By Patti Wood

We know a couple who recently bought a house, not to live in but to save a beautiful 200-year-old oak tree from a chain saw and a charming older home from being razed and replaced with one or two new “plastic” houses, as is so often the case today with real estate investors and developers.

Now you may think this is a little extreme, but saving something of value sits right with me.

Plastic houses are the norm in the home-building business. OK, the houses may be framed out in wood, but then builders inject plastic foam insulation between the studs and cover the exterior with plastic sheathing and often PVC siding.

Inside, the flooring of choice is often PVC or wood that is treated with chemicals, including PFAS, those toxic forever chemicals. Cabinets are rarely solid wood, and even if the doors are solid, the box itself is manufactured with plywood and composite wood products containing formaldehyde. Plastic building materials may emit gas for long periods of time after new owners move in.

The use of fossil fuel and chemically based plastic to construct our homes is unhealthy for our fragile environment, and avoiding it is certainly preferable, but as the work began to renovate the old house, another more existential issue came to light: overconsumption.

The house, built in 1902, needs a bit of work to bring it up to modern standards, and this presents some interesting challenges. For one thing, the tiny closets and lack in general of storage space are a problem for today’s modern families

If you think about it, in 1902 there was no Amazon, no Target, no Home Goods, no TJ Maxx, no Lowe’s, no Walmart. I could go on and on. People living then were not the consumers we are today. They had fewer clothes compared to today’s wardrobes.  Their clothing was made of fabric that was either sourced from a field (cotton and linen) or from an animal (wool and leather), as well as fewer essentials for a kitchen, where meals were prepared and eaten. They had fewer toys for their kids and there were no media rooms with giant screen televisions or personal electronic devices; entertainment came from books, family games, crafts and maybe music performed by family or friends.

You can make the argument that the abundance of retailers and consumer goods on the market reflects a healthy economy, but I would point out that an overabundance of cheap consumer goods is also a driving factor in many of our global environmental threats.

A study published by the International Society of Industrial Ecology found that there was significant pressure on the environment arising from households, with their consumption contributing to more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions and between 50% and 80% of total land, material, and water use. Not surprisingly, the U.N. reported that the richest 1% of the global population accounts for more than twice the amount of emissions from the poorest 50%.

Leisure time in America includes shopping, where there is a thrill in getting a bargain, owning the latest thing or just replacing something old with something new. On average, Americans visit a shopping center between six and seven times per week. Their shopping lists include clothes and shoes, accessories, electronics, household goods, personal care items…and more.

But back to storage in our houses. Even in modern homes with large basements and garages, walk-in attics and closets, finding enough space to store all our stuff can still be a problem. In response, remote storage units for rent are popping up all over America. Does this make sense?

Companies are also part of the problem as they intentionally plan obsolescence of their products by changing how they look, adding a new feature or creating new styles in fashion. And low prices, not taking into account the downstream costs to the environment and our health, keep us buying.

If an item breaks, most of us don’t even think about repairing it. It’s easier and faster to simply go shopping online, click “add to cart,” and like magic, a brand new item will appear on our doorstep the next day, or even the same day! In 2021 France introduced a “repairability” index that tells consumers how easy certain consumer products are to fix.

So how does this story end? How many things do we really need in our lives? And what kind of a toxic, polluted world are we leaving to our children as a result of our own purchasing habits?

The old house has a lot of charm – a front porch where the breeze blows gently through. Bedrooms with lots of windows, a fireplace for winter nights, a deck for summer barbecues. The old oak tree in the front yard provides plenty of shade in the summer, keeping the house cool even on warm days.

It may not have as much space for stuff as some new houses, but for a family that’s mindful of its place in the world, it’s perfect.