Trying to eliminate waste only increases it

The slogan "let's eliminate waste" is popular and can be heard everywhere.

Since the word "waste" itself contains a negative nuance that leads to the idea that it "should be eliminated," it is a slogan that sounds like it's saying something while actually saying nothing, but I will set that aside for today. (I feel like I've written about this somewhere before, too.)

Although the pressure to "eliminate waste" in the world is very strong, I have come to the realization that trying to eliminate waste might actually increase it, so I would like to talk about that today.

Now, the antonym of "waste" is "necessity." "Essential" might also work.

If one says "let's eliminate waste," the society that is ultimately envisioned would be a "society composed only of necessary things."

At first glance, this seems like a good thing, but is it really?

After all, if you look around the world, it is already full of wasteful things that are not essential for survival.

The computer and keyboard I am using to write this text right now are not essential for survival, if you think about it. I could live without them.

Music, games, movies, paintings. Yes. Of course, they are not essential for survival.

Air conditioners and bicycles are comfortable to have, but if you ask if they are absolutely necessary, that is not really the case.

If you ask if clothing is necessary, it might be necessary for protection against the cold, but ultimately, it seems one could live even while naked. At the very least, there is no need to own such a large variety of clothing designs.

What about food? Isn't food essential for living? No, no, if it were only necessary for living, such a wide variety of elaborate dishes and sweets would be unnecessary. For example, in the case of bread, in the extreme, one type of plain bread should be enough.

Although there are people in the world who say "even life itself is a waste," well, even without going to such extremes, just by organizing things with the requirement of "essential for survival," we can see that our society is overflowing with "unnecessary things," or to put it bluntly, "wasteful things."

Of course, when I say this, many people will feel a backlash, saying "man shall not live by bread alone" (although citing this famous quote in this sense is apparently a misuse, I will allow it because it is convenient).

Yes, that is correct. People cannot be satisfied with only "things that are minimally essential for survival." They feel that "we need to have many more various things," or in other words, "things that are not essential for survival are also necessary."

In the extreme, for someone who has an idol they really love, that "idol" might feel like an "existence essential for survival." It is a disturbing topic, but if that idol were to commit suicide, there might even be people who would follow them in death.

Even without going that far, many of us think it is necessary for there to be various dishes in the world, we think it is necessary for there to be various clothes, we think air conditioners and bicycles are necessary, we think iPhones, Macs, and keyboards are necessary, and we think the existence of entertainment and art is necessary.

In this way, people need and desire things beyond what is "essential for survival."

However, what is complicated here is that this kind of "necessity" in a sense that is not a requirement common to everyone, like "survival," becomes diverse depending on the person.

After all, someone's favorite idol might be essential for their survival, but to you, who are not a fan, they might not seem necessary at all.

What people consider necessary, and how much they consider necessary, varies from person to person.
This fact brings about a troublesome effect when trying to "eliminate waste."

As I mentioned earlier, if we are being honest, the world is already full of waste (when viewed through the strict regulations of survival requirements). Therefore, when pressure is applied to "eliminate waste," things that are necessary to you might be judged as "waste" and eliminated if left unattended.

That would be unpleasant, wouldn't it?

That is why you are forced to appeal how the things you need are not actually waste, saying, "This is necessary for such and such reasons!"

Naturally, the stronger the pressure to "eliminate waste" becomes, the more strongly you will need to resist.

If the "eliminate waste campaign" intensifies and it has been decided that some form of "waste" must be eliminated, it becomes a death game for everyone's "necessary things." If someone else's "necessary thing" is not sacrificed, your own "necessary thing" might be sacrificed instead. A battle of appeals, "This is necessary," begins here as a survival competition between "necessary things."

You might think that when people say "eliminate waste," the goal is to first eliminate "things that are waste to everyone," and not to eliminate "things that are necessary to someone."

That is certainly an ideal scenario.

However, as I said before, since everything is ultimately waste, if you stay silent, your "necessary things" might be judged as "waste to everyone," so in the end, the "this is necessary" appeal remains indispensable.

Also, there is no guarantee that the "eliminate waste" campaign will stop exactly after you have cut out the things that are "truly waste to everyone." In the first place, it is troublesome precisely because it is not clear what is "waste to everyone," so if the "eliminate waste army" is charging toward you like a raging wave, it is natural to strongly appeal for your own "necessary things" in self-defense so that you are not accidentally shot.

For that reason, everyone will continue to desperately and competitively keep making "necessity appeals" to protect their own "necessary things." This escalates as the pressure to "eliminate waste" increases.

But is this "necessity appeal" actually necessary?

Well, it is necessary in the sense of not being crushed by the "eliminate waste" campaign, but was it necessary in the original sense of the word?

This "necessity appeal" is nothing more than something that was born out of necessity because of the "eliminate waste" campaign; it was not originally a "necessary thing for someone." It is just an activity you do because you have no choice. It is not a positive necessity like "I love it so much that it's necessary," as in the case of someone's "favorite idol," but a negative necessity like "I don't want to do this, it's a hassle, but I have to do it so it isn't judged as waste."

It is not fun or anything for the person doing it. To put it bluntly, it is a "wasteful" activity.

This "wasteful necessity appeal" came into existence precisely because of the pressure to "eliminate waste."

This means that the more you try to "eliminate waste," the more "waste" is created in various places as each person strongly appeals, "This is not waste!" This is what can be said.

In other words, the paradox that "trying to eliminate waste increases it" exists right here.

Now, when I say it like this, it sounds like a completely contradictory story, but in the end, humanity loves waste and actually needs it.

However, if we need waste anyway, it is better to be filled with the kind of waste we like. There is no need to go out of our way to increase the kind of waste that is truly useless.

Then again, it is possible that there are people who think even this "truly useless waste" is necessary for them, so if you try to actively eliminate it, it might just increase even more.

Therefore, although this is paradoxical, I have a feeling that adopting an attitude of "waste is fine" actually leads to "less waste."

Well, that is just Egusa's intuition, though.