Scroll anywhere online and you could find a promotion that will help you reach the total needed for free delivery. Another scroll, and it’s a heads up that if you spend just £15 more, you could get another item free. On the next page is the shirt you have wanted for months on end, on sale! A few more scrolls, and just like that, you have enough time to justify the total price being so high in your head. Online shopping culture has become a bittersweet part of adulthood and daily life.. Many of us are susceptible to those late-night swipes that lead to enticing deals, sales, and a personal favourite of mine, student discounts. Arguably, so much so that visits to these fast fashion sites have become far too frequent with increasingly dangerous consequences.
Worse still, this mostly comes from our need to keep up with pop culture’s latest, hottest trends. Regardless of how ridiculous, expensive, or unnecessary the item is, if it’s reached your tailored-for-you page or seen worn by the internet’s newest ‘it-girl’ of the month, you have to have it too, right? Even if that item won’t be ‘in’ by next month, or even next week. You have to have it, and you have to have it now.
While it’s enjoyable to find a good deal for popular pieces online, for most people, the lifespans of these items are never considered. Once the Labubu dolls are no longer hanging off bag straps or when the hibiscus flower clips have snapped in half, they will likely find new homes in landfills, where they will spend years decomposing and poisoning the atmosphere along with other once-trending goods.
Reports show that 14 million tonnes of waste end up in UK landfills, and I wonder just how many of the items that once were in my possession, or on my Instagram explore page, are now lying to rest in a pile of crushed products that were once adored by many. With each new trend, we find more ways to generate more rubbish that we eventually throw away into dumps, further harming our already suffering environment.
It’s difficult to accept responsibility or hold ourselves accountable for being wasteful, knowing we aren’t the biggest contributors to environmental damage like oil companies or huge corporations, but a straw can still break the camel’s back. There’s no harm in trying to become more mindful of our spending habits and considering alternatives to our excessive purchasing influenced by rampant commercial capitalism.
This can start with being responsible and finding out what materials make up the items we buy, and if they will be long-lasting, as many of these in-style picks that land on Shein’s homepage tend to be made out of poor-quality fabrics that won’t last more than a few wash cycles. Another is adopting the three R’s – reduce, reuse, recycle. Realising that not every item has to be single-use and can be given a second life is key. Another personal favourite of mine is charity shops, for both buying and donating. Exploring the racks of vintage and Y2K era fashions for a fraction of the price or simply donating your once-loved pieces to stores and letting them have a new life, charity shops provide shoppers with the deals they seek with a more ethical source and cheaper price point.
We all know any person’s favourite day of the month is payday. While it might feel like there is no better way to spend the day than filling up our virtual shopping bags with trips to endless online sites and apps to buy the trendiest cheap plastic and frail polyester, next spree, after the bills get paid and the fridge is full, take a minute to think about where that item will be in a years’ time. Still in your wardrobe? In someone else’s? Or just another addition to the landfill that will outlast us all.
Another article you may enjoy: https://thebadgeronline.com/2025/10/disability-employment/
