...EG 372 – Written Analysis Project Part 5 March 2, 2013 Do we have a throw-away society? Who is impacted by the problem? A throw-away society is one that ultimately affects every person on the Earth. However, the greatest impact is upon the developed, industrialized countries; as they are the greatest producers of products that may be discarded. This is not to say that less developed, non-industrialized countries are not affected also. These countries are also affected by polluted land and waterways. The polluted waterways are more of a health risk because of either a non-existent purification systems or inefficient systems. The amount of trash that has been thrown away in the years since the Great Depression, will have an impact on the lives of everyone on Earth for generations to come, unless something is done to exponentially reduce our production of garbage. What is the problem? According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s website, in 2010 (the latest figures available), the United States alone created over 250 million tons of trash. An interesting fact; the total volume of solid (this includes construction, demolition and non-hazardous industrial) waste produced in the United States each year is equal to the weight of more than 5600 Nimitz Class aircraft carriers, or 247,000 U.S. Space Shuttles, or over 2.3 million Boeing 747 Jumbo Jets (Beck). In an August 2008, ABC Good Morning America report it was stated that there is a massive area...
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...explore in essay * Description of a consumer society. Part 1 * What is consumerism * Mass consumption origins – include quote from R Williams * Affluence * Supermarket contribution to consumerism Part 2 * Outline the impact of rubbish / wastage on environment – include statistics from reports shown in Making Social Lives text book. * Explain what unsustainability means and how does it refer to rubbish. * What is recycling and its role * Other ways to use rubbish i.e. charity shops, used as art Conclusion * Conclude whether society is a throwaway society. Explore the claim that a consumer society is always a ‘throw-away’ society. In this essay I will attempt to explore the claim stated above that a consumer society is always a ‘throw-away’ society and find examples to support this. Before beginning to explore the claim stated above, it is important to understand what is meant by a ‘consumer society’. Many social scientists state that we live in times of a consumer which means “a label use to refer to a society which is defined as much by how and what people purchase and use, as by what they make or do.” (Hetherington, 2009, p.13). Consumerism is a form of socialisation evolving from the Industrial Revolution and it has continued to evolve through the decades to the present day. With so many produces being so readily available it seems there are a number of reasons why society consumes as they do. These reasons include for pleasure...
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...become divorced meaning more people who wanted to divorce who wanted to divorce before the law came into action but didn’t due to the long hassling process, were now divorcing increasing the divorce rates. Also during the time of 1971 and 1975 two new laws came into play making women more equal in society. Both the equal pay act and the sex discrimination act gave women more freedom and independence. As a result of these two new laws, a very sharp increase was witnessed in women filing for divorce as they had greater independence and financial stability as they were working and thus earning their own money as well being able to get help from the welfare state. As divorce rates increased the stigma attached to divorce decreased. Pre 1969 to be divorced was seen to be shameful and it was frowned upon. But as society advanced so did the thoughts of people. But today’s society is very influenced by the media and the media like to portray the idea of a ‘prince charming’ and ‘romantic love’ which people live their live by. So when marriages do not live up to expectations and standards set by the outside world, people tend to act on the ‘throw away culture’ we have adopted and throw away their marriage in the form of a divorce. Another reason why there has been an increase in the divorce rates is because of secularisation. Pre 1969 this notion of not having a religion was pretty much non-existent. So when people used to marry, they tended to marry in places of worship in front...
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...actually, I don’t have any big dreams Haha, I live quite comfortably Even if I don’t dream, no one says anything Everyone is thinking the same way as me I completely forgot about my childhood when I had a lot of dreams Don’t worry about college, I’ll at least go to a school that’s far away Ok mom, I’m going to the library right now What is the you that you’ve dreamed of? Who do you see in the mirror? I gotta say Go on your path, even if you live for a day Do something, put away your weakness Why aren’t you saying anything? You don’t wanna study but you’re scared to quit school? See, you’re already getting ready for school Please grow up, you’re all talk dude, you have a glass mentality boy (Stop) Ask yourself if you’ve ever worked hard for anything Hey you, what’s your dream? Hey you, what’s your dream? Hey you, what’s your dream? Is that all your dream is? That’s a lie, you such a liar See me, see me, ya you’re a hypocrite Why are you telling to go a different path? Take care of yourself Please don’t force me (Lalalalala) What’s your dream, what’s your dream? (Lalalalala) Is that it? Is that it? Sick of the same day, the repeating days Grown-ups and my parents keep instilling confined dreams to me Number one future career is a government worker? It’s not a forced dream, a ninth inning relief pitcher Throw a fast ball at the waste of time that is night study sessions Rebel against the hellish society, dreams are a special pardon Ask yourself about...
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...There are many ways to get rid of the items you no longer want. Most people choose to simply throw them in the trash. There are those who will recycle them for the greater good of society or give them for free to those who need it. This has lead to a new way of giving and saving the environment. Below is a study on the success of Freecycle.org and the reasons why more companies like them are needed. The success of Freecycle.org can be attributed to many different factors in our society today. We are a society of excess. We are continually buying more and more goods to either replace something that was broken or to fill our wants and needs. In this process there is a great deal of items to either be thrown away or given to those who could use it. The economic crash in 2008 did not help the situation either. More and more people are in dire need of products for either very low costs or hopefully free. Spending frugally and obtaining things for free is ideal in the world we live in today considering how much excess is thrown out. Living on Ohio State's campus showed me clearly that every year, students had too many items than what they truly needed to survive day to day. And with that would come the inevitable flow of truck after truck of people going through dumpsters or replacing the bulk pickup that the city provides for free. The environment can also be a majorly attributed to their growth. The effects of improper disposal can lead to surface water retention...
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...electricity that we use to support all of our electronic devices. According the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. in 2013 used 4066 billion Kilowatt-hours, whereas, Thailand used 157 billion Kilowatt-hours (). This is probably due to how much electricity we use everyday to run our homes and our lives compared to Thailand and less developed countries who live more simply. Another reason for the disparity between countries could also be due to the amount of food we eat and throw away every day in the U.S. As Johnathan Bloom states, “As a nation, we grow and raise more than 590 billon pounds of food each year. And depending on whom you ask, we squander between a quarter and a half of all the food produced in the United States” (). In the U.S. we waste so much food that contributes to our landfills and also our ecological footprint. In less developed countries there is less to waste because there are less people, and often times because of the poverty, they grow their own food, whereas us in the U.S. we go to the nearest McDonald’s and eat half of our meal and throw it away. Society can significantly lower its ecological footprint by lowering energy use across the U.S. By paying attention to the appliances we buy as a society, and looking for energy star certified products this can significantly impact our ecological footprint. We also could invest more in solar power to power our homes and buildings. Another way on an individual level to decrease our societies ecological...
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...Hoarders that keep their belongings in their homes are those that help prevent air pollution and global warming on Earth. When Americans throw away an excess amount of unwanted items to the garbage dump, they are worsening the environment because they are contributing to the landfills, which is linked to chemicals evaporating into the air and the depletion of the ozone layer. Also, they are putting creatures, ocean animals, and the rest of the ecosystem at risk due to the harmful gases and non-recycled products that animals are often caught in. Hoarders being attached to their stuff are benefitting the environment because they refuse to let their things leave the house. “Things become externalized parts of themselves—their memory, their plans, their feelings. To discard objects intended to future use…feels like dashing hopes, losing opportunities, squandering potential” (Chocano). They put memories into the items they buy, which is why they get anguished when someone throws it out or when they are being asked to throw it out themselves. It means so much value to them that it is hard for them to let their junk go. Although they lack the discipline of putting a limit to their buy, they should be praised for not adding onto the depletion of...
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...“Though smiling lips in my face Conceal deceitful tongues That send fiery darts to pierce My back, my heart, as I walk That confident walk I am still standing.” This metaphor compared the words uttered about Pintard to fiery darts. I envisioned those whom he thought were his friends, gossiping about him behind his back, and this makes me angry. I can relate to this kind of deception and I am disgusted by a person who would actually take pleasure in causing others this kind of pain. This incident helped me to understand that some of my friends are not true friends. Even though they pretend to wish me well they are only wishing for my failure and to see me fall. This saddens me, but it opened my eyes to the deceit that exists in society. Furthermore, Pintard used imagery to convey the hurt and the brokenness he felt, after being deceived and betrayed. “Scent of blood in my nostrils, Its taste in my mouth, My body where not numb Feeling foreign to me. Sweat dripping, mouth groaning, Sending up pleas ‘God preserve me’ Truly, nobody knows the trouble I see Nobody knows my sorrows. But, I am still...
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... Vehicle users who throw garbage out of the car windows exhibit no respect for themselves and for the environment. Submitted to Prof. Saima Bhaur 13th June, 2013 Acknowledgement It was a interesting and learning experience of doing this research.We would like to thanks specially to our Professor Saima Bhaur for giving her valuable suggestions and help while doing this research. We would like to thanks all the students who have filled the questionnaire. We are also thankful to the university for providing us great opportunity for doing this research. Finally we would like to thanks to our friends for their support. Abstract This is very important to know the effects of littering and garbage throwing out of cars. Why people do this? They are just careless about everything. They even do not know that throwing trash harms our environment and it is also harmful for the animals too. There are too many bad effects. The people who do this have no respect at all. This can be habitual. We have noticed that teenagers throw trash out of cars just for fun. They usually enjoy doing this. To know about all this we have conducted a quantitative research. We have conducted a survey consisting of questionnaire. Our sample size was fifteen. We have asked nine close ended questions relating to this problem to gather data. One question was open ended in which we have noticed different thinking about this issue. After doing all this research we have concluded that...
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...28 April 2013 How to dispose of disposable income Is it possible to end world hunger by sending your disposable income to a charitable organization? Is it immoral to spend your disposable income on services and items that are not necessities? Do we really need to “shop till we drop” or is there another way? A way for the informed consumer to make responsible spending decisions instead of unrealistic forced “giving” or the equally unrealistic short sighted over spending common in today’s society. Peter Singer thinks the whole process of spending your disposable income on anything other than the necessities is an immoral act. In his article The Singer Solution to World Poverty, Mr. Singer tells us a story about Bob and his failure to save a child stuck on the railroad tracks by diverting an oncoming train. If he diverts the train it will spare the child but destroy his prized possession, a very old and valuable car. Bob does not throw the switch. Mr. Singer states “Bob’s conduct, most of us will immediately respond, was gravely wrong” (Singer 61). He goes on to say “If you still think that it was very wrong of Bob not to throw the switch that would have diverted the train and saved the child’s life, then it is hard to see how you could deny that it is also very wrong not to send money to UNICEF or Oxfam America.” (Singer 61). In making these statements Mr. Singer is telling us that our failure to freely support these charitable organizations is equivalent to not throwing the...
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...hand, often experience the upheaval to be much harder than their parents. Where the parents have a strong anchorage in their old culture and religion, the children have not learnt much about their culture and their religion, which makes it more likely for them to be manipulated. When they are growing up in a society which teaches them one culture with one set of norms and at home they learn another where they have to behave and appear different. This is what the story pictures is about: The story is written by a Pakistani woman; Rahina Khan, and it takes place in the 50’s in a town in England. The story is about the girl Amina. Amina goes to a school where there appears to be mostly British students. This conclusion comes from the fact that they draw pictures from the Christian bible, and that the teacher does not know that Amina is not allowed to draw pictures from the bible. Amina is a young Muslim girl. A guess is that she is around eight years old, based on the facts that she does not know that she is not allowed to draw the Jesus child and they apparently spend a lot of time drawing in her school, so she is probably going in 2’nd grade or so. Amina lives with both her parents in the back room of their shop, where she spends most of her time alone with the TV. She behaves well; it is not all eight year olds who can spend every night alone without company. She is obeying, does what her mother tells her but also what her teacher tells her to do, even though she...
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...Mai English 961A March 13 2015 The Lack of Awareness of Overconsumption of Los Angeles Residents Last year the Advance Science, Serving Society reported that 4.8 to 12.7 millions metric tons of trash enter the ocean. America, the country has the well-developed infrastructure to handle the waste, contributed 40,000 to 110,000 metric tons per year. The improved life quality and the increase resource consumption as the society gets more modern have posed the negative impact on the environment. Moreover, the waste management is far beyond the handling of the government and the agencies because there are never enough landfills for 25 percents of world trash in America (Humes). In the article “Can Psychology Help Save The World? A Model For Conservation Psychology,” Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology at the College of Wooster, and Amara Brook, a professor of Santa Clara University, use psychology to help explaining the human behavior which causes environmental problem. Although the government spends a lot of money on waste management, the lack of awareness of Los Angeles residents causes high volumes of waste, which leads to ocean pollution and health problem. The Los Angeles government spends a lot of money for trash management and controlling the amount of trash. California government spends millions a year to clean trash from their beaches and alley ways. In the article “L.A. lawmakers press for cleanup of city's trash-strewn alleys” by Emily Alpert Reyes, she states...
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...identity in her short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. The story is about a fairy tale like society whose sublime existence relies solely on a mistreated child forced to live in deplorable conditions. The citizens of Omela know that the child exists in these conditions, and they know that without the child the blissful lives they lead would cease to exist. The child’s identity represents the poor, blue collar, lower class in Western societies exploited and under paid by the wealthy, upper class and large corporations. The happiness of the rich and powerful majority is dependent upon the under paid, over worked, and exploited minority. Le Guin illustrated this when she states, “It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science” (Le Guin, 1973, p.5). The author also lets us know that the child is better off in these heinous conditions and would be unable to thrive if let go. She states, “It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without excrement to sit in” (Le Guin, 1973, p.5). Le Guin identifies with the co dependency of the economic and social classes. She shows us that they need each other in order to exist. Task C After reading The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas, I can recall a situation in...
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...of Independence our nation founding fathers came up with the idea that “all men are created equal” in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However there has always been a great divide in our country’s society and class, with the top one percent nearly owning all of our nation’s wealth. With the majority of society being of middle and lower class population some of which are struggling to make ends meat living paycheck to paycheck. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby which takes place in the early 1920’s. There is also a great divide in class and society. You have the wealthy and arrogant east egg and west egg citizens who have either had money in their family past down from generations of inheritance also receiving a fine education at an ivy league school or you have the new money and live in west egg earning a living as a bootlegger or involved in other mob activities like Jay Gatsby who was raised on hardships growing up. But like most people in today’s society you have the valley of ashes which resembles our middle and lower class of people who may be hard working people yet they don’t have the financial benefits of being born into wealth. The American Dream of living a prosperous life and being rich and earning a high level of importance in society just to impress people or attract someone to you is something that all of the characters surrounding Nick Carraway have in common. They idealize fame and fortune, yet wealth and greed does not complete the American...
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...Not Just A Memory. 98288. Just five numbers that have so much more meaning than any math equation could. This tattoo does not represent a happy time that the frail individual has witnessed. This tattoo is a evidence of a crime against of humanity that has occurred. Crimes against humanity are inhumane acts against a certain race or population. This one picture does not even give justice to the millions of people who have lost their lives due to racial profiling and not fitting in to what society thinks is “right”. In this picture there lays the arms of a survivor of one the biggest and devastating genocides the world has ever seen. Leon Greenman is just one of the millions of lives were either taken away or that will never be the same, physically or mentally . A tattoo is part of a permanent moment that can never be taken away and like Leon Greenman and many other survivors of the holocaust,it will always be a part of them. It is clear that there were permanent effects that the Holocaust made an impact on; it is clear looking at the picture of Leon Greenman, he was one the lucky ones who survived and his tattoo shows the proof. During the Holocaust Adolf Hitler did not think of the Jews as humans, he thought they were wastes of space and that they needed to be terminated in order for Germany to have a pure race. By doing this Hitler ordered that all individuals of Jewish descent would be transported to camps such as Auschwitz so either they were worked to death like...
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