Secret Costs Of Consumption We Might Change Our Habits If We Knew The Hidden Costs Of Products We Use Every Day

Ahhh … what better way to start the day than with a lively newspaper and a delicious cup of coffee?

Like the old TV commercial said, “Life’s simple pleasures are the best.”

But unfortunately, “simple pleasures” are sometimes more complicated than we realize.

Take, for instance, coffee. Half a pound of fertilizers and pesticides are sprayed to produce one pound of typical Colombian coffee beans, and, after processing the beans, two pounds of coffee pulp are dumped into a tropical river.

Getting the coffee to your breakfast table also consumes various fossil fuels, metals and chemicals.

And then (gulp) there’s this newspaper you’re reading.

Since the early ‘90s, up to 40 percent of the fiber used to manufacture the paper has been recycled from old newspapers hauled by truck to our Spokane Valley paper mill. The other 60-plus percent is virgin fiber, a by-product of Northwest lumber production.

The manufacturing process involves reducing the old newspapers to pulp, removing the ink, adding virgin fiber and, once new paper is formed, spinning it into one-ton rolls.

A semi hauls the newsprint to our downtown printing facility. After pages are covered with soybean-based ink, smaller vehicles deliver the newspaper to your neighborhood.

With the energy required to produce today’s Spokesman-Review, readers could browse our Virtually Northwest Web site (http://www.VirtuallyNW.com) for up to six hours.

It’s not that coffee and newspapers are so terrible, says John Ryan. “The point is that everything we consume has hidden impacts.”

Ryan is research director at Seattle’s Northwest Environment Watch (NEW) and lead author of the new book “Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things.”

He and co-author Alan Thein Durning trace the hidden costs of producing 10 common items - things like T-shirts, hamburgers, cars, computers - to illustrate how consumption is North America’s principal environmental challenge.

It’s not a pretty picture. Satisfying the average American’s needs and desires requires 120 pounds in natural resources ITAL every day UNITAL.

Friends who read early copies of “Stuff” felt so discouraged that the authors revised the book, removing some technical details, playing up alternatives, inserting a joke or two, and adding a warning on Page 6 that “Consuming too much ‘Stuff’ at one time can be bad for you… . Pace yourself… . Expect to be informed, hope to be inspired, but prepare to be unpleasantly surprised.”

“People have to be ready to receive messages like these,” Ryan explained during a recent interview, “and a lot of folks aren’t.

“At NEW, we struggled with how to present this information in a way that can grab more people’s interest. Our goal was to tackle this really sensitive issue in a non-preachy and personally interesting way. That’s why we looked at everyday objects that people can relate to, and let the stories mostly speak for themselves.”

Each chapter concludes with suggests for reducing the impact of daily consumption - easy steps like turning off your computer when it’s not in use, choosing locally made goods over those made far away, and not washing clothes in hot water.

“One of the best ways to reduce material consumption,” the book concludes, “is to focus on the nonmaterial things often lacking in our lives.

We sometimes consume for lack of something better to do. Feeling lonely or dissatisfied, we shop. Lacking community, we travel. Concentrating on friendship and community may make us happier while, almost without our noticing, it trims our consumption.”

Ryan said he’s cautiously optimistic about the chances of curbing consumption.

“Polls suggest that most Americans are already questioning their way of life,” he said, “not for environmental reasons, but because they feel overwhelmed by the increasing amount of time spent acquiring stuff. They’d rather spend that time with family and friends, doing more meaningful things in life.

“Our message,” said Ryan, “is that what we do every day does make a difference. It won’t make the ITAL whole UNITAL difference we can’t save the world with just 50 simple things. But personal changes, combined with efforts to change the overall system, can have a big impact.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Illustration by Don Baker, from the cover of “Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things”

MEMO: “Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things” ($9.95) is available at local bookstores, or directly from Northwest Environment Watch at 1402 Third Avenue, Suite 1127, Seattle, WA 98101-2118, telephone (206) 447-1880, or via e-mail at nwwatch@igc.apc.org. NEW’s web site is http://www.speakeasy.org/new