American Consumption And Its Effects On The Environment

Companies are using environmentalism as a straw man for overconsumption. Coming straight out of writer Amy Westervelt’s article, “Can Recycling Be Bad for the Environment?”, Westervelt clearly sees through this ploy of emotional appeal, stating “American consumers

“Waste” is a short essay in which Wendell Berry critically analyzes the growing epidemic of trash that is polluting the nation’s land, waterways, and the air. Berry explains to the readers how the remnants of floods and litter that leave farmlands scattered with trash, makes more work for the farmers who have to rid their land of the trash before they can use it. Along with the floods, roads and highways also lead to a barrage of garbage from people who are too lazy or ignorant to take proper care of their garbage, which Berry claims leads to “. . . a constant precipitation of cans, bottles, the plastic-ware containers of fast food joints, soiled plastic diapers, and sometimes whole bags of garbage,” (Waste 1) along the edges of their fields. The garbage of the country continues to be a burden for everyone, whether it impacts them directly or not. Although it would be impossible to eliminate garbage completely from the country, the waste could be greatly reduced. Most of today’s trash is a consequence of the laziness of American society.

America’s biggest export trash items are scrap paper and metal which the Chinese buy, make products out of, then sell them back to America resulting in an enormous profit, and creating a cycle because we throw it out again. America, the country that once made things for the world, is now China’s trash compactor. Furthermore, due to China’s skyrocketing economic growth, the Chinese are facing a major challenge in terms of waste. China, the world’s second-largest economy, is also the number-one waste producer. Almost more than 430,000 tons of waste is generated every day in China. China produces around 300 million tons of waste a year; most of it comes from cities. Currently, Chinese urban waste management services generally collect unsorted municipal solid waste to be disposed of in landfills or waste incinerators around of the city or further out into the countryside. China is open to the idea of waste recovery and of trying to reduce the impact of their waste on the

Sustainability means never having to worry about a resource of any kind not being there or a constant income of resources. For example, having enough water for crops and having enough food to eat everyday. I do not think that America or any other country will be 100 percent sustainable in agriculture because we can’t control the rainfall or how much water we get each year. Also we cannot control the economy and there are so many independent variables that go into agriculture that nobody can control that it is very unlikely to ever be 100 percent sustainable. The steps needed to get 100 percent sustainability are water management, as well as land management.Another step that we have taken is our technology, in general advancements we’ve made

As a nation we all participate in daily consumption of food, clothing, shelter and some sort of transportation. to survive. We are destroying our environment with waist. On average Americans disposed over 200,000 tons of edible food daily. Pollute our air and water, destroy our forest, just so we can drive the newest car or have the latest crafted oak furniture We use top soil to build malls, so people can consume even more. In "The shadows of Consumption, Peter Dauvergne explain the coast of consumption by globalized corporations, trade, and finance." (Dauvergne, Peter. The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. ).

The amount of waste that’s produced by the lack of concern for the environment is huge. We as Americans don’t see it as a total problem because we’re doing different things that we don’t pay attention to. We as people need to learn the concept of not wasting anything to harm the people and other things around us.

It is all of our duty to eliminate waste. From the farmers to the consumers. I believe we should find more ways to help eliminate how much we waste. Somehow we need to make the nation and world conscious of the decisions they're making and how it impacts Earth. Most people probably don’t realize how they’re contributing to our waste problem when they throw out the leftovers from last

“In Waste Not, Want Not” author Bill McKibben, makes several arguments about how wasteful Americans are. Throughout the essay McKibben provides facts that show the degree of how much waste is built up daily. The author emphasizes waste throughout the essay by giving the reader an idea of much plastic, aluminum, paper, lithium, and food are wasted daily. If humans do not come together to help reduce the amount of waste, eventually planet earth will not be able to provide a stable environment to sustain life. Life as we know it is slowly coming closer and closer to the end, and without a joint effort to protect the environment and limit waste the end of life will come sooner than expected.

The average U.S. citizen consumes eighteen tons of natural resources per year and generates an even higher volume of wastes. These wastes get dumped and unloaded into rivers, lakes, and oceans and other landfills; only a small portion are recycled. The spread of mass consumption over the U.S. and its effects are staggering. The production and processing of our wants and needs is done by the extraction of natural resources such as fossil fuels, wood, ore, and water. This requires the creation of factories which gives off poisonous byproducts, while the commodities create more pollutants and waste themselves. This process keeps cycling over and over to create a bigger and more detrimental problem on our environment. Who is paying for this? The Earth; our environment.

1) Are you aware of the amount of waste you create each day? I do not believe anyone is completely aware of the amount of waste they generate on a daily basis. It is such a natural action – throw something in the trash – that it is automatic and done without much or any consideration as to where it goes, where it came from, or where will it ultimately go or become. I do recycle and compost when possible, but that too becomes a process that sometime appears moot because products are being made from materials that do not qualify or require special centers for recycling.1 We have become a “use it and throw it away” society.

America’s waste production is one of the highest in the world, with less than 27% of all its waste produced is actually recycled. The United States has lenient waste and littering laws, making landfills much fuller than what they would be if the laws were stricter. America also places little to no reward on recycling; those who recycle more often than not pay a fee making it more of a hassle. The U.S. is one of the biggest contributors to waste production in the world, in turn the least green of all countries. “Citizens and government alike in China are taking steps to encourage recycling; this has also become a profit machine” (Norleen). The Chinese have a system where one is able to turn in recyclables and therefore are paid for waste collected. China isn’t the only country others have also started this system and some even have integrated tax reductions. In Japan, one is able to pay for a beverage or a parking meter with recyclable items such as

One American’s consumption of resources is equal valent to that of 35 Indians. Over a lifetime, the typical American will create 13 times as much environmental damage as the average Brazilian. Unfortunately, consumerism as a modern econo-political phenomenon contributes to abnormal waste and pollution, social discrimination, and lack of economical sustainability.

There are the manufacturers and corporations whose main concern largely is to profit. there are the environmentalists who want to preserve the community and promote recycling to help diminish the landfills. Then there are the consumers: some who buy what is cheap, and often created with planned obsolescence in mind, some who buy with the environment in mind, but do little research to ensure it is a wholesome company, and then there are those who to extensive research to make sure they are hurting the environment as little as possible. Consumers have the opportunity to make conscious decisions to help our environment, but the reality behind products is well-hidden and needs to be brought to higher attention. Waste epitomizes the American consumer culture to continuously buy new products, and not think about the harm it is causing the environment. Recycling has evolved over time into a ploy to make consumers spend more money, and is causing more harm to the environment by increasing the amount of packaging used over product. The growing consumerist culture can be attributed to the increased “greenwashing” scheme. Is it morally right for companies to increase their waste in order to make more

The life of trash. It may be old, disgusting, and unwanted, but it lives way longer then we can see it. In this trash you can find things such as bottles, food, cans, clothes, and “old technology”. Sitting at a lunch table one might want to talk and enjoy their time with friends in the small break of the day. But they could be sitting and watching the trashcans with all their potential. The trash has lives too. Their life (cycle) could continue, but so many decide to end it after they are done with it. Many watch as the life of these items is ended early and unnecessarily. With the U.S. population approximately 320,000,000 persons and growing, recycling has the potential to have a huge impact economically, socially and environmentally. The U.S. (and 30 other countries) is part of the O.E.C.D. (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development). This organization exists for governments to discuss global issues facing their countries, including disposing and recycling. Working through the O.E.C.D. global change could occur especially if America, the world’s largest contributor, would lead. Recycling is small for individuals but can have huge rewards if everyone is involved. This can be accomplished by increasing awareness, education, and through incentives and/or fines.

In 1987, a barge by the name of Mobro 4000 was struggling to find a place to dump 3,168 tons of trash. It traveled from Long Island, where the trash came from, down the entire East Coast until it reached Belize. The barge stopped at multiple ports along the way to dump the trash, but was turned away each time. Many people watched the story unfold on the news, and realized how little landfill space the country actually had. People frantically started lowering household waste through recycling what was possible to be recycled instead of throwing it in the trash. This brought us the environmental movement of the late 80’s. Some people say the reason the Mobro 4000 wasn’t able to dump over 3,000 tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) was because they didn’t have the appropriate papers filled out to give the barge permission to dump at a particular landfill site. But others are confident the story is true, and hold the argument that the world is limited on how much landfill space there is and abide that something needs to be done sooner than later. Whether someone thinks the story is true or not, it is undeniable that recycling would keep a barge from trying to dump that many tons of trash anytime in the near future. We don’t have to recycle every plastic bottle or piece of paper we come into contact with on a daily basis, but recycling even a few of these items a week can still have a positive outcome. On average, a typical middle