Do You Know Where Your Possessions Come From?

Originally this was a question was posed to me by my African History lecturer at the end of the semester, on our very last seminar as a piece of food for thought.

This lecturer was quite an eccentric woman, an Environmental Historian with a specialism in African History she was enigmatic and challenging however always honest. During this lecture she asked do you know what cobalt is? — of course many of us knew what it was however few of us realised its’ key role in the technology in our lives. In your phones, in your laptops, they will all have cobalt she told us, and then she asked do you realise that by buying these items you contribute to the continuance of child slavery and environmental destruction in Africa? None of us were aware of that fact. Naivety on our parts, or simply it wasn’t in our sphere of study — we were all left in morbid silence. Of course, she knew she had us stumped and so she finished on this fact; think about where your possessions originate from? What labour or materials were put in to make them? Do you know where your possessions come from?

Think about that. The majority of us have hundreds of possessions and continue to buy and consume every day, but where do they start? How do they come to be?

I continued to think about it when class finished and when I got home this thinking continued and now roughly a month down the line I continue to ponder on it. Do I know where my possessions come from? I looked through my clothes, my laptop, phone and various other nick-knacks and items around my home — I couldn’t name one thing that I knew exactly where it came from or could even describe in the simplest details how it was made. Whether it was environmentally friendly or whether I was contributing to the suffering of people, wildlife or the planet.

And I wasn’t happy with that, not in the slightest.

I think majority of us are aware of the environmental issues at hand, and how our actions can impact various industries and lives around us. However I believe this is an unconscious awareness, based on the fact that I don’t think we truly want to know how we impact our environment or the lives of others — at least I know I didn’t. That’s what I want to change. My challenge to myself is to become more consciously understanding and involved in the world, the environment and the people that I impact within it. However like many of us I can’t simply say a challenge is set and hope that I’ll fulfill it, I need some strategy — a target.

So here’s the target: for the next 100 days I will write about something new I have learned about the environment, sustainability, mindfulness or creativity and how it can help me (and anyone else interested) in becoming a better and greener person. Join me on this journey down what I am called The Green Way.