Tracking disconsumption

In the most recent installment of his indispensable “Consumed” column in the New York Times Magazine, Rob Walker reported on a project called Indexer, an effort by design student Indhira Rojas to use the barcode-and-database system of modern product management to help us keep track of, and learn to limit, the amount and kinds of waste we produce. By taking control of the data that marketers and grocers already collect on what we buy, Rojas believes, perhaps we could understand our own habits of consumption a little better.

Rob’s column reminded of the clip above, from the 2008 film Examined Life, in which Slovenian philosopher and global culture critic Slavoj �i�ek discourses on the truth-value of garbage.