With a population of 1.3 billion people, India is a country where consumerism grows by leaps and bounds every year. In a society which has forgotten its moral and spiritual values and judges a person by the material possession he/she owns, consumerism is bound to become a big problem. The liberalization of economy in India took place in the 1980s and gave birth to consumerism. More and more people got the chance to buy better and imported products. Little did people know that consumerism comes with a heavy price tagEnvironmental Destruction.

The production, processing and transportation of the goods produced for the market requires energy and this energy is generated by fossil fuels which in turn leads to by products such as harmful toxins, green house gases and solid waste. All this affect the human health. Consumerism has also been known to increase levels of anxiety and depression all thanks to the commercial pressure that companies selling products build by advertising.

Consumerism is the reason the people of our planet are consuming 30% more resources than what is required for a sustainable lifestyle.consumers are often unaware of the negative environmental impacts of producing many modern goods and services. More and more people prefer going in for new products instead of repairing or recycling older ones. This notion of people must be changed.

Preventing the collapse of human civilization requires nothing less than a wholesale transformation of dominant cultural patterns. This transformation would reject consumerism and establish in its place a new cultural framework centered on sustainability. We all should join our hands and send out the message of the 3Rs (Recycle, Reuse and Reduce) in order to educate the society and help reduce consumerism. With the belief that one day we will become a sustainable society free from the evil of consumerism, I take leave.