Viewpoint: The hazards of too much stuff

Add caption

After the deluge of gifts many people have exchanged at Christmas, January seems a good time for soul-searching over the Western obsession with stuff, writes trend forecaster James Wallman.

       We have more stuff than we could ever need - kit we don't use, toys we don't play with, and clothes we don't wear.

     Consider the average British woman. According to various surveys, she buys 59 items of clothing each year, she has twice as many things in her wardrobe today as she did in 1980, and she has 22 things in there she has never worn.

       I'm not piling all the blame on to the average British woman though. We're all guilty. So many of us have so much stuff today, in fact, that a team of anthropologists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have decided, after one of the most extensive pieces of research into contemporary life ever conducted, that we are living in "the most materially rich society in global history, with light-years more possessions per average family than any preceding society".

      In the smallest home in their study, a house of 980 sq ft, there were, in the two bedrooms and living room alone, 2,260 items. And, because of the rules the anthropologists were using to count, that was only the things they could see when they stood still. They didn't count any of the stuff that was tucked into drawers or squeezed into cupboards.

More informations :http://www.bbc.com