Plastic, flimsy, cheap and damaging: why shopping needs a health warning
I told myself I ‘needed’ some ballet shoes with a strap. I bought some fabric ones from New Look at a retail park. Mistake number one. The following week I told myself my fabric ballet shoes with a strap were too flimsy (I knew this when I bought them) and so I ‘needed’ some waterproof ones to wear during the horrendous weather we had in Wales throughout May 2021. Mistake number two. At the click of my fast tapping overworked fingers I found and bought some waterproof ballet shoes with a strap online. The upshot? I hate myself.
Having taken the long and cramped trip from a Chinese factory on various ship containers, lorries and motorways to a warehouse in the UK, my shoes were delivered two days after my spontaneous order — and that’s a long lead-in for most online retailers. Our friendly local delivery guy dropped them off, grumbled about the rain and went on his way — to deliver more tat to more people, I’m guessing.
The waterproof ballet shoes with a strap are awful — plastic, flimsy, ill-fitting, cheap.
What on our beautiful pale blue dot of a planet possessed me? What made me think a cheap pair of shoes, which have travelled halfway of the globe and made by some far less privileged people, would make me feel good about myself had I decided to keep them? I, of course, returned the shoes immediately — further racking up their carbon footprint — to some miserable warehouse no doubt planted on some former greenbelt land.
I’m ashamed of my terrible decision — probably the worst fast-fashion choice I’ve ever made. And we know there are very few decent fast-fashion choices to make in the first place. I regularly tell my — kefir drinking, yoga practising, nature loving, vegetarian — self that I’ll only buy second hand (charity and vintage clothes shopping is truly my forte) and that if I do buy new, I will only buy things made of natural or eco-friendly materials. So, what happened?
I am not here to justify that dark momentary lapse in my consumer behaviour but I am here for a moment of self-reflection. By that one online purchase I was contributing to other people’s misery, future generations’ climate catastrophes, notwithstanding a terrible fashion faux pas.
I care deeply about our planet and biophilia (human-nature connection) is my research area. Our connection to nature is linked to setting our pro-environmental behaviours. I get angry and depressed reading about inequalities in the world. Perhaps I can blame it on a need for a self esteem boost after a long week at work, a momentary indulgence of retail therapy — that the clever marketers are skilled at telling us we ‘need’. I know though, that the blame lies solely with me.
And then I wonder, how many of us consume like this? I said it was my worst but it was certainly not a stand alone fast-fashion purchase. I love clothes and I’m a slave to magazines. I often find myself browsing through pages and pages of online grid views of shoes. Just for fun (I know, I need a hobby).
So, I think there are a few things going on here? Let’s explore…
Self identity and social norms. While our self-identity is generally stable over time, it is also context dependant. At that moment in time, at the end of a long week at work, my general self-identify for being a nature caring global citizen was temporarily overridden by my (misguided) urge to quickly possess a fashionable pair of ballet shoes with straps. Accessible fast-fashion is an accepted, embraced and promoted social norm — and what psychologist Robert Gifford would describe as the Social Comparison rationale for inactivity in relation to climate change. What’s especially notable in these times of the ethical consumer is how the words ‘vegan’ and ‘faux leather’ are being used to disguise the fact that despite the item of focus not having caused harm to animals — which I’m all for, of course — there is no recognition or mention of the item’s impact on fellow humans or the world’s resources.
Our personal values are thought to remain consistent over different contexts and are seen to be reliable in predicting pro-environmental behaviours. However, using the values-beliefs norms (VBN) theory as an example, at the moment of deciding to purchase the ballet shoes with straps, the ‘egoistic’ and ‘hedonistic’ (self interested) values played out over and above ‘altruistic’ (concern for others) and ‘biospheric’ (concern for the environment) values (Stern and Dietz, 94). The shoes were cheap/cost effective and might make me feel good (egoistic and hedonistic) and at that moment I wasn’t considering the impact on others or the planet (altruistic and biospheric).
Lack of impact. On a far less immediate level, when I make purchases like this and in fact do anything that compromises my environmental values, I think there’s something deeper going on which I wonder if we all experience day to day. While we have a concern for the planet, people and global issues, we also feel powerless about our impact on global consequences. For many of living in the Western world, the consequences of climate change are far less tangible or visible. We go about our business pretty much as normal while reading about other countries’ climate misfortunes — of which we seem to be desensitised to. Gifford calls this ‘environmental numbness’ and ‘perceived lack of behavioural control’.
I hope that this, perhaps over the top, self analysis of my terrible fast-fashion incident demonstrates my commitment to changing my behaviour. I truly do not wish to preach to the converted or indeed unconverted. I suppose what I’m realising is that it is sometimes difficult to translate our environmental and global values into actions due to the way our society values consuming, looking fresh, fashionable and having new stuff to make us ‘feel good’ — the “you’re worth it” mentality. And putting a ‘vegan’ or ‘eco’ label on a consumer item, further endorses our perception that we might even be doing good for our planet, while also making us feel better.
But many of our consumer desires — however fleeting and seemingly small — are acted upon at the cost of other people’s well-being and lives. Time is running out, we are living in a climate emergency, whether we see it or not.
I’m old enough to remember when the ‘THINK!’ road safety campaign began— which lives on today and has no doubt saved many lives. I wonder if every online retail outlet and shop should have signs or stickers around saying ‘think people and planet’ to make us consider beyond our hedonistic needs before we make those rash consumer decisions which give us a minute’s pleasure for a lifetime and future lifetimes of pain.
With thanks to my mum who lets me steal her ideas and share them here.
