Wasteful World: Study reveals our collective delusion on hoarding possessions.

Findings from a recent study reveal one of humans’ most common demons that many of us who have recently moved homes can relate to – and that is we tend to collect too much stuffs than we need, thus resulting in a lot of wastage.

Are we collecting more than we need?
To conduct a recent survey, relocation company Movinga polled 18,000 heads of households in 20 countries with the following questions: What percentage of your wardrobe hasn't been worn in the last 12 months?; What percentage of your grocery shopping ends up as waste?; Since your most recent move, what percentage of your transferred belongings are still not in use? The company then collated the responses with data from the World Bank and other scholarly studies on the topic.

The Berlin-based relocation company Movinga have just concluded a study that reveals the world’s most deluded countries in a bid to highlight our collective issues with waste and hoarding.

Says Glenn Miotke a spokesperson at Movinga:
“With the oceans becoming ever more polluted with plastic, and the fast fashion industry bigger than ever, it’s time to start encouraging individuals to really consider whether they really need more.”  

In this study which studied the collective delusion we face as a society when it comes to hoarding and waste had revealed that the UK, Switzerland, Canada suffer the biggest lapse in judgement on their consumption levels.

UK comes in place 17 with an average delusion of 23.33%, an average delusion of 39% for clothes that people think they wore during a year, an average delusion of 10% for food waste, and 21% for relocation.

The USA wastes the most food, according to the study, but Belgium is the most deluded about their grocery shopping waste and Russians are the most realistic when it comes to their habits.
Overall, Russia was the country with the lowest level of delusion with 3.33% and Switzerland had the highest with 26.33%.

For this unique study, Movinga had conducted a poll among 18,000 heads of households in 20 countries and compared individual’s perception on how much they own versus how much they actually use to reveal the level of cognitive dissonance we live in.

The results revealed that individuals are unable to perceive their own part in the global issues we face in terms of over consumption and waste generation, and Movinga hopes this study can raise consciousness and spark a discussion on how we do our part to help.

“At Movinga, we are personally invested in ways to make the moving process more effective and less stressful for our customers, however we are becoming increasingly aware of our responsibility towards the world we live in.” Says Glenn Miotke a spokesperson at Movinga. “With the oceans becoming ever more polluted with plastic, and the fast fashion industry bigger than ever, it’s time to start encouraging individuals to really consider whether they really need more.”

The full study allows the responses to be filtered based on these categories for a more in-depth exploration of the findings.

You can find the original tables on Movinga’s website.