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Vance Packer: A Wasteful Culture

Decent Essays

Every human being impacts the world they live in, especially Americans. Americans live for what’s new and what’s in; in The Wastemkers, Vance Packer identifies this wastefulness as a part of the American culture. Vance Packer may have written this book over 50 years ago, but the issue still applies to now. Not only do Americans participate in this wasteful culture, but they also take pride in it: boasting about every penny they spend and how ‘new is always better’, but what they fail to realize is this wasteful culture is exceptionally harmful in various ways. In the U.S., we are blessed with a sufficient amount of resources, especially food. Food is literally at everyone’s fingertips; people can order food efficiently off of their cellphones, and due to this abundance, it has caused many Americans to be very wasteful with their food. According to feedingamerica.org, “An estimated 25 – 40% of food grown, processed and transported in the US will never be consumed.” Not only that, but rotting food causes more greenhouses gases to be released in the air …show more content…

This is made very obvious by things like commercials that encourage one to purchase certain products immediately, even though what one may have may be perfectly fine. Buying and repurchasing as many items as you can is strongly encouraged by the media, even if it is not necessary. One can never have enough and things like Black Friday are a proof of this. Every single year, people spend enormous amounts of money on Black Friday–almost putting themselves in debt--to buy what’s new: as if stores are not selling the same things they have been selling all year and that the only good deals that exist are on Black Friday. In America, people are being fooled to believe that what they are buying is always valuable, but what one needs to realize is that value comes from its

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