Our Role in Consumption and Recycling Essay

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

Heather Roger claims our current garbage disposal methods are short term and etiquette. Rogers’s position is clear that we need to minimize the use of landfills and create better means to discard trash. In supporting Rogers’s environment views I think that we need to create a more economic and environmental friendly garbage disposal system. Heather Rogers and Lars Eighner both acknowledge the issue with society’s throwaway mentality. Eighner proves that we throw away perfectly working stuff, having survived off others discarded materials. Eighner argues against excessive waste we create but does not have any prospected solutions. Whereas Rogers acknowledges the obvious need to minimize our consumption of waste but argues the need

“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.

Recycling is presently one of the most controversial topics, considering that while most individuals put across their support regarding the act the number of individuals who actually do something in order to recycle is much smaller. Many people are currently unable or unwilling to recycle properly because the process often requires a series of changes in one's life. It is thus essential for the authorities to provide educational programs meant to assist individuals in understanding why recycling is important and in learning how to recycle effectively. People need to accept the fact that the benefits of recycling will reflect on the future and that conditions are currently critical as a result of the fact that the masses are generally unacquainted with the importance of this process.

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.

In one year, the United States exports almost 50 million tons of plastic, metal and other scraps that came from consumers. These scraps are sold for 40 billion dollars to various countries including China. Adam Minter’s Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade depicts the story of the scraps that American discard and where they are off to after they are out of our sight. His book is a both a plea to Americans for their attention towards factories the benefits and the consequences of our consumption but also a memoir of his personal experience traveling the “Junkyard Planet”.

Paper recycling, on the other hand has been around for much longer. Pulp and paper plants in Canada have been using recycled material for more than 60 years (Bourdages, 1993, para. 4). One of the most obvious environmental benefits of using recycled paper materials, is that it will help to reduce the amount of trees being cut down for production of new paper. Overall, it is evident that there is an established recycling effort in Canada, featuring both positive and negative aspects.

In this essay I will be outlining consumerism and claims that a consumer society is always a throw-away society. Consumption plays a big part in our lives and causes us to live in divided societies. It may make us feel like we fit in buying new gadgets and clothes and also give us that sense of belonging but we don’t take into account what happens to the old items and packaging. People do not want to look at the problems caused. I will use this essay with the evidence I have read

The benefit of recycling on the environment is endless even if you are just recycling paper products it can be beneficial. According to a website on recycling paper and other products recycling a single run of the Sunday “New York Times” would save seventy five thousand trees. The amount of wasted land that is left behind by those seventy thousand trees. could have been a strong environment that was destroyed just for a single run of the “New York Times”. According to the same source recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator. This energy used to burn the plastic is payed by the American people’s tax dollar that money could be saved by you just by simpling recycling. In the same source it says that approximately one billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the United States this paper thrown away is sent to these giant landfills and cost millions of dollars to dispose of as where if it was recycled we could save money by not having to pay for the paper sent to landfill and save money by not having to have it burned down or stored. The average American uses eighty five million tons of paper a year; about six hundred and eighty pounds per person according to the source earlier

All of this trash means one thing: the current rate of waste generation in the United States is unsustainable; something must be done. The consequences of the throw-away society mindset are already visible, not only on the environment, but on the economy as well. Excessive waste leads to waste management fees, in addition to the cost of reproducing the disposed of products, the cost of the fuel to transport American garbage overseas, etc. All of this extra expense adds up to a substantial amount of wasted money that negatively impacts the American economy.

When purchasing paper, the University of Oklahoma should switch to paper that has 75% or more recycled contents as part of a larger effort to make the campus greener and more sustainable. Creating a pro-recycle policy on shredding documents is a great way to start reducing our paper usage. When paper is shredded it destroys the fibers within the paper, this makes it difficult to recycle and manufacture new printer paper with the shredded fibers. The reason being is that shredded paper cuts the fibers shorter, which makes them weaker, and renders them inefficient for the higher grades of paper. “The longer the paper fiber, the higher the grade of paper it can manufacture. Also, the longer the fiber, the more often it can be recycled.” Shredded paper is hardly ever accepted by higher grade paper mills that is why it is important to not shred them. If the papers are shredded the Paper Mills are less likely to buy them.

Waste management is crucial in American Society. It is crucial because it would save money, decrease pollution, improve the environment and the overall health of the population and future generations. In the 17th and 18th century, waste management was much less than it is today. By the 20th century the availability of newer, cheaper products increased. As the population has increased, so has the amount of waste. The U.S. Industry produces more than 46.7 million tons of hazardous waste each year and the average person creates more than four pounds of waste each day. In essence, America has earned the nickname “The Throw Away Society”. People are not likely to repair things and they just throw them away. People even throw away things that are perfectly good just because it is old or out of style. Landfills are well-engineered facilities that accept solid waste. Landfills are getting filled up by an alarming rate and therefore cities need more land to purchase to dispose of the accumulating waste. They are regulated by the state and local governments which all taxpayers support with their taxes. They are monitored for compliance by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

First, when paper isn’t recycled, 80% of it is placed in landfills. Decomposition of the paper in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas with twenty-one times the power of carbon dioxide. U.S. EPA has identified landfills as the largest beginning of methane emanation in the U.S., and the refraction of paper is the largest contributor to the methane being generated. If paper is recycled, it doesn’t end up in the waste stream, headed for a landfill where it will degrade and generate methane. Simply out, the less paper landfilled, the less methane emitted. The more way to recycle all materials, the less it goes into places where trash is being dumped.

Have you seen how great the sky looks lately? Individually as humans we have been doing a great job in maintaining our environment. Just look at how many more landfills we have compared to recycling plants, It’s truly an amazing sight to behold. It is nice to know that all of the materials that could have been reused are going back in the ground where they came from. We are often bombarded with news articles, tv commercials, and social media about how the destruction of the Earth is approaching at a pace faster than before. These are alternative facts. Trees are everywhere. They’d rule the world if it weren’t for us. It is difficult to travel for more than ten minutes without seeing a tree. However, self-proclaimed environmentalists get aggravated if you try to cut so much as a single tree without pledging to plant one hundred more!

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.