Total cost of reducing personal foot prints.

[Corey]

Something has been bothering me, when, considering how to minimize my personal footprint.

It has to do with goods produced before the demand for it. This defeats a persons ability to minimize there footprint for this simple reason THE Industry says "you can't minimize without our permission" by making the goods that they deem you "WILL use". Example: A shirt I don't want is made and sits in a store waiting for me to purchase, I don't want it but Industry has "already" spent the energy and resources to make the shirt they deemed I WILL wear. Thus the energy is used on your behalf.

How do we fix industry to make on demand basis instead of stock piling goods assuming someone will buy it?

[LearningDan]

Corey, you've probably heard of "Just In Time", an inventory methodology that tries to closely match supply with demand. Although this doesn't sufficiently address the problem of someone wrongly assuming demand for a new item, when utilized properly it does help.

Anyway, economy and the law of supply and demand are the driving forces here I think (in a capitalistic paradigm), with economy currently but a backseat driver.

Our only hope is that en masse our demands will become more in line with our truer needs.