by Ricky Jimenez
As a consumer of responsible age, how do you assess your state of health? Is there anything you should be worried about? Do you feel pain where there ought to be none? Do you take energy boosters and dietary supplements and yet you feel as if the world is pressing down on your shoulders?
On the products you take home from the department or grocery store, have you ever thought for a moment if the goods you bought may have been taken from non-renewable resources during their manufacture? Or that after the product’s life, where would it end up? Or, we just do’t care for as long as it’s “not in my backyard” (NIMB).
You see, most consumers are like that. Hopefully, not for long if the new consciousness among us has taken roots. In some countries, there is an awareness for Lifestyles of Health and Safety (LOHAS), popularized by movie and media celebrities. The likes of Cameron Diaz, the queen of green, and our very own Chin Chin Gutierrez, are doing their share in educating people to care for their health by eating safe and healthy foods, and buying goods manufactured in an environment-friendly way.
To put green ideas into context, it would help for consumers to realize that it requires seven kilos of corn (or wheat abroad) to produce one kilo of beef. The issue here is who gets the first chance to ear corn or wheat, should it be people in poor countries or animals raised in developed countries? If you see the relevance of this issue, you would probably have second thoughts about eating a hamburger at your favorite fastfood chain.
Another consumer issue that ought to be understood is: are we really eating safe and healthy vegetables and fruits bought in the public market? Did we ever know that such farm produce were raised by conventional farming which allows the use of pesticides and inorganic fertilizers? Haven’t we read somewhere or heard from a popular medical personality on radio or TV that chemical residues from such food would end up in our bodies and in time would cause us health problems, necessitating extensive hospitalization and medication, which would be much of a prohibitive expense account that we might be unprepared to meet?
As for the waste we generate as consumers at home, did we ever consider even for once that 60 to 70% is classified as compostables, meaning they can be reused as soil conditioner or organic matter that would enrich the soil to be able to raise vegetables and fruit trees, which would mean savings on your part in your next marketing chore? The most common attitude of consumers is to dispose of this type of waste the first chance they get.
Having brought this matter to your attention, would it not feel good to consider that much of our actions, decisions or options have an impact on our very own health and that of the environment, and that the time has come for us to take control of the way we act and think? To help you get started, or to put you on the right path, it would help that you join a consumer movement that acts and thinks along sustainability and health. There is no other group but the Consumer Action for Sustainable and Healthy Lifestyles (CASH-L). Look at it as the first real step you have done as a consumer.
We cannot escape from the responsibility of consumers to themselves and to the rest of the environment, for our very existence depends on this symbiotic relationship. Just think if all consumers were united, organized and speaking in one voice. No one would dare ignore our common aspirations as consumers for one minute, not government, not the business sector. Let us take comfort in the fact that there is no government or commercial business to be done on a dead Earth.
Consumers of Davao City, the region, Mindanao, the Philippines, the world, let us think and act as one. The time has come!
(email me at rjrjrajimenez@gmail.com)
