Analysis of Two Articles on Trash Disposal

In his essay, "On Dumpster Diving", Lars Eighner speaks of his time spent as a homeless man. Eighner states in detail the steps needed in order to successfully become a scavenger of dumpsters based on his own experiences. Though the essay could appear to just be a useful manual there is an underlying message. Lars Eighner effectively uses argumentation, process analysis, and tone to demonstrate that society is wasteful.

In America, while homelessness and poverty runs rampant, while war veterans and Phds find themselves on the streets, while the price of living and the ability to find food for America’s poorest grows ever more difficult, we, as a culture, still look upon practices like dumpster diving as disgusting and believe them to be only practiced by the lowest and most uneducated of American society. This is no longer a practical image of the practice or the people behind it. As poverty is ever prevalent in the United States, many are forced to find food outside of conventional needs, especially in a culture that exceedingly devalues assistance to the poor. Simultaneously, with rampant consumerism and our propensity to throw

In the essay “Dumpster Diving,” by Lars Eighner tells the story of a homeless man who speaks of his survival on the streets. Eighner was not your everyday, typical type of guy. He has an interested in Dumpsters, the year he became homeless he took pleasure in ‘dumpster diving’. Eighner gives information about what it takes to be a professional scavenger. Eighner talks about his success scavenging “Except for jeans, all my clothes come from the dumpster” (192). He talks about how he is a consumer but a ‘less wasteful’ one. Throughout the essay Eighner shows the importance of one man's trash is another man's treasure. Diving has made Eighner realize things that people got rid of by throwing away, still have good use in it. He gained a lot of

A) A contemporary problem raised in “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner Is the amount of wealth spent by consumers, and the effect of that. Consumers spend too much money and waste even more when they throw food and clothing away. In the essay he explains the way of life as an scavenger and how to demonstrate how people are able to live by the minimal resources although most consumers continue to buy things they do not need and continue to waste resources that may be valuable to others. Aside from food, he additionally describes the emotional impact that living out of a dumpster can have on a person. He describes finding sad things such as "abandoned teddy bears, shredded wedding books, and pets lying in state." Seeing the pets makes him think about his dog Lizbeth and how she is likely to end up with a dumpster as her final resting place, as Eighner does not see himself having a place for her before she passes on. Rummaging causes Eighner to consider how much individuals underestimate, including the way that they can purchase something new to replace something old that they have discarded. He feels frustrated because of the individuals who don 't have that extravagance.

In 1983/84, the average amount of household rubbish per person per year in England was 397 kilograms (Defra, 2007), in the following years, this increased and by 2006/07, this figure had grown by 28 percent to 508 kilograms. This trend has been explained by the growing affluence of the general person and their greater amount of disposable income, which is then being spent on luxury products. As a result, more and more waste is being generated each year; this essay will explore the arguments around whether this ever increasing amount of rubbish has any value.

Despite info campaigns, recycling programs, and inundation with horrifying stats - leaking landfills, islands of garbage in the ocean, vast quantities of food discarded rather than feeding the hungry - we humans are still rampant wasters. Systemic change is needed. But could the redesign of that simple household object could help us rethink the flawed concept of “throwing things away”? The power of design means a simple object can help redirect the way we think or act. I would choose to redesign the waste bin with the idea that it has the potential to effect change from an the individual household to the global

The topic chosen to look at in this case study is how sending unused food to landfill contributes to the greenhouse effect, and the methods humans can use to reduce the large amount of food wasted. This is a huge problem in society today as people tend to have an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality when it comes to wastage. They throw out food without a thought of the harm it could cause if it is not dealt with properly. This problem was first highlighted in the three part series ‘War on Waste’ presented by The Chaser’s Craig Reucassel, which aired on the ABC in May 2017. In the first episode Reucassel challenged 10 families living on a Sydney street to go as “waste-free” as possible for a month. He starts by sorting through the bins of the

Trash has been a big topic within the media since the early 2000’s. There are some big questions surrounding trash in the future and what will happen with all the trash from our past.

This essay is analysing articles in concept of littering. Many people believe that it is okay to just throw unwanted trash out the window and into the environment. Most people think throwing something on the ground may not affect much but when that trash finds other trash, a pile begin to build up and you are left with a giant pile of rubbish. Trash that is not thrown away properly can make its way to anywhere. Including the ocean, your front yard and so many more places. Most people believe that once they throw out the trash from the car window or anywhere they are that it just disappears or that someone else is going to come along and clean it up. However, that is not the case. And to make matters worse, littering has become very common in the community we live in. Leading to people having to spend money along with tax dollars on clean ups, or big piles of trash on people’s lawns.

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

Bradley, Anthony B. "Recycling Does Not Solve Environmental Problems." Garbage and Recycling, edited by Margaret Haerens, Greenhaven Press, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010301230/OVIC?u=pub_ovrc&xid=fe4392cb. Accessed 16 Mar. 2017. Originally published as "Green Boozled," Acton Institute, 10 Dec. 2008.

On average humans produce around 4.3 pounds of trash per day (“Municipal Solid Waste”). With 7 billion people and counting the amount of trash being generated is increasing (“United States Census”). All of our bottles, wrappers and food is being thrown away and entering our landfills. Landfills are man-made structures that are carefully designed to separate trash, we produce, from other land areas. These structures are made so that the trash and the byproducts of it do not contaminate groundwater or the environment around it (“Learn about Landfills”). Some ways that individuals can reduce the amount of trash that ends up in landfills is to recycle, donate, reduce food waste, and purchase materials with less packaging (“15 Easy Ways”).

Americans, and the world at large, create astonishing amounts of garbage each year. Over twenty-one million plastic bags, and thirty six billion aluminum cans fill our landfills every year .Why can’t people take the time to recycle? It is such an important environmental issue, and yet it seems as though there aren‘t enough people out there who want to make a difference. Most of us know that recycling is graet for the environment, but when we go home, we often leave the work someone else to do in order to make a differnce. Most people just don’t take this issue seriously, unless they have to. When we take a look at recycling and understand the process, it’s really amazing that we can take a used item and return it to it’s original

The economist (2007) explains how recycling has been understood and valued for centuries. The ever growing amount of garbage from the beverage sectors and other sectors were given a different dimension. Rather than recycling,

Today’s environment is beset of problems. Several years have past but the problem on garbage is still existing and proliferating as decades and decades come. It has been a pressing problem to governmental organization and also to include non-governmental organization on how are they going to address the problem.