Post Consumerism

Below is the poster we made at a group meeting on post consumerism.

Each member of the group researched post consumerism. The main questions we had to answer were, what does post consumerism mean?, who are post consumers and what do they do?, what do post consumers look like?, why do people post consume?

Post consumerism is an idea that an item that we've purchased has many lives. It is about recycling and reusing things. People who post consume usually think ethically and sustainably and about the environment. They look for satisfaction and quality of life without a price tag. They are usually green thinkers who do not waste and buy items due to the quality and how long an item may last. They would often want their products to have as long of a life cycle as possible so they would most likely shop in charity shops for garments and local stores for food. They would most likely use fairly traded products and encourage the idea of home grown food.

In our group we decided that post consumers are middle class and age around 30 years and above as poorer people would not have the chance to choose whether or not to be a post consumer. Post consumers will not be 'trendy' as they don't follow fashion (they might be in fashion at some point as designers are designing vintage looking garments which may be found in charity shops) We also discussed that post consumers were probably influenced by parental values. Post consumers have in their minds to save the planet (green thinking) Rather than driving cars they would try to find a more eco-friendly way to travel such as cycling ,walking or taking public transport. This is so because they are concerned about the pollution in the air and emissions produced by cars. Post consumers will recycle as much as possible as this also counts towards their belief of saving the planet.

On our poster we have found polyethylene bag which held a pair of shoes, this bag is biodegradable if is left for 30 days. We also found a shoe box which was made from 100% post consumer material which was interesting as companies are thinking about wasted packaging and using recycled materials.