People do not seem to ask themselves if something is a want or a need before buying it. People often impulse purchase, and later realize they are not entirely interested in the thing they bought. For example, fast fashion is a large reason landfills are overflowing. Companies find less fortunate individuals to exploit and hire to work for miniscule wages. With the price of wages low, these companies are able to produce their products at an extremely low rate. This is appealing to people because of course someone would rather spend less money than more money. People often purchase clothing to fit into the newest trends, which in this day and age, change daily. With these rapid changes, the clothing bought to fit the trend is no longer useful. This leads to over "34 billion pounds of used textiles" being throw into the landfills in the United States alone. This also opens up the conversation that people should be who they want to be, not just someone who follows societal standards. If someone is able to establish themselves, they may not have the urge to purchase something just to fit in. We as humans have the ability to produce products that are safe for the environment and control our spending, yet we refuse to put the Earth's health over our wealth.
https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/20 … vironment/