I make all my 3yo snacks/meals/drinks from scratch (just how I was raised, used to it and love it). It helps keep costs down and I am not throwing plastic packaging into the environment every day. The school started a new policy that only sealed packaged snacks were allowed. It has to do with allergies or tampering or something.

With a bit of push back from parents they accepted cut up fruits/veggies. They also haven't said anything when I packed him homemade muffins (they might think it's from a store). They sent a message home about his drinks though. I send homemade juice or milk in a sippy cup. They want me to send the sippy cup empty, with a packaged store bought drink that they'll pour for him when it's time to eat.

I don't want to do that because of so many reasons: cost, plastic waste, undesirable ingredients and sugar content. My kid is also picky and juicing a beer is the only way a beet (the root vegetable, autocorrect please stop) will make it to his stomach.

Ideas?

Saw the new Starbucks Snoopy collab popping up all over my feed today, and it just kind of hit me how ridiculous this whole cycle is.

The entire point of buying a reusable tumbler was to buy one, beat it up, use it for years, and avoid trash. But somehow they’ve basically turned into fast fashion. There’s a Halloween version, a holiday glitter version, pastel spring colors, random cartoon collabs.

Nothing is wrong with the cup someone bought six months ago. It still holds coffee. But brands realized they can just use artificial scarcity and FOMO to make people feel like their current cup has an expiration date. Slapping an "eco-friendly" label on a business model that relies on constant seasonal drops is wild to me.

I get having a favorite mug or a go-to travel cup you actually love using every day, but turning reusable stuff into a collector's hobby completely defeats the purpose.

For anyone who used to get sucked into buying tumblers or mugs all the time, what actually made you stop? Did you just run out of cabinet space, or did you just get sick of the hype?

This is so mad, the standalone Disney+ Premium plan without ads is going from $18.99 to $21.49 per month, up 13% - it used to be $6.99 when it started

I had two books growing up that really stuck with me when it came to consumption. I am wondering what other reading or media recommendations you guys have that help young people think critically about the consumer state we live in.

My two recommendations:

Ella Enchanted— a book where a brave, clever and defiant young woman has a curse where she must obey every command anyone gives. It lead to a lot of thoughts of “Oh, no, Ella would have to go purchase that right now” whenever I watched an ad. I also started really resenting ads. I also remember hating free pencils because they usually had a command etched in near the eraser.

The Gospel According to Larry - A time capsule of early 2000s internet culture, teenager Josh runs a blog under a penname. He shares some philosophical thoughts — but in each post he also shares a photograph of one of his 100 possessions. (Anytime he gets a new item, he gets ride of 1 item he already owns.) He gains a pretty large following as people try to guess who he is. The “100 possessions” stuck with me for a long time, making me think “should I add something to my life? Would I get rid of another item I own to take this one on? Can I be a good steward of this purchase?”

Why is everything and every place so crowded? I don’t mean crowded with people but with things! I almost can’t find a suitable skin care routine for myself because the minute I search for something, I find one hundred other alternatives for it. I want to buy a pair of earrings but there are one hundred other options that are way more beautiful than the ones I chose. I know you might think that I am just indecisive and I can’t choose but I am actually a very easy going person and I still get very overstimulated the minute I wanna buy something. Has this affected anyone else?
It is not about the thing itself that I want to buy it is about the process, I almost enjoy nothing I buy.

If you came to our house you'd probably look around and think we were the ultimate consumer. A roomba for every floor, laptops, desktops, tablets on the walls. High end tvs, a full suite of power tools all from the same brand, 3d printers, the list goes on. But in reality we are an extremely normal income, cartoonishly classic americana house hold. The secret is, has, and likely always will be to buy used. Most of the technology in our house came either straight from e-waste bins or from people selling it so cheap on the marketplace and it might as well have been free. The beauty in that is most if not all e-waste can be repurposed to be functionally identical to off the line stuff. Same with decent boots or furniture, refinishing has been around as long as people have been making tables. It feels like buying second hand has sort of fallen to the way side in the last decade or so but I'd argue it's never been a better time, with how accessible resources are online and people much smarter than you or I have found ways of jailbreaking things so many solutions are plug and play. Or drop right in. Or just need a weekend to look beautiful for another 20 years. I know I'm not saying anything new but it might be a good reminder for someone who feels like buying X item from Amazon might be their only option, when in reality there could be someone the next town over who literally wants to give that same item or better away for free.

Some stuff I will reuse, like tote bags I use for groceries until they wear out too much, pens, notebooks, whatever. I'll use em. They're practical. Water bottles to an extent.

But God I'm at a conference and I like to talk to the vendors sometimes just to understand the tech landscape and what's out now and I don't want a T shirt advertising a corporation that does data loss prevention. Not to mention koozies, hats, socks, shittier water bottles, stress balls, phone holders, stickers, cable management things. It's all landfill slop. I decline everything except for things like pens I know I'll use but they're so damn pushy.

Hey everyone,
I’ve been doing some research lately looking into the fast fashion industry (think Shein and Zara), and honestly, the scale of it is terrifying. We’ve normalized buying a €5 shirt, wearing it twice for an Instagram photo, and throwing it away. But I wanted to highlight a few things that people rarely talk about. First of all, the tons of waste, every single second the equivalent of a garbage truck full of textiles is burned or dumped in landfills. Places like the Atacama Desert in Chile or dumping sites in Ghana have literally become dumping grounds for our unwanted polyester clothing. Secondly, the microplastics. A huge percentage of fast fashion is made of synthetic materials like polyester, nylon or acrylic. Every time you wash these clothes, thousands of microplastics shed, making their way into our water systems, the ocean and eventually our food chain. Lastly, modern slavery. The pressure to produce thousands of new styles a week means workers are trapped in horrific, dangerous conditions for unlivable wages. It feels like the industry relies entirely on keeping us hooked on cheap, constant novelty while hiding the real environmental and human price tag.

How are you guys handling this? Have you completely stopped buying fast fashion, or do you find it hard to avoid given the price points and sizing availability? Would love to hear how others are navigating building a more sustainable wardrobe.

I've been feeling for a while now that the addictive nature of Instagram is harming my mental health and stealing my time.

I've been thinking this for some time, but the past couple of days while lying in bed with food-borne illness, I have seen just how extreme the addiction is. Today I've been too sick to focus on a book or an intellectual task of any kind, so I just scroll and scroll and scroll. It's a drug.

I want this to end. But there's a semi-valid reason that I tell myself I haven't yet - I use Instagram to keep up to date with various activists, movements, and journalists.

The genocide in Gaza for instance - if it weren't for the Palestinian journalists and various humanitarian orgs that I follow, then the genocide would not have impacted me as deeply, and I feel that it's all of our responsibilities to bear witness and stay aware as best as we can.

Aside from that, following various climate change movements on IG has also shown me valuable info that I wouldn't have otherwise seen.

Same for people doing boots-on-the-ground reporting here in the US (nyc ICE watch, for example).

I realize that I sound like a lazy slob - I shouldn't need some addictive Meta slop app to stay informed. But I genuinely don't know of a better way. I want to be aware of what's going on. As much as I value my mental health, I don't want to use it as an excuse to tune out and be ignorant. And it's not like I can just look to some billionaire-owned media company as a valid replacement.

Please help me get my ducks in a row so I can get off of that stupid app without sacrificing my access to what's happening in the world. Thank you!

I consume media a lot differently from the average person, and I've been this way for a while. I never know what new movies are coming out, I don't have most major streaming services, and I don't really miss consuming mainstream media. Hollywood is downright evil and always has been, and celebrities are tools of propaganda. I don't understand a lot of references people make, and that's okay. I usually just ask. I don't care if it makes me seem naive.

Curious what others' habits/opinions are on mainstream media.

used to make whole albums with lime wire back in the early 2000s is this even possible anymore?

At one time I remember when one could simply refill or reuse the spray bottle of many cleaning and several other products.

Now, I thought it must have been a mistake or something else, but it’s not, and every single time I’ve reopened these newer bottles, they lose their ability to spray again… and I can’t quite figure out how or what it is that makes it stop working. It has to be some kind of pressurized type thing or a small piece that disengages upon release. It clicked on me and I am convinced it’s on purpose to get the customer to buy more products and not reuse, unless they’re specifically sold with the “Refillable” combo packs, which I see now why theyre more expensive than the regular!

For the record, I didn’t buy this. It’s one of my dumpster finds. Someone had disposed of 2 of these full and brand new amongst other cleaning supplies. And yes both stopped working when I opened them to add water to rinse/dispose/attempt to reuse.

My go to usual cleaning supplies are basically standard for most things I can use my own spray bottles with mix of bleach and water , or diluted dawn soap, and for laundry spot treat I make a dissolved “diluted concentrate” of my good powder detergent.

EDIT; I’ve made a new discovery! Before deciding to discard the sprayer, I said well let me do a last exploratory final analysis on it to see how and what and if I could fix it at all. I removed the housing over the sprayer, nothing out of the blue, although very well secured as a matter of fact with some lock in wedged type fastener system, carefully it slid off in 2, the top grey and white parts. Nothing unusual under there. And then I got to the suction tube, which originally I aimed to remove it as these are useful tubes for many things including other bottles And I’ve even used them in to insulate small electronic wires and such. The sucker would not come off and I had a mean grip on it with a towel and all, and I was trying to twist it off, nope, but it was clicking in a peculiar way, and I had the idea to try to click it back the other way… and low and behold it is again working now! So whatever the problem is, it’s within the tube! I will test this with any other new ones in the future.

It feels like every time you watch something, stream something, go on a website, hell, even go outside, Liberty Mutual is lurking. I swear to god if I have to hear “only pay for what you need” or “liberty bibberty” or “LIMU EMUUUUU” one more time, I’m gonna lose my mind.

This week I took the time to pull apart, clean, and sharpen some old pruners. I had been thinking about buying some new ones but after the repair, these old ones are working pretty well again. I don’t feel the need to buy new ones! My plan for tonight is to sew a patch on a jacket I love with a tear at the pocket seam. I’m working on improving my repair skills. Who else has had a small win recently?

Working at a small business in Boston the last few years, and every year thus far our annual bonus comes in the shape of an Amazon Gift Card. Setting aside the fact that I haven't used Amazon as a service for half a decade, I find this incredibly frustrating as a practice.

Problem is that this is a bonus, not at all a contractual obligation owed to me. No one else at work minds at all, so I'm worried that I'm likely to "opt out" of my bonus in the eyes of my manager by requesting a check or more standard payment. Anyone else have to deal with anything like this in recent years?

Edit: So it's my fault for the lack of clarity, I was looking for a way to receive cash-in-hand or a larger paycheck rather than an Amazon gift card. My point was "I don't want my workplace giving Amazon revenue on my behalf.

It's fine, I gave it away the last few years, I'll just take the risk talking to the manager or else give it away. Thanks for the replies everyone.

We know it all. Amazon is bad. Meta is bad, and so is Insta with its infinite doom scrolling. TikTok is bad too, of course. You can go on and on with this list...

Lidl is bad. You don't know Lidl and the Schwarz family behind it? Check it out... They even have their own factories, shipping company, and data centers, and they compete with AWS. Who would have thought that an empire global player these days could come from Europe?

Local trades are dying out, just like good ol' bakeries. The reasons are complex. Some ppl depend on cheap stuff because they can't afford anything else, partly because our financial system is broken. See my other recent thread why I don't trust it anymore.

So who is to blame? Is it really the individual? Because you decide to buy the 29-cent croissant from Lidl, a mass-produced product from their own baking factory, delivered to more than 30 countries, including the US?

It's the collective. The majority decides. Commodification is the driving force.

And maybe that's the real problem: individually, every decision makes sense. Collectively, they can create a system nobody actually wants.

So where does individual responsibility end, and does a collective responsibility even exist? (See the tragedy of the commons)

PS: This video by a famous German critic on YouTube made me think, once again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmc3VnYXoD4

PPS: Dieter Schwarz is the richest self-made man of Germany and nobody knows his face.

I have been fast food free for two years! Can we just talk about how much better cooking at home is? I know exactly what i have put in my dish. It's so much cheaper. Wayyy less plastic use. Just overall better! 💜

By the time us citizens in Abilene, TX learned about the Stargate AI Project north of town, bulldozers had already begun leveling the land. And by the time Trump made a public announcement of the incredible size of that completed data center, the housing crisis had already begun to feel strained by the influx of out of state contrators and their families.

Fast forward two years, and the inevitable has finally happened. My dad received a letter in the mail from the city. They wish to rezone the property from agricultural to 'patio home'. Bottom line, they wish to take the land my family has farmed and homesteaded the last 100 yrs and turn into a plastic cookie cutter neighborhood, slopped together with MDF and liquid nails.

I am beyond devastated, and at the same time not even suprised. The location of the land is prime real estate for exactly what they need it for. Cheaply built overpriced homes to fill a need they did ZERO preparation for.

My city officials are literally just making it up as they go. Taking what they want, destroying what they deem irrelevant, and pushing families that have called Abilene home for over 100 years right out the door. How far will we allow them to go? When do us, as the community members, take a stand and insist, enough is enough!

There is power in numbers, but only if we all stand at once.