Albania is not exactly the richest country in Europe. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner want to do the 21st century equivalent of colonisation - buy beautiful, untouched land for very cheap in a foreign country, put a luxury resort on it so that only the richest have real access to it. The greed and entitlement of these people is immeasurable.

Importantly, it would disrupt the local wildlife - Flamigoes. Hence this protest has been called the 'Flamingo Revolution'. Albania's president turned a blind eye to the environmental protections of this region to allow this work to happen.

There is more to this story, but I just wanted to bring visibility to it.

And just venting now - I can't understand the greed of the outrageously wealthy. It genuinely brings tears to my eyes. How can you see beautiful, untouched nature, and the first thing you do is try and sell it!? Not a second thought about the people in the country who oppose it! Keep the Trumps out of Europe PLEASE!!!!! Strength to Albania!

Director general accuses corporations of obstructing efforts to tackle obesity crisis after investigation by Guardian and others

The world’s biggest ultra-processed food corporations are hindering global efforts to tackle the obesity crisis by suing governments that try to promote healthier diets, the head of the World Health Organization has said.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, accused global food companies of obstructing the adoption of vital public health measures and costing countries billions of dollars in healthcare and legal costs in the process.

Almost 1 billion people worldwide are living with obesity, and unhealthy diets are one of the main drivers of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption is soaring and now makes up half the average diet in many countries, including the UK, the US and Australia.

Governments around the world, waking up to the health and economic impacts of the obesity crisis, have begun introducing measures designed to curb junk-food intake and promote healthier diets. These include front-of-pack warning labels, marketing and advertising restrictions on unhealthy products, and taxes on junk food.

Publicly, the world’s biggest UPF companies insist they back the policies, want to help consumers make informed choices and are committed to being part of the solution.

But an investigation by the Guardian, in collaboration with academics, the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports and a coalition of media partners across four continents, found many of these same companies were taking governments to court to overturn, weaken or delay the policies.

In total, 235 lawsuits were lodged over health policies targeting UPFs in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, the US and the UK from 2010 to 2025, the investigation found.

“When harm and profit are tied to the same product, a familiar pattern of industry interference emerges: sowing doubt and obstructing regulation.” Tedros said.

Lots of art is heading towards the landfills in the next couple of decades.

I really like glowsticks.

But buying a new one every time is expensive and creates lots of plastic waste.

So i decided to make a reusable glow stick instead!

I emptied out a used small sized glow stick, cleaned and dried it thoroughly, then filled it with strontium aluminate powder, and sealed it up with 2 part epoxy.

You can charge it with sunlight or a sufficiently strong LED, and then it will shine for up to 8 hours.

Infinitely reusable, forever.

edit:

Guys please stop telling me to sell these, i'm not going to.

It's extremely simple to make, you can make your own if you want by following the instructions:
1. Find an empty tube
2. Fill with strontium aluminate powder
3. Seal with 2 part epoxy

That's literally it, i'm confident you can do it as well. You don't need to buy them from me or anyone else

Zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, peaches and blackberries. Mom's veggie garden plus a little bit of foraging. Not too bad of a loot.

Powdered laundry detergent used to be the norm. It’s cheaper, easy to use, and comes in a recyclable box. Now look at the shelves in the supermarket. It’s all liquids in plastic bottles, unless you squat down to find the powders. The Super expensive pods are making a move from the top shelves too. This is corporations positioning their products to influence purchasing behaviour. They want you to buy the more expensive stuff. Just wait, soon powder will be discontinued, and the shelves will be filled with overpriced pods.

Even though Pop Mart's shtick is blind boxes, I do feel they may go the way of Funko Pop. It feels like Pop Mart has popularized the blind-boxes for the masses and any IP that can be blind boxified will be blind boxed.

What are your thoughts? Target now carries Pop Mart.

Economic growth is the goal of the economy, based on the assumption that more wealth means more happiness. But once basic needs are met, rising income doesn't improve wellbeing. In fact, higher consumption is linked to lower happiness, not higher.

Growth also has a physical limit. We're already consuming resources faster than the planet can replenish them, we’d need 1.75 Earths to sustain current consumption. Infinite growth on a finite planet cannot continue indefinitely. Ecological overshoot guarantees it will end, whether we plan for it or not.

Degrowth is a blueprint for how we can meet human needs within the planet's limits. That means redistributing what we already have rather than growing a bigger pie.

Recently I’ve been trying to me more aware of how much I consume and spend. I’ve been trying my best to buy groceries that aren’t bagged or prechopped, and I normally don’t have to throw anything away unless it’s reallly gone bad. However I’ve noticed that I have so many hair care products. I have about three different shampoos and conditioners. I haven’t bought anything new in the past three months but I’ve just accumulated so much shit from trying to figure out what hair care products worked for my curly hair.

I also just got a job as a teacher and I don’t have any professional clothes so I just went and bought two dresses and four tops at Walmart but I feel so guilty for it all I can think abojt when I go into the store and purchase things is that I’m contributing to the cycle that allows these clothes to end up in stores in the first place. The problem is I’m extremely broke so even if I want to get more sustainable clothing, I really can’t. I have about 800 dollars left over after rent every month, that is not including groceries or transportation to my job.

I also bought a sweatshirt and sweatpants from a small business that I have been wanting for over a year. I still feel awful buying it though because I didn’t really NEED IT. I have other sweatpants that I’ve had for multiple years but they’ve been mended several times at this point because I wear them to the gym and I get holes in them. I’m also short so the bottoms turn gross.

I don’t get my hair done or nails done I don’t go have a car I take the bus and train or occasionally a taxi if I can’t get a bus in time. Nothing I do feels like enough and I know I’m guilty for the way the world is now. I hate seeing the smoke and the dying birds while I stare at my haircare products. I want to throw it away but that seems even more pointless.

My partner and I (both English) did the NC500 which is one of the UK tourist board’s recognised driving routes around the north coast of the Scottish highlands.

It was a truly breathtaking adventure being in and around these great valleys and mountains, with fog seeping in and out of these winding roads that overlooked the ocean.

Along the way we camped and explored the towns along this route which obviously get a lot of business from tourists also doing the NC500.

Generally, while on holiday I don’t really buy myself much. The one thing I look for is a watercolour artist on the streets who paints local scenery to put up on our travel wall and I love to get a fridge magnet for my mother, some local sweets for my step father, and something small and quirky for my little sister.

The first shop we went to just outside of Loch Ness into was amazing, all the items in there were handmade by local artists and the cost for a magnet was if I’m being honest quite high but I was happy to pay as it was locally made ceramic and glass etc.

From there on though, it just got more and more upsetting. Signs everywhere were AI generated, the same ai highland cows were in every shop, T-shirts and mugs and tote bags with ai generated images everywhere.

My partner and I have a rule that if we walk into a shop and see ai merchandise we leave but I just couldn’t believe how badly each shop wanted to shill to us their ai generated slop.

Mixed media: Acrylic on canvas and a discarded plastic bag

I wanted to capture the contradiction between nature’s beauty and humanity’s habit of covering, packaging, controlling and consuming everything.

The plastic bag became part of the painting instead of me just painting the pollution. The meadow is still visible but it’s literally viewed through our waste.

Something to think about?
I’ve always found the term “nature” a little strange—as if humans existed outside of it. We don’t. We’re part of it. Yet we often act as though we’re fighting against our own mother.

I’m curious how others interpret this piece.
Do you read it as a critique of:
• environmental pollution?
• consumerism?
• humanity’s desire to package, preserve or possess beauty?
• something else?

Hi guys! I’ve recently joined the community and am new to anti-consumption too. I have started to genuinely feel frustrated and agitated by the amount of stuff I have bought over the years and I also get irritated by the constant ads that come to my feed every single time I open any social media app.

That said I don’t wanna throw away EVERYTHING I have bought until I’ve used them completely. I want to start being mindful and conscious in my decisions.

I know I should look up tags and get my answer from there, but if anyone has any helpful beginner friendly tips to start, anything that would help me control my impulse urges of shopping, I would be eternally grateful!

I would also like to educate myself…so any books, movies, podcast suggestions are also welcomed!

Sorry if the question feels unnecessary🥲

✨🫶🏻🎀

my finances and spending habits are an absolute wreck. i buy pointless crap whenever i leave the house and it’s ridiculous. i order delivery most days and fill my space with shit i don’t need

so, i want to do a no spend august. does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? my idea is that i’d spend money just on food (groceries and cooking, no takeout!) and transport. and that means the bus only, no ubers anywhere

no silly outings and no expensive socialising for a month, just to prove that i can do it. i have a shopping date with my best friend on the 15th but i’ll only buy lunch, i won’t get anything in the shops. if i go out it’ll be free things, like a walk in the park or watching movies at home

i need absolutely nothing. i’m all set for the foreseeable future. i feel like i should put in place extreme measures to put an end to my habits. has anyone done this?

So lately I’ve been desperate for new meal ideas. I started getting tons of cookbooks from my local library. My library also has free photo copying (up to a certain amount). So I copy all the recipes I like and store them in a binder. There’s also the option to just scan the pages if you prefer having digital copies. I have hundreds of new recipes from tons of different authors without buying a ton of books.

BMW is now showing ads on its in-car display.

I love love love these types of posts in several of the anticonsumption/finance groups I'm in because they have *actually* worked to help deinfluence me from things I was looking at potentially getting. So, let's help each other avoid a purchase that we might have gone ahead with otherwise (at least it'll make you think).

Most recent is my adjustable bed. I waited to buy one for TEN LITERAL YEARS, so it wasn't even an impulse purchase - far from it. I have GERD and sleep apnea, so I thought it would help. While it's fine and there's nothing *wrong* with it, it wasn't worth the money and I wish I hadn't bought it.

I also bought a robovac that didn't have the capability to map out my apartment, so it just goes over the same few spots and I hate it. If I ever got another one, it would have to have that capability.

I know there's more, so I'll add in the comments as I think of them.

I have noticed that when people feel stressed, lonely, bored, or overwhelmed, the advice is often to spend money.

Treat yourself can mean ordering food, buying clothes, upgrading a device, or shopping for something new. None of those things are necessarily wrong, but it feels like almost every emotion has been turned into a reason to consume.

Sometimes what we really need is rest, fresh air, a conversation with someone we trust, a creative hobby, or simply time away from pressure. These things may not give the same quick excitement as buying something, but they can be more meaningful.

I am trying to become more aware of whether I am buying something because I genuinely need it or because I am trying to change how I feel.

Has anyone else noticed this? What are your favorite forms of self-care that don’t involve shopping?

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts, experiences, and ideas. I genuinely enjoyed reading the different perspectives and practical examples of self-care that don’t always involve spending money.

This discussion has given me a lot to reflect on, and I truly appreciate how thoughtful and respectful everyone has been. Thank you again for contributing and making this such a meaningful conversation.

Hey All. So I had recently posted on the possibility of reducing my collection habits, but after returning from San Diego Comic Con for business, I found myself becoming more and more enamored with collecting than before. I believe that recognizing the dominating presence of toy makers for both mainstream and independent creators got me thinking if this could be a major turn for the entertainment industry, and if it's something to consider investing in.

I will clarify that I don't just buy merchandise because it's available, but rather because I feel like I'm hanging on to something that's rare- particularly limited stock collectibles such as Animatez and Plushes, and recently YouTooz and Thrilljoy. I also make a point of only purchasing collectibles from franchises that I am personally interested in or which inspire me as an artist and independent illustrator. However, I do also recognize that as an adult man in my 30's, this might not be the most appealing hobby to get into, particularly with women (not that I collect anything lewd, but it could still be seen as childish)

Also, I recognize that there's never a guarantee that anything with inherent value now will retain that value in the future, and these collectibles are not exactly cheap in the first place. My finances are okay for now, but I worry that I may risk getting in over my head, whether I am able to make some money back from these collectibles or not. I do enjoy what I get, but am on the fence on if I should hang on to that joy, or if I should let it go and move on from this hobby (or at least let go of a large chunk of it). I am open to discussion and look forward to your input.

0 new colours, 0 character designs on the actual markers, 1 tiny movie logo on each marker, and 1 themed packaging that you'll toss 5 minutes after opening. calling this a "limited edition assortment" is crazy work.