burden of buying

the burden of buying:
too much stuff is costing us big

We have entirely too much stuff. 

I say this as someone who pays $110 a month to rent a storage unit, housing what I believe to be antiquated electronics, several boxes of college textbooks, and my old Mr. Potato Head collection. I can’t be sure what all is in there. I don’t like opening that climate controlled portal of past life paraphernalia, and I’m certainly not alone.

Having more than you need is a sign of economic stability, but when that stability comes in the form of purchased commodities, what does this overabundance of unnecessary items look like? As a child of the 80s, I’ve witnessed the growth—and steady decline—of collectible culture. It seems that once we learned that our thousands of plastic Pez dispensers and Cabbage Patch dolls have dwindling personal value and even less monetary value, we offloaded them into storage units and thrift stores so that we would no longer have to face the clutter of our consumerism.

We no longer have to face it, but we do still have to pay for it.

Self-storage is a thriving, $38 billion industry. There are presently more self-storage facilities in the United States than McDonald’s fast food restaurants, and I am just one of millions paying rent to house the overflow. Do I have room for it in my home? I absolutely do. But if we start putting our possessions inside our houses, how do we appreciate the breezy, Instagram-worthy minimalism and open concept floor plans that the internet says is ideal?

We tire easily of our things. Once we have, they overwhelm us. Organizational mastermind and thanker of socks, Marie Kondo—known best for her 2014 book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing—had a moment recently. The popularity of her book sparked a Netflix reality series featuring families inundated with stuff. Desperate for help in unearthing their homes from the piles of junk, the families opened their doors to camera crews and a bubbly Marie Kondo, who gleefully tidied their closets and thanked shoes for their service. Her methods were exhaustive, but the concept was simple: show appreciation for the objects with purpose, and bid the unnecessary ones adieu. 

Perhaps this highlights the larger issue: We don’t just have too much stuff. We have more than we know how to appreciate. 

The “KonMari” tidying frenzy created an uptick in donations in the early months of 2019, as well-intentioned donations of things that no longer sparked joy surged into drop-offs of thrift stores nationwide. The flood was so great that several Goodwill locations had to temporarily restrict the items that they would receive. 

At face value, these donations seem to serve dual purposes; they’re both out of sight and they’re going to others who may need them. Right? Not always.

Not all donated goods get that second life that we so idealistically hope for. Even those that do end up on the racks and shelves of your local thrift store often end up in an overseas dump. Cheap plastics and fast fashion don’t sell well on the secondhand market, and just like any other consumer industry, thrift stores must keep their inventory rotating. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 26 billion pounds of textiles end up in a landfill each year.

The price of land pollution on ecosystems and its inhabitants is unfathomable, and we likely won’t fully grasp the costs until it’s too late.

We’re running out of places to put our things, and this burden belongs to all of us. Storage units and donation centers are helpful, but they’re short term solutions, not an answer to over-consumption. Almost every object we touch will continue to exist in some capacity long after we’ve ceased, and so, we must consider the entire life of an object, from conception to destruction—or the lack thereof. Before you buy an item, consider how it came to be. Consider the purpose that it will have to you, the lifespan of its use to you, and what it will be once you are done with it. 

It’s not enough to just have less. We must also change our relationship with stuff.