Why Are We Wasting?

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
(William Shakespeare, from his play “Julius Caesar”)

“We have met the enemy, and they are us.”
(Walt Kelly, from his cartoon strip, “Pogo”)
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The Chicken and the Egg

There are two schools of thought about why Americans generate so much waste. One school believes we have been conditioned to consume by big business, big media, and big marketing. People from this school are convinced that these massive entities – informally or perhaps not so informally – have conspired since the Industrial Revolution to line their pockets by socking us and sacking the environment. The other school believes just the opposite. These folks hold that the consumption treadmill rolls on and on because that is what American consumers want. The American character, they say, is self absorbed and materialistic, so business and media respond by producing more and more stuff.

The first school, which I call the Conspiracy School, believes the sustainable solution is more and more and more government regulation. The second school, which I call the Culture in Crisis School, believes the sustainable solution is blowing up Hummer dealerships. I believe the second school has it right with regard to diagnosing the illness, but has it all wrong when it comes to prescribing the cure.

The Conspiracy School is dead wrong but appealing – we all know how dearly Americans love a conspiracy. We don’t want to believe one man acting alone killed John F. Kennedy. We don’t want to believe a small group of fanatics perpetrated the events of 9-11. However appealing, buying in to these theories requires enormous twists of logic that defy common sense and everyday experience. Blaming over-consumption on a smoke-filled room full of conspiratorial suppliers is no different.

Americans, character issues aside, are a fickle lot when it comes to consumption. Having spent decades in marketing, I can attest to the difficulty in figuring out what consumers want. Responding to market demand is a tricky enterprise – for every new product that succeeds, ten or twenty or thirty fail. Consider the example of 3M, arguably the most innovative company in packaging over the last fifty years. 3M’s entire corporate culture, in fact, is built on the principle of product innovation. As a distributor of several 3M packaging divisions, we were continually being asked to throw our resources behind a steady stream of new product rollouts. Over a period of twenty-plus years, most of those rollouts unceremoniously rolled up. A small minority caught on. Only a handful caught fire. 

Now if this is the track record of 3M, the best in the business when it comes to innovation, how hard must it be for an average manufacturer to determine customer wants and needs? Pretty tough indeed. That is why business, from a marketing standpoint, is essentially reactive. In the main, marketers spend their time reading tea leaves – trying to understand what products will sell, and then crafting a strategy to make them visible in the marketplace. The notion that companies have the time, desire, and wherewithal to create consumer wants and needs is preposterous. The notion businesses can create demand on a massive scale fails to take into account market complexities far too vast to predict, let alone control. Big business, big media, and big marketing may indeed pander to base consumer instincts, but that is about all you can say.

The Scolding Italian Woman

Which brings me to the real problem – us.  Many years ago I backpacked around Europe for several months and got my first look at different cultures. One day in Rome, as my friend and I were leaving our room, the proprietor of the youth hostel nudged her way through the door. She was frowning and began to bark at us in Italian. When she pointed excitedly to the lamp by our beds, we finally figured out she was angry because we had not turned off the light.

This casual incident made an impression on me that has only grown stronger over the years. Here was a woman who held conservation as an unshakable value. Here was a woman who was aware of her environment and motivated to care for it. Here was a woman who did right, even if it was unpleasant or inconvenient.

What a contrast that was to my own values! Lights on, lights off – what’s the difference? Protecting the planet – somebody else’s problem! Acting and thinking sustainable – hey, if nobody else cares, why should I?

And that, I believe, is the problem. It explains why Americans are so wasteful. We don’t care. When push comes to shove, we’ll take convenience over principles every time. Take something as simple and easy as sustainable packaging. We’ll eschew fast food when it’s easy, but if we’re on the road and time is short, what difference will a few more ounces of polystyrene waste make in the grand scheme of things? We’ll buy detergent with 100% post-consumer recycled packaging, but if it costs an extra 10%, well, we had better hold on to our cash for popcorn at the movies. We go through hoops to rationalize, and we go through even bigger hoops to avoid being rational. Can you blame companies for giving us what we want?

I say these things not as a lecturer, but as a fellow offender. My sensitivity to sustainability is hit or miss – I admit it. My desire to leave behind a healthy world for my children and grandchildren is strong on some days and weak on others. My willingness to sacrifice comfort and convenience for the sake of a greater good comes and goes. All I can say in my defense is, at least I am aware that I am making tradeoffs. At least I recognize those times when I am being careless without the aid of a scolding Italian woman.

The good news is, more and more Americans are becoming aware. And the medium through which you may be reading this article – the Web – should give us cause for hope. Today consumers have a stronger voice than ever before. We can speak directly to companies and tell them what we think and what we want. And companies are listening. Social marketing, whether it be blogs, social networking Web sites, or corporate micro sites, is taking hold and will far surpass the traditional command-and-control marketing model in importance and influence. (This should make the Conspiracy School very happy.)

If marketers of the past had difficulty figuring out what consumers want, marketers of the present can do it, simply by paying attention to what we say on the Web – if we say it. Believe me, if companies see demand for sustainable packaging, they will move Heaven and Earth to fill it. To big business, big media, and big marketing, many voices mean much demand. Few voices … don’t expect things to change. What happens next is up to us.

Brad Shorr has an extensive background in the packaging industry. He is Director of Marketing for Salazar Packaging, Inc a distribution firm dedicated to helping manufacturers, contract packagers, and distributors find the best sustainable packaging options.  In addition, Brad owns his own sales and marketing consulting firm,  Word Sell, Inc.

Comments

[Izzy]

I guess, by default, I am of the Conspiracy School because I do believe that government intervention is needed to stop our incredibly wasteful culture from destroying the planet any further.

When money is involved, as it always is with corporate entities, said entities cannot be trusted to do what's right. They will do what is easier and cheaper and most importantly, whatever allows them to externalize their costs as much as possible.

Sure, we all love convenience but consumers didn't invent the disposable society we live in. It's a by-product of the economic growth our government and Wall-Street are always touting as a sign of success and a way to prove to investors that your company is a good investment because LOOK! We made a gazillion more dollars this year than last year!!! How? By making disposable goods that must always be replaced, whether it's styrofoam coffee cups or cheap 32 inch TVs or crappy American cars that fall apart in 5 years. Planned obsolescence is not a concept that consumers (formerly known as people or citizens) came up with and in IMHO, not one that we embrace as I, personally, am loathe to go through a DVD player every year and a TV every three years but it seems to work really well for Sony Corporation of America, doesn't it?

And that, in a very large and ranty nutshell, is why the government actually does need to step in and mandate a few things in regard to the extreme wasting of resources in this country by our corporations. If we don't MAKE them do it, they won't. Yeah, a few token gestures will be made here and there but until it becomes insanely profitable to NOT pillage and pollute the earth, nothing will change.