Do you know what would really make us happy, Marie Kondo? buy fewer things

The taking of the garbage bag does not fail. In Tidying Up with Marie Kondo!, the Netflix series starring the successful Japanese tidying expert turned best-selling author, there's always at least one shot that stops at the junk pile. Shiny garbage bags bursting with stuff, piled up haphazardly. The more bags, the better. One of the couples who appear on the program estimated that they got rid of 150 full bags.

For and against Marie Kondo compulsively putting our lives in order

There are the bags, tightly closed and ready to disappear. They make orderers happier, healthier, and relieved that all the junk they've accumulated over the years is gone. It is the scene that screams: Success! You ordered the Kondo! Now your life will be infinitely better! It is precisely that shot that illustrates the problem we have with waste. And Kondo doesn't help us with that.

A few years ago I followed the KonMari method, the step-by-step guide to tidying up and getting rid of stuff explained in one of Kondo's best-selling books. The method is very clear: we have to review each thing we have, category by category, and hold it close to see if it "makes us happy" (the English translation, Spark Joy, is the title of Kondo's book). We will get rid of the object if the answer is negative, and we will store it in an orderly way if not.

Those three days I spent tidying up in 'new year's resolution mode' were a wonderful debugging marathon. Clothes that I was not passionate about, kitchen appliances that I never used, crockery that no longer matched each other, piles of old papers and countless expired beauty products; everything left home in garbage bags. Some went to charities, others to the bins, and the boxes of books ended up in used book stores. The more bags I filled, the more I congratulated myself. Then I ordered and folded what was left at home. I even mastered the dark art of folding stockings and underwear.

I felt great. My apartment wasn't exactly a minimalist paradise, but I loved seeing the well-organized kitchen cabinet and my little stack of t-shirts sorted by descending color. The cutlery drawer was neat and my crockery matched. That weird orange mug and gravy boat that I never used and that someone had given me were now in a box outside a charity shop, waiting to make someone else happy.

And there's the thing. What happens next? Where do all those garbage bags end up? The Konmari method emphasizes getting rid of what we don't use, but things don't just vanish into thin air. We take the garbage bags out of the house and then forget about them when we return to our newly tidy homes. Out of sight, out of mind.

Most of those bags will end up in the landfill, along with the real waste. And charities spend millions each year sending trash to landfills. Landfills around the world are overflowing with things that didn't "make anyone happy."

The idea of ​​"if you don't like it, get rid of it" fuels the throwaway culture. As Eiko Maruko Sinewer, author of Waste and Consuming Postwar Japan (the book is titled Waste. Consuming Postwar Japan), once told me, the Konmari method is a short-term strategy. "If you go shopping and you see a T-shirt that gives you joy, you buy it. Then two weeks later, it doesn't give you joy anymore and you can throw it away. No attention is paid to the fact that you should have thought about the life cycle of that shirt when you bought it.

We don't just get rid of faded t-shirts and old tax receipts. Although that shirt only cost you eight euros, countless resources were used to make it. Materials, water, energy, workforce, transportation, and packaging; all of that is also being wasted.

And we can't afford to act like it's nothing. According to the World Bank, each year we produce more than 2,000 million tons of garbage, and it is estimated that this figure will rise to 3,400 million in the next 30 years. Landfills around the world are full of rubbish for examples like Australia: this country throws about 6,000 kilos of clothes into landfills every 10 minutes.

Recycling is not a panacea. Last year, China sparked a global recycling crisis when it closed its doors to the importation of recycled and contaminated materials. The common practice in the world is that municipalities accumulate recyclable garbage or send it directly to landfill.

And sending what we no longer want to charity is not the solution either. For example, only a small percentage of donated clothing is put up for sale. What is not useful is sent to landfill and some things are exported to poor countries where they are sold relatively cheaply. Sounds good in theory, but in reality the impact can be devastating for the local market, given the varied quality of used clothing. It may also limit the development of local industries and may hasten the demise of traditional clothing. Why make something original when cheap jeans and knockoff t-shirts are available?

There is another Japanese tradition that Kondo (and all of us) should embrace. It is called mottainai. It has a long history, but it basically laments the notion of waste and raises awareness of the interdependence and impermanence of things. Mottainai is about reusing things, giving them a new purpose, repairing them and respecting them. How powerful it would have been to see Kondo transforming old t-shirts into rags to clean and replace sponges and napkins. Or perhaps he could have urged his desperate hoarders to repair old shoes, bikes, and appliances instead of throwing them in the bin.

Even for those who can't stand to reuse or repurpose things that don't exude joy, there are other options besides landfill. In Australia, in addition to selling things on eBay or Gumtree, on Facebook you can find local swap groups or charities that drop by to collect used furniture or clothing for people in need. Perhaps you do not get the instant feeling of having the floor in order, but things end up having a better destiny.

But more than anything, I wish Marie Kondo would say enough! Stop buying so many things. The only solution to the waste crisis is to curb the consumerism that is overflowing our landfills, polluting our oceans, and wrecking our homes. Because what would really "make happy" would be a world that isn't cluttered with garbage.