Buy, buy, buy!

We’ve got omnichannel sales, but with all the emphasis on online, banners, emoticons, privacy policies and returns. E-commerce has been going head-to-head with malls. The virtually second-hand is now able to compete with the latest collections. There’s a whole smorgasbord available for you to pick from that’s recyclable and zero waste. With all these changes, brick-and-mortar stores have been made to look just like social clubs without the bingo nights.

Couriers can be seen rushing around everywhere, parcel lockers are bulging, and the masses can test out how chic they’re going to look for just PLN 8 an item. New, eccentric and slightly frayed looks are all the rage: bright orange coats are being combined with palm-print trousers, tight sweaters are being thrown over over-sized shirts, phoenix bomber jackets are being worn with Hawaiian shirts, while neon-coloured belts on full-length ball gowns draw everyone’s attention to the waistline. Clearly, it’s boom time for courier firms, and with seemingly each click we make new parcel points and temporary storage points are being set up. Logistics parks are thriving, as they watch their rents, margins and profits all curve steeply upwards. More halls are being built, more cross-docks are needed, while the rates of return on such investments continue to fall. Developers are keenly seeking out locations for city logistics parks, as their directors take home fat pay rises.

The economy stands on the brink of a global climate precipice. Businesses are striving to become carbon neutral and are constantly announcing new sustainability goals; but they are also showing little appetite for actually discouraging us from consuming so much. Does giving old items a new lease of life really reduce emissions and limit the use of raw materials? They’re either too big, too small, too yellow, or too itchy. Well, they might be great in many ways, but THEY’RE JUST NOT FOR ME. New clothes get handed down, put up for sale via the latest app, end up in second-hand shops, sent to Africa, thrown into landfills, composted and turned into fuel.

Not all of these options are completely senseless, but the very act of purchasing such goods often does us little credit. It doesn’t matter if the material is sustainable or fair trade, or if the item was never going to go out of fashion. It doesn’t matter how many trees we plant or retention lakes we set up.

When I was going through my wardrobe, I suddenly recalled how I had once become separated from my luggage while travelling around the Balkans. I was staying in a hostel and had to make do with two shirts for over a week (one for sleeping and one to wear during the day) – and I had to wash my only pair of trousers every day in the sink. Six years on, I still have all these things, although now the rate at which I buy new clothes could hardly be called exemplary. Apparently, when you go to prison in Poland, you have to have two sets of clothes. One set I already have to hand; the other – well, I would have to think about it.

And if I had to flee my home and country and beg for help at some border refugee camp, I would certainly take a warm coat with me and something to keep off the rain. Under such circumstances I wouldn’t care about fossil fuel emissions as long as I could get inside some warm building with people ready to help me.