Are consumers really responsible for consumerism?

I recently read a hand-wringing story in The Guardian about the problems of consumer culture. It starts by describing a visit the author, Chip Colwell, made to a huge landfill in Denver and his horror at seeing the literal mountains of trash created by "mass consumption." Feeling the need to do something about the problem, Colwell sat down with his family and worked out a plan for a "slow-buy year." During that year, each of them would purchase no more than five items beyond basic necessities (food, medicine, school and work supplies, and any parts needed for car repairs). They'd be allowed to accept gifts of material objects, though they were supposed to "discourage" others from giving them, but any gifts they bought for others would count toward their five-item limit.

Now, I'm all for being mindful about consumption, but this struck me as unreasonably extreme. I've seen, and even taken, challenges along similar lines, but they were much more limited. For instance, the Dress Retro challenge I'm taking this year requires me to purchase no more than three new garments—but that's only for clothing, and it doesn't include shoes, socks, underwear, or anything purchased secondhand. Under the rules of the Colwell family challenge, none of those exemptions would apply. 

Moreover, it struck me as problematic that the Colwells were taking it on themselves to fix what is, fundamentally, a social problem. It's the same problem I had with the Take the Jump Challenge and its requirement to give up personal vehicles: American society is designed around car use, and giving up my own car won't solve that problem. All it will do is make my own life considerably more difficult. And it's the same problem I had with the Climate Coach's advice to switch to zero-waste personal care products: the amount it would cost me to replace my conditioner, dental floss, and toothpaste with zero-waste versions is simply not a reasonable price to pay for the tiny amount of waste it would eliminate. Car dependency and plastic waste don't exist because of individual consumers making irresponsible choices: they exist because, for all practical purposes, we don't have any better choices. It's big business and big government that have shaped our society to look the way it does, and they're the ones who have the power and the responsibility to fix it.

Eventually, Colwell comes to the same conclusion. Six months into his family's yearlong experiment, when the project has been all but derailed by real life—a hole in his only pair of running shoes, a pen going through the laundry with most of his clothing, a new home—he feels a need for "bigger answers" that "don’t reframe just individual consumption, but how our larger world of consumerism operates." He speaks with scientists who point to the sheer scope of the waste problem (one estimates that there are around 250,000 tons of plastic) and say that addressing it is going to require fundamental changes in business and public policy. Even if Colwell's family produced no plastic waste whatsoever for an entire year, that would be a tiny drop in a very, very large bucket.

This doesn't mean that it's pointless for us as individuals to be conscious about our consumption. Even if my personal choices don't have a huge impact, every little bit helps—and more to the point, it helps keep me sane. When I've been calling Congress month after month about climate legislation with no result, it's a nice change of pace to focus on the little things that are within my control, like buying stuff secondhand. But that doesn't mean that I should beat myself up every time I give in and buy something new from the store. My small decisions aren't going to save the planet, and they aren't going to destroy it either.