Overconsumption is taking over the United States. Recently, the amount of waste from overconsumption has increased due to products being influenced across the internet. Products are being bought and later going to waste, and this has built up to have extreme negative impacts.
The number one leading cause of overconsumption in the United States is social media. Influencers use this form of media to promote products. These people are displaying thousands of dollars of useless stuff. Not having a particular product may make someone feel “left out”. Certain products later start trends that everybody wants to have or be a part of. Things like Stanley water bottles, Adidas Sambas shoes, and Glow Recipe skincare are just a few of the products. These products are costly and harmful to the environment. Yes, it is exciting getting packages in the mail, or going to stores and shopping for hours on end, but is it really worth all of the damage? Many people are living cleaner, minimal lives using the idea of Project Pan.
People are familiar with the term “influence”, but what about the term “de-influence”? Most products and goods being promoted on social media aren’t necessarily always worth the hype. Take the Drunk Elephant for example, they are an overpriced skincare brand that advertise retinol to young girls. The price of some of their products cost up to $595. Along with these bizarre prices comes ingredients that aren’t good for skin. So why are people feeding into this trap of buying harmful and costly products?
There are many consequences to following this lifestyle. When getting in the habit of buying tons of stuff on the regular, it becomes unhealthy. People end up with piles of junk that either get thrown away or simply just unused. When products with toxic ingredients get thrown away, they end up in landfills. Many people assume that there is endless space for all of this trash being dumped, but that’s just not the case. If our society continues with this, this type of waste will take over our planet.
“Project Pan” is the practice of not buying products until you’ve completely used all of that particular product. You are essentially not replacing a product until you’ve reached the pan of a product. The purpose of this is to limit waste and live more consciously. Of course, this kind of change is difficult at first, but committing to Project Pan may change your life and our environment for the better.
There are some solutions for this problem. If we act before this issue takes over land, we could have a clean environment and land. The answer here is simple: Project Pan. If all Americans just start small and consume less, we will slowly but surely limit the amount of waste being piled up. To handle this quantity of trash, we must recover recyclable materials. After doing this, we can compress all of the trash with a trash compactor. This will help to decrease the size. Though all of this work seems time consuming, it will all be worth it to have a clean, waste free environment. According to a 2025 Good Housekeeping article, all you have to do is “start small”, and “be realistic with what you’ll use in 2025”. This change all starts with you. Will you commit to Project Pan?
