal. These problems are big and personal ones and affect our lives, so we have to make efforts to solve these problems. I think we have two ways to solve these problems. Firstly, to consider the solutions while admitting much consumption by people. Secondly, to preserve us from making much consumption. We have a lot of things and can come in handy as a member of the society.