Darren and The Disbelievers

Eco-design expert and Dumped guru, Rob Holdway, gives you the lowdown on our volunteers, rubbish and waste and Dumped.

Why do you think Darren couldn’t take the heat?

Darren wanted blood, sweat, tears and probably broken bones. Darren didn’t consider this experiment as a challenge. He wanted a tough physical challenge – a different type of holiday. Darren is a conspicuous consumer. Nothing short of Armageddon would convince Darren that he should change his habits. Darren is a friendly amiable and likeable guy. Yet, he is self absorbed and selfish. He couldn’t associate his own behaviour to the broader ecological problems we face. He knew what a landfill was. He describes his legacy for his children as about education and other issues, not the amount we waste. Yet, his children might not have much of a future living with a poisoned population and dead planet!

Many people, like Darren, simply don’t care about the environment – do you think they can ever change?

Some people will never engage on environmental issues. They won’t change their lifestyles - after all we can get a better tan, can’t we?  Nothing short of an environmental catastrophe will change their views.

Many people feel hopeless and ask, why should we bother being green when the Chinese are building 2 highly polluting coal fired power stations a week? I accept these arguments but we really have to re-evaluate how we live. How we consume. How we throw things ‘away’. After all, we, in the West, are voracious consumers of a large proportion of the products that are coming out of industrial China – and we dump a lot of them in landfill once we’re finished with them. 

In the end people like Darren will be seen as pariahs of society. Latest consumer research shows that shoppers are starting to make choices based on green and ethical issues. Companies take notice of this and start to examine their own operations because they want to sell more to the greener consumer.

It takes humility to look in the mirror and ask how green is my lifestyle? How do I do the right thing and what difference can my seemingly small changes make? Clearly, it is impossible to stop flying, driving and going about your daily life. But, it is important for all of us to understand the consequences of our own habits and how we might make an individual contribution to help reduce our burden on the environment.   If each of us changes our behaviour in a small way, all our efforts add up to make a big difference across the whole planet.

Even if you don’t care about the environmental consequences of your lifestyle there are undeniable economic costs associated with producing, consuming and disposing of our waste.  0.6% of our nations wealth (GDP) is spent on waste management. Households pay about £140 a year in council tax for waste collection and if current trends are anything to go by, this figure is set to rise considerably.  Worse still, each of us chuck out around £400’s worth of food every year and most of it is within its sell by date and perfectly edible. Reducing the amount we consume in the first place is the best strategy for the environment, for business and for our own wallets.