The amount of waste in our society is driving me to distraction – in 2020 I plan on only buying what I really need

Recently I’ve been going a bit mad with how much we as a society overcomplicate everything. It’s driving me to distraction, if the truth be told. Those nearest and dearest to me think I’m turning into a bit of a weirdo and I don’t fully disagree. I’m having a something of an existential crisis and am not sure what the solution is.

Growing up as the youngest daughter to immigrant parents, it was instilled in me from an early age to not be wasteful and to be respectful of money and possessions. I was always to finish what was on my plate and take less and replenish rather than take too much and throw away. After all, where my parents were from there were those who couldn’t even afford to eat. I was mindful that clothes, objects and items had all been designed and manufactured. Thought had gone into those processes, so to mindlessly treat everything without care or as disposable was disrespectful. Things should be valued.

Early on in my TV career I remember filming for the Blue Peter Water Aid appeal in a very poor, remote village in Mozambique where everything was bartered. After interviewing one family we gave them rice, cooking oil and other useful bits and pieces as a thank you. An argument broke out and we were told by our interpreter that they were arguing over the carrier bag we had given everything in. Back then we would have called it a “disposal bag”, not even a “bag for life”! Nonetheless, it was durable and useful for carrying things. It was light, waterproof and able to scrunch up small when not in use, a good piece of kit.

After that trip, I couldn’t see things the same way. Wrapping paper you buy for a few pounds to just eventually rip off a present, and mascara that can set you back a fair amount (depending on brand). But hey, your eyelashes will look thicker. That year, I also seem to remember, there was a helpline for people having withdrawal symptoms from Big Brother!

There were many other similar trips following that one. Filming in a shanty town in India that had built up on a rubbish tip – with children playing in the stench, while mothers cooked metres away from dogs excreting. In an ideal world this would be the last place you’d set up home, essentially in a dustbin. However for those living on the tip, there was a benefit. There was rubbish to sift through and make a living from. Finding useful or reusable items in among the waste could be a godsend.

Another trip was to Angola with the Red Cross, where thirty years of civil war had left essentially every family with at least one person dead or missing. I even did a trip to my home country of Bangladesh, impoverished, prone to flooding, and densely overpopulated. Unforgettable experiences.

In recent years the climate crisis has become big news. Plastic has become a huge issue, with eight million pieces finding their way into the sea every day. I am now a mother of two plastic-loving children and married to a husband with a mild Amazon habit (sadly, the online shopping behemoth, not the rainforest). Our house is bursting at the seams with bits of unidentifiable plastic and I find it infuriating.

In all aspects of our society we overcomplicate things under the guise of making things easier and simpler, when in fact we are doing the opposite. Kids and society at large would have been happy enough without most of this tat – but now we have it, we want more and more of it and then we have to get rid of it all.

The other day there was a pesto jar in the kitchen sink waiting to be washed out. It tipped over, producing an oily, tomatoey mess everywhere. I sighed as the water I sploshed around in an attempt to wash it away produced a suspension of oil droplets clinging to the stainless steel basin. In my opinion the pesto wasn’t even finished, a good quarter of the jar’s contents were probably still in there clutching on at the sides in an attempt at a reprieve.

If it had all been used there would have been no waste, no uneaten pesto, no having to get the cleaning fluids out to clean the sink, no annoyance. It would have been ingested, giving nutrition; a bit of water to wash out the jar would have sufficed, or it could have even gone into a sauce. Every four jars would essentially give an extra whole jar! But instead, overcomplication. Told you I’m going mad.

Seriously though, this is happening everywhere. We rip out a perfectly good kitchen worth thousands of pounds, only to replace it with another costing roughly the same. The old one has to be disposed of, the new one had to be made. From raw materials, factory processes and transportation the extra effort is substantial. Overcomplication.

We were happy with bars of soap, then decided liquid soap was easier, more hygienic and cleaner. What could be cleaner than soap? The new version has all the extra processes and comes in, guess what? A plastic bottle with pump dispenser that will need disposing of. It applies to almost everything. As we make more and more, we want more and more, we waste more and more as we feel the need to keep up with others doing the same. It’s never ending.

My new year’s resolution is to only buy what I need. Hopefully we can get to a place we can be judged on what we don’t have and haven’t used rather than what we have.