I have many branded items on my desk. I have a squishy blue whale stress ball from AT&T, a pink stress ball from an A/V company, a phone holder from Purple, a hand sanitizer from a local auto shop, and the list goes on. My husband picked up most of this at conventions. He loves free swag. Chip clips, headphones, t-shirts, plushies, ring lights, notebooks, and more, are periodically dispensed on our dining table after being dumped from a branded knapsack.

I try not to be hard on him. My husband, like a lot of formerly broke college students (and Americans in general), jumps on anything he sees that is free. It was great when we first started out on our own and we needed the free cups because our pantry was empty, or we needed notebooks for scratch paper. Now? We have all these things and more. Most Americans, like us, don’t need more.

I believed this was harmless. The novelties are already made, so shouldn’t someone use them? Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that. And we need to talk about it.

Quantity over quality

Firstly, the amount and type of stuff produced for just this purpose is dependent on what people will actually take. Swag is not produced if it can’t be distributed. When we take swag off the table, the reserves under the table gradually deplete, and it signals to the providing company that the public wants more. So they make more.

It’s not just the quantity of these freebees. Most of these things are plastic and break easily. They’re cheap so companies can get their logo out into as many homes and offices as possible. But, like all easily broken things, they end up in the landfill, used or not.

Think about the number of people visiting that table and taking a pen. All the tables in the conference, with hundred of pens to give. Think about how many conventions, job fairs, workshops, and more are in a single city. Now, the whole country. Added together, it is a literal mountain of plastic.

For what? So we can be bombarded with brand names and so that people don’t have to buy a pen refill? It is excess in the extreme. Now, imagine half of those going straight to the landfill unused. Plastic created for no reason, waste building for no reason.

It’s our nature to want things

We have a drive to want things, even if we don’t necessarily need them. It is inherent in our bones, our ancestry, to want the shiny thing, to hold it, to bring it to our cave and stash it like a prize. It feels good to get something cool. I honestly love my AT&T squishy. It helps me think when my hands want something to do. Squish. Squish. Squish. My whale smiles happily as jelly balls squeeze out of its head like a whale spout (or more like it’s having its brains emulsified under my grip). I also have a collapsible dog bowl from my city’s water department (is that something they need to advertise?), which I bring along with my dog for car rides and park visits. I use the pens I pick up at tables and I use the lip balm with natural ingredients. There are really handy things at these tables, and we want them.

It’s further ingrained in us by our culture of consumption, and America is the pinnacle of consumerism. We grew up thinking most things were disposable. If it breaks, buy a new one. Don’t want to wash dish rags? Use paper towels. Don’t like a skincare product? Toss it. Something in the pantry just hit an expiration date? Throw it in the bin. Got too many lanyards at the last job fair? Throw them out. Just get a new one at the next event.

Maybe if we didn’t grab these empty gifts, we’d value the items we have a little more because we wouldn’t have five backups and more coming at the next business convention.

Instead, we could find other options: Refilling a pen with a new ink stick. A metal chip clip that does not break. Cups that do not release microplastics with every use (glass, anyone?). Though we have to pay for an alternative, we’re already paying for these plastic imitations in a different way.

Furthermore, it is also the responsibility of the companies creating swag to give out. It is a common marketing tactic that gets their name out into the world, a little label stamp that reminds people of that one company they meant to look into or that was hiring. I worked at a semi-local collision repair company a few years ago and often set up tables at community events we supported, job fairs, and local sports events. We had sunglasses and coozies and fans and bags and more. I felt great about giving them out at the time, seeing a that little spark of joy in people’s eye when they put a little trinket in their bag. But when it came to resupplying, I dreaded putting in the order.

Thinking outside the branded coozie

I don’t think I actually need to convince people this is a wasteful practice. My intention is to persuade you that the price of swag is greater than the convenience it brings. Think about that mountain, continually building, one pen, one hat, one lanyard at a time.

But, if you want the thrill of the hunt, the victory of finding something cheaply, there are great options! My personal favorite is to visit local thrift stores. Sometimes I find things that I want but don’t necessarily need. And you know what? If I take that thing (and buy it for only a few dollars), it is not contributing to producing more of those things. It is simply using something that no one else wanted (unless it is at a place that selectively pays for incoming things based on supply/demand, which is a whole other story).

There are also “buy nothing” groups. Most neighborhoods have one. These are commonly found on Facebook groups, but some may choose to gather elsewhere. People list things they want to get rid of, and someone else can claim it free of charge. It may feel like forever before you find something you want or need, but when you finally do, the adrenaline rush is real! I found Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone and Crooked Kingdom series on a buy nothing group, and there’s nothing like feeling goodwill toward your neighbors for gifting you a small treasure.

I hope this blog has not come across as preachy. It is not meant to be so. I understand the instinct, the little spark of joy when you find a little free thing that is pretty and useful. I am not perfect at this either. But maybe cutting back, taking less and less when the opportunity arises, we can grow out of the habit of overconsumption, and start to see bigger changes in ourselves and in the world around us.