TLDR Warning!
(Suggested remedy: play the song in the post before this while you read! At least then you’ll be a dancing bored reader.)

So a while ago, after a somewhat enlightening screening at the Uptown, a friend of mine and I got into a discussion about environmentalism and what exactly individuals can do about it. Somewhere in there, he asked me “So what do you do to make a difference?”

I’d always known I’d be asked this one day, but still, at the time I couldn’t muster anything more specific than “Lots!”. Eyes rolled all over the world.

The thing is, even to this day, I have trouble thinking up on-the-spot lists of the little changes I’ve made that positively affect the environment, and it wasn’t until Wednesday, October 28, 2009, that I even felt doing so was at all useful.

What I didn’t realize was that the extra awareness it takes to notice such small things is a hugely significant way to promote spreading positive ideas.

Thus: projectsumption.

Basically, I’ve decided to keep track of any everyday thing I do that reduces my consumption of Earthly resources, right here on tumblr. (twitter might join in on the fun, too). Living vicariously through the #projectsumption hashtag, I hope and believe this will not only help me remember such actions and consequently spread the word, but will help me live a healthier, more value-filled and ultimately more rewarding lifestyle :)

The moniker is a play on the already quasi-illegitimate term ‘prosumption,’ which essentially means producing your own consumables. And while I don’t necessarily intend to begin manufacturing my own toilet paper, the spirit of anti-mindless-consumerism is enough to justify my borrowing of the term. The aim of the project, then, is to reduce the amount of needless material waste produced within my sphere of influence. In effect, this echoes the intent behind a certain film I saw on that fateful day in October.

In order to commemorate this glorious occasion, I decided to start with something totally trivial and banal. Must be my inner surrealism.

Tonight, when I got home from campus, I for some reason starting tidying things up a bit. I ended up in the kitchen, filtering through the cabinet where we keep our cups. My realization reminded me of being high, for I had come across something I encounter multiple times a day but never really notice: my family has way too many cups!

In this one cupboard, there was a total of 145 cups: 32 porcelain mugs and 113 glasses, including 26 for wine and 31 for specialty/liqueur.

Uselessness so profound, it needs it’s own grainy cell-phone video:

A little much? I thought so.

Some of them literally had dust on them, and most of them I’d never seen before, let alone used. What a waste of space and materials, I thought; someone else could be putting these to far better use than us. So I sorted through every one and boxed the ones I felt were losable (to be donated?). I narrowed it down to the base essentials, plus a few extras in case we had guests over we needed to impress with our matching sets of specialty glassware :S

The moral of this totally average story is this: if my family only needs 50 cups, why do we have 145? There are, of course, reasons to justify most anything (i.e. owning 12 cars and driving 1 is acceptable since they are all ‘collectibles’ :/), but I feel too much of our daily over-spending and over-consumption falls in the ‘needless’ category. These are the areas I want to address with this project.

I do feel a bit guilty for ‘forcing’ such survivalist habits on my parents, who just want to live in comfort now that they’ve earned their living, but I figure if I keep these changes ‘slight’ enough, it won’t become too burdensome to them. Plus, when I move out, I’ll have learned many healthy habits that’ll come in handy on a budget. Lifeskills++

Yet I think to myself: “What’s wrong with treating myself to a little treat now and then? Even if it is somewhat needless, I really do feel I’ve earned it. A little luxury here and there is healthy.” I somewhat believe this, it’s just that I’ve realized that my life is currently as fulfilled as I need it to be, so why not (finally) start living for reasons other than myself? I’m a commie, I guess; a thoroughbred socialist. Eat. Sleep. Red.

Of course, I certainly don’t want this series of posts to become an elitist bragging-ground for how Murray’s better than you cause he turns the lights off when he leaves a room (p-chaw!). Rather, I’d be sufficiently thrilled if some curious Internet straggler should stumble across this and think, “Hmm… that really is easy: I’ll just buy the brand with the least amount of excessive packaging.” Basically, I want nothing in exchange for this blog other than the satisfaction of setting and achieving environment-themed mini-goals, which I can’t seem to do properly unless I put them in writing.
In short, this is a personal project, broadcast to the public realm only because I feel the intent is worthy of sharing; a No Impact Man-style approach, you could say.

And since this inaugural post has to catch up on about a half month of activity, here are a few things I’ve already begun doing:

• I’ve recently decided to stop buying pre-packaged cold-cuts and shredded cheese from Costco because I like both meat and cheese enough to prepare them freshly myself, thereby avoiding needless plastic packaging (and saving money, too!).
• In addition to reducing the physical amount of glasses I own, I also tend to reuse my glasses, plates, bowls & cutlery over multiple servings/days by rinsing them off with a quick rush of water (thereby avoiding filling up the dishwasher so quickly). Obviously, I keep these quite separate from truly clean dishware.
• I now always take the stairs if I can. Awkward elevator silences are not missed, I assure you.
• I’ve recently got my family to okay keeping our cardboard/paper recycling bin in plain sight, not only to remind us to do so, but because it makes for easier, more convenient access during that split-second descision of “should I recycle this?”.
• Tonight, I officially announced the existence of our ‘dead batteries to be recycled’ box. Still working on a more label friendly title.
• “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.” This might seem a tad less disgusting to you if you know that, thankfully, I’m the only one who uses my bathroom. Added bonus: doesn’t wake people up at night.