Posts tagged consumption

Why China is sick of foreign garbage

Medium, China, the economist, waste, recycling, materials, consumption, 2017

China is the world’s biggest consumer of raw materials. Each year it buys billions of tonnes of crude oil, coal and iron ore. But there is one commodity market in which the country may soon play a less dominant role: waste. Last month China told the World Trade Organisation that by the end of the year, it will no longer accept imports of 24 categories of solid waste, as part of a government campaign against “foreign garbage”. Government officials say restricting such imports will protect the environment and improve public health. But the proposed ban will threaten billions of dollars in trade and put many Chinese recyclers out of business. Why is Beijing so eager to trash its trade in rubbish?

via https://medium.com/@the_economist/why-china-is-sick-of-foreign-garbage-d3ff837f3734?source=ifttt————–1

How I Gave Up Alternating Current

Mostly Harmless, outsourced life, technolgy, technological dependency, Soylent, consumption, supply

I buy my staple food online like a civilized person. It takes me mere seconds to order enough soylent for a month, and version 2.0 does not require any preparation, so I got rid of my noisy blender. At less than $2.50 / meal it also saves me loads of cash, and I appreciate the use of more soy and less rice, finally bringing a nutritionally optimal PDCAAS score of 1.0 while improving the taste and especially texture. I also think it’s crazy cool that some of the ingredients are made by algae rather than water-guzzling pesticide-spraying farms. […] I enjoy doing laundry about as much as doing dishes. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them, and I donate my used garments.

http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331

Media Lens - Mind Training

Happiness, consumption, colonialism, politics, society, hedonism, meditation, doing nothing, affluen

The contemporary version of happiness is not something that has simply emerged as a product of popular opinion - it isn‘t that society is just giving us what we want. Instead a particular version of happiness has been promoted very consciously for a very long time.

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/current-alert-sp–298539227/cogitations-archive/56-mind-training-part–2.html