Pollution is a product of our consumer lifestyles

Thank you for the excellent article, Trash and treasure (Culture, 12 November), which quotes a museum curator: “We are arguably living in the waste age.”

Waste is just part of the story. We are living in the age of consumerism: resource extraction (pollution), manufacture (pollution), transport (pollution), use (planned obsolescence) and waste (pollution). Pollution goes in lock-step with economic growth, driven by consumerism. The uber-rich internet corporations, who avoid paying taxes that would fund social services, make their money by selling our data to advertisers who manipulate us into buying stuff we don’t need.

Edward Butterworth Victoria, BC, Canada