South Africa Is a Sick Nation

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

Take a moment to imagine the realization that a young boy came to when two of his favorite movies had a large plotline that was somewhat based on the problems of trash. Wall-E, the famous Pixar movie, was based on a small robot that was left behind on Earth’s surface alone. His job was to clean the garbage that the human population left behind when they went into space to escape their problems. Toy Story 3, another Pixar movie, contained a scene with garbage that was vital to the plot, in which the characters are rescued from a trash furnace that was consuming literally tons of trash a minute. These two movies tried to make the American population aware of the ever growing trash situation, however, Americans quickly forgot about the Earth shattering situation that they are causing. The solution to the world’s trash problem is easy; people need to be educated on the problems of trash and given an easy way to fix it. People should be required to visit a landfill, educated on the severity of the trash problem, and should be rewarded for changing their habits to improve the problem.

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

A teacher once told me, “One mans trash is another mans treasure, what he doesn’t appreciate the next man will.” Until recently analyzing this statement I always pondered about it as a metaphor using the thoughts, and ideas of people, but after reading Garbology I have come up with a literal process of reusing trash. On average Americans wastes 220 million tons of waste generated each year in the United States which ends up in one of the over 3,500 landfills. According to Edward Humes, the author of Garbology, “Garbage has become one the most accurate measures of prosperity in the twenty-first-century America and the world,” which proves that trash is a means to improving the success rate of Americans. This reminds me of the words of Confucius who stated, “When a goal cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goal, adjust the action step” because with the knowledge from garbology we can

Imagine someone tossing a cigarette out of their window. That cigarette gets blown onto someone’s yard and is eaten by their pet. That pet could become seriously sick because of someone else's laziness. According to www.kab.org, over 51 billion pieces of litter land on U.S. roadways each year. That is just roadways. For that cleanup, America spends 11.5 billion dollars each year. 9.1 billion of those dollars are paid by businesses, with the other 2.4 billion being paid between schools, government, and other organizations. Another reason why if all this littering could be disposed of properly, America would have much more money put toward other important

Strikes are on the rise as protests for better working conditions continue. One of the many goals of the protesters

Citizens of the land of the free and home of the brave are known to be patriotic and opportunistic souls, but that is not all that they are, it seems. From an outsider’s perspective, the average American is as brash and raucous as cannon fire and twice as violent, and these infamously American traits are nothing but breeding pools for a militaristic and bigoted nation. However, while the American stereotype - inconsiderate, conservative, brutal, exceedingly patriotic, and possessing a low tolerance for things outside of one’s control - can be perceived as an impediment to progress and an insult to foreigners, not all citizens of the United States behave in this manner, and indeed, such traits may not always be a hindrance.

In every moment, we are ready to go to war with another person. We do this when hunger and fear make us think that it is worth it to hold ourselves over the other person, for “hunger and fear can prevail over every human resistance and every freedom” (35). However, we always have the freedom to resist hunger and fear, however tempted we may be, as “freedom consists in knowing that freedom is in peril” (35). It is imperative to resist the urge to treat the other as merely an object, and that we perpetually postpone this urge (35). When we do go to war, we must obscure the face of the Other, since if we recognized the face of the Other, then we would most likely not be able to go through with our war towards

Carelessness and laziness are two common factors that contribute to littering. We have a piece of trash in our hands and a trash can is in site, yet we decide to just throw it on the ground. Littering has become second nature even if it is unintentional. We assume that the trash we throw will eventually disappear into thin air and it won’t affect our surroundings. Little do we know that every little piece of trash thrown out the window all adds up. That small piece becomes a pile of trash that ends up clogging storm drains, contaminating water and endangering wildlife. According to McWhorter, “Sustainability involves conserving resources to prevent their depletion, protecting ecological processes, and eliminating waste and pollution, so as to ensure that our society’s pratices can continue and our civilization can endure” (p. 394).

People tossing out trash means that they don’t care what happens to it as long as it’s out of their car or house. People should think of the impact they can cause the environment if they recycle properly, reusing water bottles, and when they go grocery shopping bring a reusable bags that won’t be thrown out into streams and lakes that will cause pollution to the environment. If someone throws garbage where it shouldn’t belong then throw it out for them to keep the environment clean.

Many of the contemporary issues in South Africa can easily be associated with the apartheid laws which devastated the country. The people of South Africa struggle day by day to reverse “the most cruel, yet well-crafted,” horrific tactic “of social engineering.” The concept behind apartheid emerged in 1948 when the nationalist party took over government, and the all-white government enforced “racial segregation under a system of legislation” . The central issues stem from 50 years of apartheid include poverty, income inequality, land ownership rates and many other long term affects that still plague the brunt of the South African population while the small white minority still enjoy much of the wealth, most of the land and opportunities

Over thousands of years there have been hundreds of wars, many have had great casualties, both soldiers and civilians. The soldiers died fighting on the front line facing bullets or swords, but the civilians, normal people doing their daily business died in random bombings or mortar blasts, hardly fair as they hadn't signed on for a war hoping there name would be remembered through the ages, they just humbly went about their own business but paid their lives just for our mistakes. What gives us the right to deprive people of their dearly loved brother, mother or husband just because we can't admit our own mistakes? Humans are quick to blame others but slow to admit defeat or say yes I have made a mistake and when they finally do give in it is usually after the tragedy. Furthermore give it fifty years and someone will make the exact same mistake, wasting precious time and leading to consequences that should only have to be faced once.

(Amaral). The lack of proper disposal of trash is contributing to the existing problem of plastic pollution. Without changing our habits, the garbage patch will only continue to grow (Kostigen).

There are some reasons for the problem. The first reason is that the effects of the thrown rubbish are very dangerous and extremely harmful. According to Miller (1987), global industrial organizations produce over 80,000 different chemicals (para. 5). Basically, garbage is old, dirty and wet, so that it is a perfect place for bacteria and other viruses to stay in. Rubbish growth in cities has been a problem all over the world for centuries. Landfills have always been regarded as sources of illnesses and unpleasant smells. The harmful wastes from the garbage spread through the ground from paint, chemicals, petrol, batteries, and other toxic materials that have been thrown away into the garbage. The toxic chemicals get into the water pipes and spread through the people’s drinking water. Another reason of that problem is that people have created all these disasters, which are connected with environmental pollution. The more modern technologies are created, the more unbelievable become wastes and remains of what is produced. From this, man is responsible for what he or she created and for the following consequences. Anxieties about the environment have made people more aware of their environmental footprints or the kind of waste they leave behind during their existence. The difficulty is that an average person leaves an incredible amount of wastes in his or her lifetime. According to Lovejoy (1912), all biodegradable substances, contained in

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.