The Pros And Cons Of Ethical Consumerism

States alone, 30% of all food is thrown away each year. That's about 161 billion dollars worth of

The University of Arizona’s “Garbage Project” study approximates the number closer to 50% when calculating in the 27 million tons thrown away by supermarkets, restaurants, and convenient stores alone adding up to an additional $30 billion. Retailers refuse to report their waste in compliance with company policy and food is sent to compactors where it becomes unusable and ends up in landfills. Globally, the FAO has declared approximately one-third of the world’s entire food supply produced for consumer consumption (1.3 billion tons) is wasted annually (Buzby & Hyman et al., 2012). Jean C. Buzby describes the entire lifecycle of food (including food waste) having “negative externalities that arise throughout the

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).

Many people continue to drink coffee on a daily basis. Per capita coffee consumption is expected to increase at an annual rate of 0.9% in the next five years to 2020. The industry revenue is anticipated to grow at an annual rate of 2.3% to $40.1 billion within the same period. The total revenue

Hi Jill, I used Starbucks as one of the companies I wrote about in this week's written assignment. While it's nice to treat myself to go out and get coffee sometimes, I barely ever do because, aside from the price, I hate the waste that these places produce. Think about how many people Starbucks serves a day worldwide, and the majority of those cups are going to be thrown away. Now, they do have reusable cups that you can bring in to be filled, but many people, myself included, don't remember to do that. Or it's such a spontaneous trip to the coffee shop, that you can't always think ahead to have your reusable cup with you. So it was nice to read about how Starbucks is making their cups out of materials that are certified recyclable material in most

The author further convinces the reader of the negative economic impact that convenience foods have by providing a chart from the NSW environment protection authority which provides that each year in just one state the cost of processed food waste is approximately $360 million is wasted on packaged food, $240 million on frozen food and $170 million on takeaway. In contrast of this the author communicates that if people grew their own food they would value it too much and hence there would be no waste.

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.

Nowadays, in Australia, 240 dollars are being wasted per person and per year, reaching the 5% of the Australian food expenses (Baker et. al. 2009, cited in Pearson, Minehan & Wakefield-Rann

Additionally, a disposable cup is often served with a styrene lid and a holder, both of which may be small but quickly add to a greater carbon footprint. (Borg) Buying a daily cup of coffee in a disposable cup creates 23 pounds of waste a year that could easily be avoided by having customers bring their own cup (Borg). Furthermore, disposable cups vary in environmental impact. According to the Environmental Protection agency, Styrofoam has no biodegradable properties and will never decompose. (Spitzer) This means a cup in the landfill will exist in 500 years much as it does today. Most paper cups are lined with a plastic resin to keep beverages warm, however this prevents the ability to recycle them. Although Starbucks’ cups are 10% recyclable, the FDA has strict guidelines around used material in conjunction with hot liquids resulting in most cups requiring virgin paper, (i.e. trees), for manufacturing, that are bleached and chemically treated. Based on research by the Environmental Defense Fund regarding the production and shipping of coffee cups, 7 trillion BTU’s of energy are used, that which could power 77 thousand homes, 6 billion gallons of water are used which could fill 9000 Olympic sized pools, and 4 billion pounds of C02 released into the

In the United States, wasted food is a 165 billion dollar problem. America wasted 33.79

Consumerism is damaging to our society, in our North American society consumerism is often portrayed to be a negative aspect of people’s lives. However, one can also argue positive effects that result from consumerism, or emphasize on the negative effects of consumerism and how it can be a constraining force in one’s own life. Consumerism is an idea of an economic policy that the market is shaped by the choice of the consumer and continues to emerge to shape the world’s mass markets. Some of the negative effects of consumerism that many critics may argue and that will be further emphasized on are the overexploitation of consumerism which has lead to economic poverty, and increase

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness? Today, the argument can be made that happiness and consumerism are directly linked. It is fair to say that happiness is a relative term for different people. However, the obtaining of new and shiny things has become such a part of everyday life, that it provides happiness when people are purchasing something new, and causes sadness when no buying is taking place. For many, it seems to be a protective coating against the harsh realities of everyday stresses from a job, or family life.

Attention-getter: A study done by the World Food Programme shows over 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth. Another study done by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations shows roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year approximately 1.3 billion tonnes gets lost or wasted. This adds up to about $680 billion in loss of food alone. There should not be this much food wasted in the world with so many hungry people we have.

It isn't just regular citizens that are negatively affecting the Earth's environmental health, restaurants and other corporations have a dramatic impact on the food waste crisis. Generally speaking, food waste is a bigger issue in developed countries, although developing countries with harsh weather and climates also contribute to the issue. Eliza Barclay writes; "In rich countries, by contrast, most food waste happens further along the food distribution chain - in homes and restaurants, for example." Restaurants and the citizens who eat at them also have a considerable influence on the crisis as well. For example, a group of people enter a restaurant and order a hefty amount of food and drink. After consuming part of

QUESTION 3:Choose one of the theoretical approhes considered during the module, apply it to a particular issue or text and discuss how useful that approach is in analyzing, evaluating or questioning your chosen topic.