Parvati Magazine December 2014/January 2015: Consequence/Beginnings | Page 20

WELLNESS

THE CONSEQUENCE
of Convenience

M

any of us live in societies where we are sold on the culture of convenience, anything
we want at any time. Much of this is driven by our hardwired human desire to have
things we think we need for survival, but convenience is not about survival, it is all about
consumerism, and the consequence is waste. It has become evident that the choices we
make for convenience and consumerism are having profound consequences on our environments and on our own health and wellness. Everything produced has an ecological
impact, from the beginnings of its life - the energy and resources used to produce and sell
it - to the end of its life where it is likely to end up as waste. These processes are increasingly
putting pressure on our natural environments.
Single use plastics are a fundamental problem for the health and wellness of many ecosystems and an example of the consequence of our culture of convenience and consumerism. Cheap to produce, these plastics breakdown easily into tiny particles when