Shopping can be a really refreshing habit that has been proved to make the purchasers feel happier. It also satisfies basic human needs. Thus, it would be a pie in the sky to say that shopping should be stopped. But it can’t continue with the pace it has now either.

Visiting the shops means using means of transport, which burn fossil fuels and produce carbon dioxide,( sometimes monoxide which is worse), and other gases. These gases are the main factors that causes breathing problems, the greenhouse effect, and of course, global warming. Even if you shop online, transportations do take place, as the products come to you. It is an eco way of shopping only when done wisely.

Then it comes to the product itself. All products are sold into packaging, paper and plastic wrap. These materials, useless to the buyer, go straight to the rubbish dumps. The same thing happens with the products themselves. The one-use products, as all products in general, end up at the dumps shortly after their wrap. The more we buy, the more the dumps grow bigger and bigger.

But the worst part is what happens in the industrial world. Mass production during manufacture demands great amounts of energy, which means burning fuels. When we shop non- stop, products are in demand on the market all the time. So even bigger amounts of carbon dioxide and depositions reach the atmosphere and the sea.

And last but not least, many products contain animal by-products, such as fur or fat. Buying those products, which are common in the clothing and cosmetic fields, means that animals are tortured, usually to death, in order to satisfy the market’s demand.

So the point of all this, is that we have to categorise our purchases to really useful and useless, and try to focus only on the first category. Understanding the dramatic effects that over-shopping has on the Earth will help us take measures to reduce them.