A good interview this week with Chip Colwell on the problems of buying too much. An interesting point early in the program about hoarders: those who collect stuff that they can never seem to get rid of allow us to see the amount of stuff people can buy or collect, but they're not alone. It's just that most people throw out stuff they bought or collected and no longer want—if they kept everything they brought into the house they would also live in rooms with narrow paths through the piles. A fraction of what "normal" consumers buy then get rid of makes it to donation sites and thrift stores. People with clear houses but a big shopping habit are equally problematic as far as (in this example) the clothing ending up in dumps and increasingly in poor countries in Africa or Asia or South America. He also talked about a dump in Denver, CO, where an amazing array of things are visible. Sofas, mattresses, lots of furniture and other household items (there for future archaeologists to examine, once the methane problem has passed.)

You might’ve heard of the “slow food” movement – maybe it’s time to try the “slow buy” movement, too? Chip Colwell, lecturer in anthropology at the University of Colorado, Denver, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the pact he made with his family that they buy no more than five items in a year and what it taught him about consumption in this country. His book is So Much Stuff: How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made More of Everything.

The gift of buying less (podcast from KERA in Dallas).