Analysis Of Waste By Wendell Berry

we’re wasteful. In order to find solutions for our trash problem, we must first admit that we are

Heather Roger's essay Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage offers a compelling outlook on society’s excessive and

In today’s society, there is an abundance of waste. This is clear in observing how people live, we often throw out items because we want something better. Lars Eighner, author of "On Dumpster Diving," writes about his experiences being homeless and how he survived on the waste of others. This provides insight on how the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure," is true. Jeremy Seifert, who directed the documentary Dive!, also talks about how he survives off of other people's waste, but this was a decision he made. As they tell of their experiences, Seifert and Eighner both come to the conclusion that society is wasteful. While both individuals provided good information, I believe Seifert presented the better argument. Both of

The USDA claims that each year, 25.9 million tons of America’s food is thrown away, the equivalent to a quarter of the total amount produced. Nationally, the wasted food is a damaging financial setback, amounting to $1 billion just to get rid of during a time of ascending food prices, nonetheless (Oliver, 2007). Food waste has skyrocketed since 1970 at an astonishing 50% increase rate, yet according to the FAO, one-sixth of America doesn’t get enough to eat.

With the seemingly unstoppable growth of the world’s population and a projected global population of nine billion by 2050, the matter of whether or not there will be enough food to support the world’s populace is brought into question (Parfitt, et al., 2010). However, amid the concern for an adequate food supply, there is an immense amount of food waste produced by the world, including the United States. In fact, “according to the Natural Resources Defense Council as much as 40 percent of all food produced in the United States never gets eaten and typically ends up in the landfills or goes unharvested in the field “(King, 2015).

Eighner wants to confront his audience about how wasteful we actually are. The three main ideas; what is safe to eat, scavengers vs. scroungers, and the stories told by items, all tie into Eighner’s overall theme of trying to open everyone’s eyes to how wasteful we are. Many people do not realize what they are actually throwing away because most of us have more than we need. We don’t have room in our fridge so we just throw good items away that are perfectly good. We also throw away more than just good food. Many people in America throw away practically brand new clothes instead of taking the time to go donate them at a shelter. Even I as a college student do this. You need more room so it just easier to toss it into the trash. Although it may help someone who

Today’s population being a waste generation is difficult to derive from the definition of dumpster. In addition, the motivation to capitalize such a simple word as “dumpster” seems absurd. In other terms, this essay did not establish educated ethos like that of the first essay.

Americans, as a whole, do not care about the environment anymore. When we watch the news or simply talk about our day, there are always more pressing topics that come up. However, as a nation, the threat of a failing environment seems to be forgotten because the effects are not as obvious as other threats. Bill McKibben’s “Waste Not, Want Not” discusses how much time, money, resources, and people America has actually wasted and how little effort has been made to try to change. McKibben causes readers to think it is too late to save the environment from our wastefulness because we put our efforts into systems that do not help the environment, spend more money and resources than necessary, and refuse to acknowledge how much were wasting.

Americans account for only five percent of the world’s population, but create half of the globe’s solid waste. Americans toss out the equivalent of $165 billion in food each year. All of that time, energy, and freshwater- for nothing. How can the United States, being so small in number, produce so much waste? Brad Plumer from the Washington Post documented a recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council that attempts to track America’s food, from “farm to fork.” Plumer breaks the report down into seven different wasteful places along the American food production line: Farming, post-harvest and packing, processing and distribution, retail and grocery stores, food service and restaurants, households, and disposal.

Eighner makes use of a tone and presents an usually unseemly topic in a compelling and comical light. His general claim is that it is possible to survive well outside the “housed” community of the average citizens. Eighner brings a perspective on scavenging for food and goods that differs from the typical knee-jerk reaction to dumpster diving. In his essay, Eighner discusses American waste as well as the true art of scavenging and the lessons he learned through this experience.

The United States of America is arguably known as one of the most cultural and distinguished places around the world when dealing with food. There are so many contributions that give people this impression. People look at the United States as if it has the ideal method on how to deal with food, not knowing that the United States of America is quite wasteful. Although the United States of America has this awe-inspiring impression on people, you should not be fooled. America is a leading country for food waste, this is problematic because there are millions of people in this country that could use this food, and it is also harmful to the environment. In fact the United States of America ruins so much food it can fill up to seven hundred and thirty football stadiums. About as much as forty percent of food in America goes uneaten giving me the impression that America is wasteful when it comes to dealing with food.

In Chapter two Edward Humes writes about New York in the 1890’s. He shares with us how the people of this time period handled the trash condition. He explains how the trash was so severe that pigs could dispose of garbage for eating purposed. People were using them like a part of a solution to get rid of trash little by little by letting the pigs eat the trash but at the same time using them as meat providers. He also mentions the different methods that people throughout the years came up with to dispose of trash and failed as proper solutions. Some of these methods we still use today, like burning trash, burying trash, even building more landfills. However as Humes says about landfills they eventually get filled up. The thing that surprised

In a world full of different people that come from various backgrounds, there are different perspectives on what is found as important. Something that is seen as trash or useless by one may have once meant the world to another person. Each piece of trash carries a memory from its past life, ready to take on its new life to help the next person in one way or another. Howard Nemerov’s poem “The Town Dump”, Lars Eighner’s essay “On Dumpster Diving”, and “The Town Dump” by Wallace Stegner each tell a story about how trash has impacted them. Even though these pieces are written with different messages, each piece of writing uses tone to establish the importance of local trash, as well as establishing the history behind its significance.

In our homes waste caused because we don’t pay attention; we are inattentive and ignorant. For some of us, it just isn’t important. (Jones, Dive!)

American citizens throw away millions of tons of garbage each year, and this trash has to go somewhere. While there are projects underway to clean and reuse this refuse most of it gets dumped into huge landfills. These landfills are disgusting festering blisters on our country's landscape. But people continue to consume and throw away more and more in the name of convenience. As they see it, when things get old, throw it away and get a new one. They blame the government for the trash problem, but the truth blame should be placed on themselves.