Coca-cola helped popularize the modern image of Santa Clause... they didn't invent it but they used it to great effect to help sell their product and forever link Christmas and Coca-Cola. Every year our office participates in something known as the Alternative Student Break (ASB) . This activity gives students the opportunity to do a full semester of volunteer work in just one week. During the winter semester, we give a workshop about concepts related to waste and then we do a waste audit to see how the campus is doing. This past month we experimented with a new topic... anti-consumption! This idea came to us as we debated the topic of whether it was a bad thing that the Free Store was promoting the idea of consumption... which means consuming more resources. I won't spoil the entire workshop but I am going to give you a breakdown of what we did and what we discovered. The Workshop Our first day was spent going over the concepts of consumption, consumerism, and marketing. Ess...

Browse at 2 am. Buy. Use. Forget about it. Repeat. Most of us have been in this cycle where we impulsively buy stuff because it looks cute, nice, or is just a very good deal. You get that rush through your veins of wanting a new thing which intensifies with the surprise of fast shipping, you’re excited. But… that feeling disappears once you’re tired of what you bought, or maybe you’re disappointed because it’s not exactly what you wanted. And yet, you do it again.  With more time spent online, we are subject to a lot of ads constantly showing off products and great deals, like those “50% off today only + free shipping”. Sometimes we fall for it, we’re only human after all and none of us is beyond temptation. But It’s important to think about where our hard-earned money is going and ask ourselves "Do I really need this?" Since it’s so easy to shop online, it can be hard to resist. But behind every item there’s the health and welfare of another human being and a cost to the pla...