By Sureni binti Suren
2022 has marked the starting point of the food crisis around the world. Our country Malaysia especially has suffered from high inflation which was driven by the escalating food prices and shortage.
Recently India has also refrained from exporting wheat and grain to outside countries due to the shortage in their country. The shortage is due to the compounding of geopolitical, economic and natural causes, such as extreme heat, flooding and drought caused by climate change.
Although Malaysians do not consume wheat, oatmeal, barley, cereals and corn that much, these are the products which we import in the form of animal feed. Due to that, some companies have stopped the supply of chicken, causing significant domestic shortage and rising prices of chicken in the market.
The Malaysian governments solution to this issue is by abolishing approved permits (APs) for food imports. It is a short-term solution that could end up causing other problems to citizens. More imports imply more outflow of Ringgit Malaysia, causing it to weaken further, as indeed against all currencies, especially the United States.
Other than that, the environmental crisis that we are facing right now is also very alarming, which was influenced by the overconsumption which leads to over waste. The overconsumption is undeniably bad for our environment as the government will constantly need to find a new dumping area for the excessive waste that we produce.
The dumping area will then lead to more problems in future like land shortage for productive use, land will lose its fertility and therell also be stinking smells and water pollution that will harm the water ecosystem in the river and the sea. The dumping land can be more purposeful if it is used for other productive activities like agricultural or industrial activity. These environmental alerts, high inflation and food shortage situations should be enough to be our turning point to start being more responsible in our consumption.
Not only is irresponsible consumption on our part harming ourselves, but certainly harm the environment in general. Just imagine a wardrobe full of clothes which we don’t use anymore. Or the cupboard full of fast food which we can’t finish within time that will end up being dumped due to the expiration date. Are we going to continue with our current lifestyle even in this situation? This is why we should start to really apply the 3R which is Reuse, Reduce and Recycle in our daily consumption.
As a starter, we should be a responsible consumer where we try to reduce consumption and make sure that we buy things that we really need. Imagine how many times we go shopping, especially online shopping? How many products that we buy are actually needed? Some of us are just being irresponsible buyers by buying products without any plan first and also buying unnecessary stuff. As a result, therell be hoarding and we won’t even use the product, or we will use it just once or twice and dump it.
The best way to help solve the situation is by buying less. Make sure that we only buy the essentials. One example that we can use is what clothes to buy. Fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries globally, therefore we should not be trapped with the fast fashion that leads to hoarding and excessive dumping in future. We can also try to reduce our energy consumption. This way we can save our cost on the bills and maybe we can start to consider more greener alternatives in future like using solar power.
Secondly, we should stop using disposable products and plastic bags. Plastic products are also not good for our environment as plastic needs 20 to 500 years to decompose depending on its material and structure. We should make it a habit to reuse our shopping bags and bring reusable bags everywhere. This should be very convenient for us.
Not only that we can save cost, we can also help reduce the waste, this way there would not be an excessive amount of waste that needs to be disposed of every year. We can also start to buy things without the bottle, nowadays there is an eco shop which sells organic products where we can bring our own bottles and put our goods inside such as shampoo, lotions and also yoghurt.
Thirdly, we should recycle more. By recycling and fixing stuff we do not need to buy more and waste more. As an example, we can modify old furniture to give it fresh and vintage looks rather than dumping it. Not only that, we can also recycle our clothes. Fashion industry has produced too much fast fashion attire that will only be used once or twice. Thus, we should be more careful and can try to recycle our clothes by giving it to our siblings and relatives. We can also try to redesign our clothes to give it a fresh look.
Lastly, during this crisis era we should start to live moderately and produce our own food. We can start small by gardening in our backyard and planting more herbs, vegetables and fruits that we can consume daily. This way, we can eat more healthily and also we can spend less.
Even though people are still struggling with knowledge and awareness regarding responsible consumerism, we should try at a smaller scale which is within our friend group and our family. We should always advocate for people around us so that we can live happily and healthily for ourselves, our society and our environment. ***
(Sureni binti Suren is a student in Department of Business Administration, Kulliyyah of Economic and Management Sciences (KENMS). The article is part of ˜Responsible Consumerism course. The views expressed here are those of the writer/author and do not necessarily represent the views of IIUMToday,)