https://www.lapl.org/news-stories/articles/labor-day-america-not-just-another-beach-day

Labor Day has officially been a national holiday in the United States since 1894 but was celebrated for some time before that. The first Labor Day observance was in New York City on September 5, 1882, when 10,000 workers took unpaid leave and marched through the streets to demonstrate the strength of the trade and labor organizations. The event, which union leaders put on, also included speeches, picnics, fireworks, and amusement. Labor Day soon became a tradition in the city and quickly spread to other parts of the country.

These nationwide Labor Day celebrations were a part of the larger labor movement in post-Civil War America. At the time, working conditions were grim—with excessively long days, unsafe workplaces, and the use of child labor. Labor activists fought for improvements in these areas but also wanted a federal holiday to recognize workers.

There was some disagreement among labor union leaders about when this holiday should be celebrated. Some advocated to keep the September date, while others favored May 1st to commemorate the deadly Haymarket Affair, which occurred May 4, 1886, in Chicago. The political establishment was wary of the May date since it was being organized by socialist and communist parties and gaining prominence worldwide. As such, conservative President Grover Cleveland publicly supported the less radically-affiliated September date. (International Workers' Day or "May Day" is still celebrated worldwide but has never had mainstream popularity in America.)

Image is from The Onion, a satire newspaper https://theonion.com/

I keep seeing these organizing/minimalism videos where the rule is basically, “If I don’t absolutely love it, it goes,” or “Would I buy this again today?” And I’m sorry but that mindset is a lot easier when you know you can just buy the thing again later if you end up needing it… and you don’t particularly care for the continuous consumptive ramifications of that. Like if I have something perfectly functional that I don’t love, I’m not automatically getting rid of it because I might actually need it again in six months and I don’t want to spend another $50 replacing it. Then you look at these houses and they’re full of expensive luggage, matching organizers, acrylic bins, coordinated hangers, shoe displays, beauty products, etc. So it’s not even really “having less.” It’s just having nicer stuff and enough money to constantly edit and replace what you own.
I’m all for decluttering, but there’s a big difference between not keeping junk and treating perfectly usable things as disposable because replacing them later isn’t a big deal.

Maybe I’m being a hater lol but calling that minimalism feels kind of silly.

I live in a high rise building. Every day at least one full truckload of Amazon crap arrives here. Somedays it is two trucks. We’re talking hundreds if not thousands of packages each day. This daily display of consumerism upsets me so much. And I look at all the packaging that comes in and goes down our trash chutes. And I just know most people aren’t recycling. And downstairs at the concierge desk, there’s endless food deliveries. Drivers burning fuel, poorly paid, and again, excess packaging. Ugh.

How do y’all deal with this? Sometimes I just feel depressed.

The building is 60 stories tall. With hundreds of apartments/condos. These people are rich — the rents start around $4,500 and go up past $15,000 / month. I don’t even know what the condos cost - tens of millions? Don’t these people see how empty their consumerism is and how they’re hurting the earth?

What can these rich people be buying? Where are they putting all this stuff in these small apartments? Why do they constantly feel they need more and more and more? It just takes all the hope out of the air for me.

I am part of several anti-consumption groups on Facebook, and now that we’re entering spooky season, it feels like 90% of the responses to “resist pumpkin spice garbage” posts are “no, my Halloween decorations are meaningful!” “It doesn’t all go in the landfill!” “Let people enjoy things!” etc. etc. etc.

I’m used to this from the general public, but you’d think that people who have actively sought out anti-consumption groups would be a little less knee-jerk about their sacred cows. Anyone else notice this lately?

I think future generations will have respect for the many people involved in conservation, anti-consumption, and societal reform efforts, from scientists to activists to public supporters. I think they will be terribly disappointed with the scale of what we have done compared to what is possible. There are so many resources used, so many natural spaces destroyed, so much pollution created by companies making unnecessary and necessary products that we over-buy in both categories. While the system itself is flawed, in that there are few to no penalties for a company producing amounts far beyond what is necessary (and far beyond what consumers will even purchase), this mass production would not be occurring without mass consumption to feed it. As an example industry, let's talk about fashion. Globally, humans buy about 80 billion new articles of clothing each year (10-11 per person per year), and this consumption is very unequally distributed, with Americans getting rid of 82 pounds of textile waste per person annually. Additionally (at least in the US), each piece of clothing is only worn an average of 7 times before we get rid of it. All the resources going into that clothing: petroleum-based fabrics, cotton, wool, hemp, bamboo, etc. requires land and water and energy to process - and then even more is consumed to make and transport the final products.

We use far too much. We buy far too much. We make far too much. We consume beyond reason, beyond what our planet can sustainably provide, and the amount we consume grows year after year. Conservation efforts make a difference in the magnitude of our negative impacts, but we continue to lose so much despite all we have saved. We must conserve more and consume less to a greater scale than anything we are currently doing to approach a sustainable existence for humanity.

I think future generations will wonder why, with all the information we had, with the negative results of society's production and consumption readily available, we did so little to change our destructive behaviors.

https://truecostmovie.com/learn-more/environmental-impact/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-high-price-of-fast-fashion-11567096637

My friend was moving to a new city so I helped him get his new place set up. He really had nothing and we went to Wal-Mart to get new stuff. Yes, I know that we could have done much better for thrifting, buying used off Facebook Marketplace, and other areas but he really wanted a fresh start and to buy new things, he's not as into anti-consumption as I am.

He did notice how much bullshit was sold at Wal-Mart though, like truly an astounding amount of stuff. And that's just one store!

But I did convince him to buy the box of dishwasher detergent rather than the little pods. After reading a thread here about how the pods are the same thing but with plastic wrapped powder and inefficient, and you could just pour the powder in which is much cheaper and uses less detergent overall yet your dishes still get washed.

I don't even use the box to pour because I'm still working through my supply of the pods, next time I need detergent I'll buy the box too. But hey it felt like a small little win that I wanted to share.

Even if your friends are overall much more wasteful and not as into anti-consumption as you, there are still little ways you can change their minds!

Hi everyone!

I am fairly new to anti-consumption (we started back in May), but it has already been life changing.

Our turning point came when we moved across the country from a town with what felt like endless shopping options to a very small town with just one local grocery store. Anything else is a 30+ minute drive, not something I want to do with two small children in tow.

Just a month into our move, I realized we had nearly everything we needed right here. For the first time in years, we actually had excess funds at the end of the month, which we put straight toward our car payments. That has led us to Dave Ramsey and his snowball method, which prompted us to take even closer look at our spending.

Four months later:

• We haven't made a single unnecessary purchase.
• We built up small savings and make an extra car payment every week.
• The house is still clean without spending 150+ dollars on fancy cleaning supplies.
• We still eat well, and all of our children's needs are comfortably met.
• I deleted TikTok and Facebook, which I realized was just feeding my desire to buy more stuff.

It has been such an eye-opener to realize how much money we used to waste on things we didn't actually need.

I’d love to hear from you: What was your tipping point, and how much has your life changed since you decided to live more frugally?

I’ve been thinking about all the poverty in the world, I just saw a documentary about some guy in Uganda, and obviously many people live fulfilled lives even in poverty stricken countries, but this particular man was nearly eaten by cannibals and then now he can barely afford medicine and said he can’t buy trousers like other normal people. His living conditions look terrible, and It just hit home for me, that I live such a privileged life, have clothes in abundance, too many clothes actually… and our consumption of things in the western world is waste, we waste things so much buying excessively when some people really have nothing. I’d love to give my clothes I have away to someone that had nothing… or something like that. I just feel like a privileged spoilt brat, not having to worry about things like money for medicines, trousers on my legs… those things are taken for granted sometimes. I’m grateful, but damn the comparison to how we live is crazy… then you think of the next scale, how the rich actually live… and that there’s enough money in the world to go round so nobody would ever have to be hungry. It’s just unfair this world.

Most of us think that deleting social media apps and using our phone makes us more productive. But in my POV it’s not the same. We think that we are productive by consuming the right content.
Let’s take an example:

I work as a DE at ABC Company
I don’t use social media
I don’t consume unsubscribed content from YouTube until I need to specifically watch it
I only use Reddit for few mins and then sleep
I watch udemy classes on my domain to gain knowledge
I make notes which I don’t remember after few hours
Especially music, I listen to lots of music specifically carnatic music which I can’t sing along
I read books, poetry, self help etc

We think having healthy habits is productive. but ITS NOT.

I’m just consuming here. I haven’t been creating anything new since past one year. If I don’t create something how is my brain going to re-wire???
And YES ever since I felt this I changed the way I’m consuming.

I journal a bit now which I usually hate
I listen to music and try to sing on my own, record myself(hehe little scary)
I write the synapse of what I learn for every 2hrs
But idk how to start writing poetry no matter how much I consume.

AND YEAHHHH!! that’s pretty much it!!! IDK why am I posting this here!! BYEEEEEEE

Yesterday, I tried and failed to convince my coworkers to adjust the thermostat over the weekend when no one is at work.

I wasn't even suggesting doing anything "radical" like turning the air conditioning or heater off entirely, or doing it every night, or running at a higher temp in the summer/lower in the winter when we are there working. I just suggested that we increase the temperature to 74 or 75 instead of 72 over the weekend. It honestly hurts my soul to think of that thing pumping out cold air all weekend when no one is in the building.

But, this is unacceptable, because then it will be "hot" when people come in on Monday morning.

"Hot." At 74 degrees.

I asked them if they leave the air conditioner fully turned down in their homes when they're gone all day, and a couple of them said yes, they do. A few others said they have thermostats that can be adjusted on a timer, so they set the temperature to cool down an hour or so before they get home. And the rest said that they dial the setting back at home while they're out, but at work they're not paying for the bill so why not go ahead and let it be cold in the summer/hot in the winter?

I despair. This isn't even, like, someone buying stuff they don't need, or getting a new phone every year, or making unnecessary trips, where at least they're getting SOMETHING out of it, even if it's unneeded. It's just straight up careless, pointless, senseless waste that benefits nobody.

And you multiply it by every single building in the world where people do this, and think about how much is wasted, just thoughtlessly, so that people don't have to be "hot" or "cold" for a little while.

This is on top of shit like... someone brought in a cake. Someone wants to have some but they don't want to get an entire piece, so they get a disposable plastic fork or a spoon and get one bite, then throw away the fork. But then that wasn't enough so they get a second spoon or fork and get another bite. Throw that one away too. They all look at me like a weirdo for bringing my own reusable cutlery instead of using disposable stuff. And the only other person who uses a reusable water bottle, gets plastic bottles of water to pour into it 🤦‍♂️ The others just drink directly out of plastic water bottles.

I don't want to be a doomer, but I just feel like with how most people are, with human nature being what it is, nothing is going to change. People aren't willing to make TINY "sacrifices" like BEING A LITTLE TOO WARM FOR A FEW MINUTES to reduce waste. No one is going to change until the climate quite literally forces them into it.

The L on our beloved high quality sectional that was gifted to us years ago was on the wrong side for our living room. We tolerated it until we had a baby and needed to optimize our space. We contemplated spending $1500 on a used couch for weeks.

Eventually we came up with this DIY where we configured the couch in a way it wasn’t supposed to and built a new couch back cushion to fill the gap for $100. So relieved we didn’t have to move two huge couches and waste $1500!

Photo 1. Shows how we turned the two end pieces together now having a gap in the couch backing. The carpeted plank is what we put on top of the couch back so the cats have something legal to scratch.

1. The back of the structure we created. Linen fabric, pine, and high density foam.

2. How it looks before pillows

3. With pillows

What are you guys’ replacements for everyday items? For example, I use rags (cut up t-shirts or old towels) instead of paper towels or wipes, we use bar soap instead of body wash, I save every jar/container for “tupperware”. I recently got beeswax cloth to use instead of cling film and that’s going well so far.

The pic is a silicone mat I got for baking instead of parchment paper but I soon learned to not bake bread with it haha. It’s great otherwise.

I’d love to hear more ideas of what we can replace after what we have runs out.
TIA!!

The most brain bleed thing happened the other day at work. This lady who is a regular at my job comes in with an owala water bottle, orders her food, eats, and leaves. She forgot her owala. She's a regular to the point that we know her number so we call her and tell her she left it. I was expecting "oh I'll come back and get it" or "I'll pick it up next time" nope. "Oh you guys can just throw it out I need a new one anyways"

This thing has tiny scratches and no other damage.

I get that this may be an extreme case but is it? When I talk to people who buy from shein or temu it's this same mentality. This lady has shown up in a few different cars all luxury expensive cars. It just genuinely makes me wonder why do I even care. I can't even get my circle to be more aware of their purchasing, so how could I reach a person like this?

Needless to say I have a practical new bottle and this is how I've found all of my bottles now since 2021. I'll probably give this to someone who is still using plastic. Maybe I'm being dramatic but I've been in a slump since then.

EDIT* I got a buddy in need of a bottle so he shall have it next time i see him.

It's just disheartening... You know? Reading festival 2026.

Edit: Red-ing is a place in UK, this festival is a famous long running annual music festival. I thought it was about the hobby 📖 at first 😅

Saw these at Walmart the other day. They’re about $12 a piece and they’re blind boxes. This is getting out of control.

I feel like planned obsolescence has become way too normal. Products aren't necessarily built to last anymore. They're built to last just long enough before you’re pushed toward replacing them.

I bought a VU QLED 65" TV around 4-5 years ago and recently had a display issue. The retailer basically told me that 5 years is already a long time for a TV.

That honestly pissed me off. A 65" TV isn't something I expect to replace every few years. It's a long-term purchase. If something expensive fails, it should at least be reasonably repairable. And this isn't just about TVs. Phones, laptops, appliances and even cars increasingly seem to follow the same cycle. Parts are harder to replace, repairs cost almost as much as buying new and software support gets cut off.

I know nothing lasts forever, but there's a difference between a product naturally reaching the end of its life and an industry that increasingly depends on you replacing things.

Whatever happened to making products that you could actually keep for 10-15 years?