Wendell Berry’s argument is about how the structure of our society generates too much trash. Only a few companies distribute food. Since people have to buy food from the store, our “waste” keeps building up. Foods from manufacture are sold in packaging materials. Using imagery, Berry achieves his purpose.
Berry describes what the river looks like. He writes, “When the river rises, it carries a continuous ‘raft’ of cans, bottles, plastic jugs, chunks of Styrofoam, and other ‘imperishable’ trash.” Berry says that the river itself looks like trash because of all the waste products he mentioned and he used the word “raft” and “imperishable” to be more specific. The readers are able to infer that the waste products floats and move on the river just