Buy less stuff, basically.
Think hard before buying something "new". You may not need it, or you may be able to find alternatives, such as hand-me-downs, secondhand, etc.
Think hard before buying something "new". You may not need it, or you may be able to find alternatives, such as hand-me-downs, secondhand, etc.
However, it does help you not be comlicit to their treatment.
Companies that use these services could exert pressure for better conditions, just like some have done with other companies in their supply chain.
I have somewhat limited agency in this world, limited to the little bit of money I spend, the movement of my arms and legs, the words I speak, the things I look at, and my thoughts and intentions.
Willingly trying to avoid global shipping would actually make you more complicit.
They don't have direct relationship to that sector anymore, after all.
And even if you managed to reduce all private consumption to zero, commercial consumption probably makes up an order of magnitudes more than private does. It doesn't matter what YOU do, you can't change the scales that these ships operate.
The only thing that will fix this is government intervention and fines that make it less cost effective to abandon the ship than to deal with the consequences.
This isn't really an excuse in e.g. USA, which produces surpluses in both of these commodities.
I disagree with your statement that "it doesn't matter what you do". It is all that matters, because what everyone else does is beyond my control, and only what I do is under my control.
Individual action and its spread through word-of-mouth is pretty much the only way anything changes in this world.
It's a set of misaligned incentives that create a hole where ships like these fit. No amount of your individual do-gooding will fix that incentive misalignment.
The second advantage is that you don't have to pay, so it is more likely that items will find a good home instead of being discarded.
The third advantage is non-participation in the money system, if you're into that sort of thing, and also the elimination of overhead for store and inventory upkeep.
One downside, of course, is that most people aren't willing to keep their "stock" around for too long, so there's limited inventory at any given time that you can browse.
> The most direct way to participate in this amazing experiment with us is to join the BuyNothing App.
Oh, also, there're a lot of plants and things that get exchanged, another difference from second hand shops.
I hope there is a middle way.
If the economy is in a state of overproduction and extreme waste while the effects are the burn-up of our own habitat, shouldn't it tune down a bit anyway?