Report: waste wasteful

The ABC reports on a study by the Australia Institute:

The institute, based in Canberra, looked at spending behaviour and found nearly all Australians purchased things they did not use.

The institute's deputy director, Richard Dennis, says the actual amount of money wasted on unused items is likely to be much greater than $10 billion as only some areas of spending were considered in the study.

He says Australians pay out more than $1 billion a year in interest on "interest-free" credit cards and more than $5 billion is spent on unused food.

"The old thing's true about your parents telling you there's starving people overseas and you should eat your food," Dr Dennis said.

Shocking, people buy things they don't need or use. And what's with the "clean your plate because people overseas are starving" comment? This guy obviously isn't aware there's an obesity epidemic. Anyway, it's not like someone in Bangladesh is going to go hungry if I throw a helping of glazed carrots in the bin, now is it?

The Sydney Morning Herald also reports on the study, with emphasis on the doom and gloom aspects:

The wasters tend to be young, rich or both.

"Australians seem to live with a contradiction," said Clive Hamilton, who co-wrote the study. "They express concern about the environment yet live materialistic lives that result in high levels of waste."

Tim Rogers, who is executive director of sustainability projects in the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, said people needed to think about their purchases.

"Do you need it? How is it packaged? What can you do with it when it's finished?"

No one wanted, he said, to create more landfill sites, but in an era of affluence it would be an achievement if NSW met its target of simply keeping the amount of waste at the current 6 million tonnes a year.

"Even if people recycle, large quantities of energy and natural resources have been wasted making products people don't use," he said.

Jeez, now I feel guilty – isn't guilt what this report is all about? – for wasting the electricity it took to read this nonsense.