We, as 21st century consumers, tend to own a lot of stuff. It takes up the garage first, then the attic, and the basement. With time, it slowly (or quickly) begins to occupy the closets, the shelves, and under the beds. When it comes time to finally get rid of all this accumulated stuff, most of it will end up as waste and perhaps some will be resold or given away.

Collaborative consumption aims to reduce the amount of stuff produced, owned and wasted, and instead increase the amount of stuff borrowed and shared.

The incentives for trading used items are obvious: used items are less expensive and reusing an item reduces waste. The downsides of swapping are that the used item may be of poorer quality, and it can be difficult to find someone to swap with.

The end?

Not quite. The Internet has opened the gates for collaborating, trading, and sharing ideas, services and material goods between previously disconnected individuals. Rachel Botsman, TED Talks speaker on collaborative consumption, declared that "a new sect or [is] emerging called 'swap-trading,'"where various websites serve as swapping or borrowing platforms.

For example, SwapTreasures provides its users the opportunity to sell, give or trade their things with other users. Is it possible that bartering, without the transfer of money, could achieve a recognized level of popularity through use of the Internet? Perhaps, but not yet. The production and consumption of new things, instead of used things, saturates and dominates the market supply and demand. Even so, there remains the possibility that bartering systems could reemerge and expand if more people joined in and had their needs met while meeting the needs of others.
 

Commercial enterprises founded on borrowing, such as Zipcar and Airbnb, represent another way in which collaborative consumption operates successfully. With Zipcar, customers pay for the time to travel in a borrowed car and with Airbnb, homeowners offer travelers accommodations at prices typically lower than hotels.

However, collaborative consumption doesn't have to be commercial or profit-driven. Streetbank, founded by Londoner Sam Stephens, is a website was created simply to encourage neighbors to share. It doesn't make any money nor does it intend to. Streetbank merely acts as a conduit for neighbors to communicate, share and, most importantly, foster friendships. Its goals are "to get people involved in their community, to foster altruism, a generosity of spirit and volunteerism...to help local needs to be met by local solutions, reducing poverty by building community." 

Trading and sharing aren't new, but it is being recreated and holds exciting new developments for the future.  I invite you to investigate and participate in the current redistributive and collaborative opportunities around you.

For more in-depth insight on collaborative consumption, please see Rachel Botsman's TED Talk:
The Case for Collaborative Consumption.

And check out the websites mentioned above created for borrowing and sharing!

On June 4, at a backyard event in Bel Air, former Japanese Prime Minister Naota Kan told a crowd of Hollywood environmentalists, leaders and film makers just what he thinks of nuclear power: it's too dangerous and it needs to go. He spoke of his experience as Japan's leader at the time of the Fukushima disaster, saying that "until March 2011, I thought about how to safely operate nuclear power. After Fukushima, my whole mindset has changed...that we must now not operate nuclear reactors."

It seems that his message was heard...

Just three days later, on June 7, Southern California Edison announced that it has decided to shut down for good the San Onofre nuclear power plant. The two reactors, located on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, had been shut down in January 2012, when it was discovered that hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water were prematurely damaged. The power company had hoped to restart at least one reactor, and has spent millions of dollars on repairs since the shutdown.

This news should come as a great relief to the more than 8 million people living within 50 miles of the plant. Like Fukushima, San Onofre is of course located in a seismically active area, and a major earthquake could have caused a failure there similar to what happened at Fukushima. Prime Minister Kan told his Hollywood audience that had it not been for a freak event that prevented the total meltdown of one of the reactors at Fukushima, he would have been forced to call for the total evacuation of 40% of his country, including Tokyo. As it is, more than two years later, 160,000 people remain displaced, families scattered across Japan, unable to return home.

Prime Minister Kan is not the only high profile individual who is on a mission to spread his anti-nuclear message; he is joined by former US Nuclear Regulators who also say that the risks are too great and that it is time to move away from nuclear power. Hopefully other utility companies will listen to these men in suits and follow Southern California's Edison's lead.

For more on Prime Minister Kan's campaign against nuclear power, see www.foe.org.

For more on Southern California's Edison's decision to shut down San Onofre for good, see www.bigstory.ap.org


"The sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away." - Stephanie Mills