By: Hailey Miller, Staff Writer
With back-to-school shopping in full swing, many students have participated in the annual shopping spree of stocking up on snazzy supplies, the latest technology, and clothing galore. These days, it’s become a market of wants over needs. Students often partake in back-to-school shopping because it’s widely advertised, but do you really need the latest trends, or are you just buying into mass consumerism? Offsetting your back-to-school carbon footprint will put less strain on the environment and help you save money in the process.
Remember those school supply lists we would get back in elementary school full of everything from a 100-pack of pencils, multiple packs of lined and graph paper, and a dictionary and thesaurus as the cherry on top? These lists were setting us up for consumerism before we even understood what that meant. Who really uses 100 pencils in a single school year? Did you even crack open that dictionary once? According to a report conducted by the Retail Council of Canada, 86% of Canadians participated in back-to-school shopping in 2022 — “with majority of those shoppers spending more than $50.” This level of materialism not only exacerbates environmental waste, but it’s also a waste of your money.
The trend of back-to-school shopping normalizes unnecessary spending to give us a false sense of productivity. Like any type of consumerism, back-to-school shopping increases waste that ends up in landfills because people automatically throw things away — even if they’re still in good condition — to make room for new supplies. In the US, about 77% of school supplies are wasted each year, and you can imagine how much waste Canadians produce given the 86% that buy into back-to-school.
Amid the popularity of back-to-school shopping, many students are wanting more ethical and sustainable ways to partake in back-to-school trends. With many people becoming more conscious of their carbon footprints, there’s a growing interest in sustainable shopping. Just because you’re offered a plethora of student discounts on everything from streaming subscriptions to discounted clothes and technology, doesn’t mean you have to use them. Unless you could absolutely use a deal on something you were already planning on buying, you’re still wasting money and fueling consumerism.
When it comes to school supplies, reuse what you have unless it absolutely needs to be replaced. This goes for technology, pens, notebooks, bags, and so on. For supplies you can’t reuse such as dried out pens and markers, Staples has recycling programs at participating locations. When shopping for new supplies, consider buying pens with refillable ink, recycled paper, or buy gently used products from places like Facebook Marketplace and online student groups. Marketplace is also great for finding gently used (and often like-new) technology such as iPads and laptops if your tech is about to bite the dust. Student groups are great for finding used textbooks that not only save the environment but also your wallet!
To alleviate mass consumerism and engage in more environmentally-friendly means of back-to-school preparedness, we must stop mass consumerism at its root. Remember that reduce, reuse, recycle applies to school supplies as well, and will not only help the environment, but keep you financially frugal, too!
