There is a big difference between the wants and needs. Stuff like water, shelter, food, clothes, etc. Needs are flashy shoes, high end computer, the newest phone or devices. Buying excess wants can lead to waste of resources and cause pollution because of the creation of our wants. Needs are the things we need to survive in our life. Wants can cause extra things that we don't need which becomes a waste. Having a lot of waste can cause unnecessary pollution to our Earth.

Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death. Pollution causes more than 9 million premature deaths, the majority of them due to air pollution. That’s several times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. Air pollution is the leading environmental risk to health, causing 7 million premature deaths each year. This is equivalent to the number of people that have died from COVID-19 since March 2020. Pollution of all types hinder development outcomes. Air pollution, exposure to lead and other chemicals, and hazardous waste including exposure to improper e-waste disposal, cause debilitating and fatal illnesses, create harmful living conditions, and destroy ecosystems. Pollution stunts economic growth, exacerbates poverty and inequality in both urban and rural areas, and significantly contributes to climate change. Poor people, who cannot afford to protect themselves from the negative impacts of pollution, end up suffering the most. More than 95 percent of deaths caused by air pollution occur in low- and middle- income countries. In individual countries, the economic burden of pollution associated with premature mortality and morbidity is also significant, equivalent to 5 to 14 percent of countries' GDPs. Recent evidence points to the similar devastation caused by exposure to harmful chemicals, such as lead. In 2019, more than 5.5 million adults died from cardiovascular disease arising from lead exposure. 90% of these deaths occurred in lower- and middle-income countries. In the same year, children younger than 5 years of age lost 765 million IQ points. Lead exposure costs countries $6 trillion, equivalent to 6.9% of global GDP. It is critical to address pollution because of its unacceptable toll on health and human capital, as well as associated GDP losses. Pollution management can also make substantial contributions to climate change mitigation through actions such as reduction of black carbon and methane emissions, which contribute to both air pollution and climate change. In addition, pollution management can enhance competitiveness, for example, through job creation, better energy efficiency, improved transport, and sustainable urban and rural development.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poll … 20combined.

It really depends on what the want is.  For example, electric cars (Teslas) are made to lower the amount of carbon emission out of cars.  But the trade off is that when the lithium for the batteries is mined, then it emits 15 tons of carbon as well.  Sometimes it is alright to pollute if it will help the earth in another way but most of the time we should not pollute our planet for our material wants.

Needs are something that every person has, and as time goes on these needs will be completely different from 100 years ago. Everyone needs water, shelter, and food, but as time goes on it becomes more necessary for adults to have things such as smart phones and cars in order to keep their other basic needs. While these things do cause extra waste they still are necessary for people to have in a modern society. So to combat this it's important that people make use of these things for long periods of time making sure they use their phones for multiple years and possibly utilize electric cars in order to reduce their carbon output.