How We Became A Throw-Away Society Analysis
Rose Norton
Sociology 150
Professor Colmenero-Chilberg
21 April 2012 How We Became a Throw-away Society To throw away something means to get rid of something, to dispose of something that you do not need or want. It means that you do not keep something. Everyday we throw things away, things such as candy wrappers after we have eaten the candy or Styrofoam cups after we have drank our coffee. Or, we might throw something away which is broken and cannot be repaired. (Helium) So, what does a throw away society mean? Well, id does not mean that we throw the society away, as if it were waste paper. Instead, it describes a society in which people do not keep things for very …show more content…
long, even if those things still work or are still useful. This is a behavior that is present in many modern consumer societies in developed countries. For example, someone might buy a new jacket and wear it only a few times before throwing it away and buying a new one, even though the old one was still in good condition. Or if someone’s stereo breaks, they throw it away and buy a new one, rather than getting the old one repaired. (Helium) According to a weekly commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney. We’re divided. There are those of us who save things and those of us and those of us who throw things out. Everyone is clearly in one category or the other, and it’s not good when they’re married. In the United States, there are more of us who throw things away than there are not people who save things. We live in a throw away society. I think it may be generational. Young people are not Norton 2 so sentimentally attached to their junk as people my age are to ours (“A Disposable Society”).
Rooney’s assertion seems valid when comparing the economic experiences of our elderly prior to the 1970’s and today’s adults. Prior to the 1970’s consumer products were manufactured to not only last, but to outlast the competition, thus creating longer lasting consumer goods. The shift we now see from the long-lasting product mentality of the past to the throw-away one of today had been driven by economics and cooperate design.
This shift not only threatens to lead us to an environmental catastrophe, but also the destruction of our society. According to E. A. Zimmerman, in his article “How We Became a Throw-away Society” he says that: “Planned obsolescence” is not a myth. It is a manufacturing philosophy developed in the 1920’s and 1930’s, when mass production became popular. The goal is to make a product or part that will fail, or become less desirable over time or after a certain amount of use. This puts pressure on the consumer to buy again. Advertising trains consumers to want what is new and improved. It convinces them that the more they have, the happier the will be.” (Zimmerman)
Supporting Zimmerman’s claim is Vance Packard, author of The Waste Makers. In a book
The Waste Makers, Packard states that “planned obsolescence” (Packard) is “the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals”
(Packard) and his claim seems to be more accurate as time goes …show more content…
on. Another example of ‘planned obsolescence “ is in the music and electronics business, and their contributions to the throw-away society we have become. Back when I was a young teenage in the early 1970’s we listened to music on a record player, playing 33 and 45 rpm records. Shortly after that, everyone switched to 8-track tapes and in a couple of years later, to Norton 3 cassette tapes. To be really hip, you had all of your music re-recorded onto reel-to-reel machines by the late 1970’s and by the 1980’s everything was being recorded on CD’s that would wear out in ten years. Today, all of our music seems to be downloaded for the internet to our phones or I-pads. While radio had been increasingly made more available by satellite, it is the only thing that has remained the same. Again Zimmerman says: Planned obsolescence does keep costs down. Instead of making an inexpensive product line that will last a long time, businesses produce more affordable, disposable items. In addition, technological advances are happening at a breakneck pace. Some electronic items have become so inexpensive that it is cheaper to replace them, labor and parts are pricey. Few consumers would pay $50.00 or more to repair a broken VCR, when they can purchase a brand new DVD player for $50.00. (Zimmerman)
Just imagine how many records, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, Sony Walkmans, Commodore computers, CD’s, stereos, televisions, VCR’s, personal home computer, have been discarded as they became broken or obsolete over the past fifty years! Thank-God radio is still radio and it creates little to no waste! Examples of the wasteful individuals and the throw-away society we have become can be
Seen in the amount of material waste Americans generate annually from birth to death. In the article, “The Great Disposable Diaper Debate” Donella Meadows writes: Eighty percent of the diapering in this nation are done with disposables. That comes to 18 billion diapers a year. Each one has an outer layer of waterproof polypropylene and an inner layer of fluff mad from wood pulp plus super-sluper sodium polyacrylate that can hold a hundred time its weight in water. Those 18 Norton 4 billon diapers add up to 82,000 tons of plastic a year and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp-250,000 trees. After a few hours of service these materials are tucked away, primarily to landfill, where they sit, neatly wrapped packages of excrement, entombed undergirded for several hundred years.(Meadows)
From this information, it is easy to see how our throw-away mentality could come back to haunt us environmentally sometime in the near future. Aside from the environment issue there remains the issue of practicality. From my own experience raising four children, I have found that using reusable cloth diapers makes more sense environmentally, financially, and morally.
Several dozen diapers can diaper two children through the couple of years they need to wear them, without the expense and landfill space needed for two years of disposables.
There is some debate over which is more harmful to the environment, the cloth or disposable; but I am convinced that the use of small amounts of washing water and biodegradable soap is both cheaper and more environmentally responsible than the disposables degrading and polluting ground water for generations to come Another example of our throw-away mentality is in the area of bottled water and soda pop container disposal. In the article called “Plastic Bottle Facts,” Reesa Potash claims that while “The bottle-water industry has done an excellent job of convincing consumers that bottled water is pure and healthier than tap,” the truth is that: Disposable plastic bottles (polyethylene terephthalate-PET) used for soft drinks and water, and molded-type plastic bottles (high density polyethylene-HDPE) used for milk, detergents and motor oils have become an environmental concern. Reusable plastic bottles (polycarbonate) used primarily for sports bottles and baby bottles have been cited for potential health-safety concerns. (Potash) Norton
5
The fact is that convenience and our throw-away and replace mentality is slowly killing us and our environment. Potash provides more evidence of this in her claim that: The bulk of plastic bottles end up in landfills, where it is estimated it takes 700 years to begin composting. Producing and transporting this product requires a tremendous amount of fossil fuel. The Pacific Institute, and environmental research organization, estimates that it takes more than 17 million barrels of oil annually to produce single-use plastic bottles. Three tons of carbon dioxide emissions are created with every ton of PET products produced.
It is living in the moment that has led Americans to develop wasteful consuming habits, and unfortunately the development of wasteful and irrational spending habits, as we borrow money to pay for our Starbucks coffee cups, happy meals, and electronic gizmo’s. We have become so preoccupied with out throw-away consumerism that we have invented the term disposable- income to coincide with it. The combined amount of personal debt in the US is $2 trillion which is about the GDP of England. (textbook). That means Americans are in debt more than a country earns in a year! Even though Americans are hard-working and industrious people the under take too much debt and save too little. From this information it is easy to see the financial toll on Americans as they struggle to maintain a system of economics and consumerism, that is ultimately unsustainable both morally and environmentally. Let’s face it, disposable income equals debt and eventual environmental destruction. In light of the environmental, financial, and human consequences to living in a throw-away society we must all take the responsibility and incentive to change our wasteful and destructive course. As individuals we must be more conscious of the environmental impact our Norton 6
consuming actions have and to insist that businesses and manufactures begin producing and packaging environmentally friendly products. Some easy changes in our wasteful ways like using reusable sports bottles of water, using canvas shopping bags instead of plastic or paper, using more cloth diapers, composing more biodegradable materials, purchasing more recycled products, could go a long way in protecting the environment and our future quality of life.
Work Cited
Meadows, Donella. “The Great Disposable Debate” Voice of a Global Citizen, www.sustainer.org. Web, 20 April, 2012
Potash, Ressa, Plastic Bottle Facts”, eHow.com ,2009, Web, 20 April, 2012
Rooney, Andy. “Disposable Society” CBS News, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/08/30/60,minutes/rooney/main/308969. Web, 15 April, 2012
Zimmerman, E.A. “How We Became A Throw-away Society” Our Better Nature, May 10,2010, www.ourbetternature,org. Web, 20 April, 2012
Sociology 150
Professor Colmenero-Chilberg
21 April 2012 How We Became a Throw-away Society To throw away something means to get rid of something, to dispose of something that you do not need or want. It means that you do not keep something. Everyday we throw things away, things such as candy wrappers after we have eaten the candy or Styrofoam cups after we have drank our coffee. Or, we might throw something away which is broken and cannot be repaired. (Helium) So, what does a throw away society mean? Well, id does not mean that we throw the society away, as if it were waste paper. Instead, it describes a society in which people do not keep things for very …show more content…
long, even if those things still work or are still useful. This is a behavior that is present in many modern consumer societies in developed countries. For example, someone might buy a new jacket and wear it only a few times before throwing it away and buying a new one, even though the old one was still in good condition. Or if someone’s stereo breaks, they throw it away and buy a new one, rather than getting the old one repaired. (Helium) According to a weekly commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney. We’re divided. There are those of us who save things and those of us and those of us who throw things out. Everyone is clearly in one category or the other, and it’s not good when they’re married. In the United States, there are more of us who throw things away than there are not people who save things. We live in a throw away society. I think it may be generational. Young people are not Norton 2 so sentimentally attached to their junk as people my age are to ours (“A Disposable Society”).
Rooney’s assertion seems valid when comparing the economic experiences of our elderly prior to the 1970’s and today’s adults. Prior to the 1970’s consumer products were manufactured to not only last, but to outlast the competition, thus creating longer lasting consumer goods. The shift we now see from the long-lasting product mentality of the past to the throw-away one of today had been driven by economics and cooperate design.
This shift not only threatens to lead us to an environmental catastrophe, but also the destruction of our society. According to E. A. Zimmerman, in his article “How We Became a Throw-away Society” he says that: “Planned obsolescence” is not a myth. It is a manufacturing philosophy developed in the 1920’s and 1930’s, when mass production became popular. The goal is to make a product or part that will fail, or become less desirable over time or after a certain amount of use. This puts pressure on the consumer to buy again. Advertising trains consumers to want what is new and improved. It convinces them that the more they have, the happier the will be.” (Zimmerman)
Supporting Zimmerman’s claim is Vance Packard, author of The Waste Makers. In a book
The Waste Makers, Packard states that “planned obsolescence” (Packard) is “the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals”
(Packard) and his claim seems to be more accurate as time goes …show more content…
on. Another example of ‘planned obsolescence “ is in the music and electronics business, and their contributions to the throw-away society we have become. Back when I was a young teenage in the early 1970’s we listened to music on a record player, playing 33 and 45 rpm records. Shortly after that, everyone switched to 8-track tapes and in a couple of years later, to Norton 3 cassette tapes. To be really hip, you had all of your music re-recorded onto reel-to-reel machines by the late 1970’s and by the 1980’s everything was being recorded on CD’s that would wear out in ten years. Today, all of our music seems to be downloaded for the internet to our phones or I-pads. While radio had been increasingly made more available by satellite, it is the only thing that has remained the same. Again Zimmerman says: Planned obsolescence does keep costs down. Instead of making an inexpensive product line that will last a long time, businesses produce more affordable, disposable items. In addition, technological advances are happening at a breakneck pace. Some electronic items have become so inexpensive that it is cheaper to replace them, labor and parts are pricey. Few consumers would pay $50.00 or more to repair a broken VCR, when they can purchase a brand new DVD player for $50.00. (Zimmerman)
Just imagine how many records, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, Sony Walkmans, Commodore computers, CD’s, stereos, televisions, VCR’s, personal home computer, have been discarded as they became broken or obsolete over the past fifty years! Thank-God radio is still radio and it creates little to no waste! Examples of the wasteful individuals and the throw-away society we have become can be
Seen in the amount of material waste Americans generate annually from birth to death. In the article, “The Great Disposable Diaper Debate” Donella Meadows writes: Eighty percent of the diapering in this nation are done with disposables. That comes to 18 billion diapers a year. Each one has an outer layer of waterproof polypropylene and an inner layer of fluff mad from wood pulp plus super-sluper sodium polyacrylate that can hold a hundred time its weight in water. Those 18 Norton 4 billon diapers add up to 82,000 tons of plastic a year and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp-250,000 trees. After a few hours of service these materials are tucked away, primarily to landfill, where they sit, neatly wrapped packages of excrement, entombed undergirded for several hundred years.(Meadows)
From this information, it is easy to see how our throw-away mentality could come back to haunt us environmentally sometime in the near future. Aside from the environment issue there remains the issue of practicality. From my own experience raising four children, I have found that using reusable cloth diapers makes more sense environmentally, financially, and morally.
Several dozen diapers can diaper two children through the couple of years they need to wear them, without the expense and landfill space needed for two years of disposables.
There is some debate over which is more harmful to the environment, the cloth or disposable; but I am convinced that the use of small amounts of washing water and biodegradable soap is both cheaper and more environmentally responsible than the disposables degrading and polluting ground water for generations to come Another example of our throw-away mentality is in the area of bottled water and soda pop container disposal. In the article called “Plastic Bottle Facts,” Reesa Potash claims that while “The bottle-water industry has done an excellent job of convincing consumers that bottled water is pure and healthier than tap,” the truth is that: Disposable plastic bottles (polyethylene terephthalate-PET) used for soft drinks and water, and molded-type plastic bottles (high density polyethylene-HDPE) used for milk, detergents and motor oils have become an environmental concern. Reusable plastic bottles (polycarbonate) used primarily for sports bottles and baby bottles have been cited for potential health-safety concerns. (Potash) Norton
5
The fact is that convenience and our throw-away and replace mentality is slowly killing us and our environment. Potash provides more evidence of this in her claim that: The bulk of plastic bottles end up in landfills, where it is estimated it takes 700 years to begin composting. Producing and transporting this product requires a tremendous amount of fossil fuel. The Pacific Institute, and environmental research organization, estimates that it takes more than 17 million barrels of oil annually to produce single-use plastic bottles. Three tons of carbon dioxide emissions are created with every ton of PET products produced.
It is living in the moment that has led Americans to develop wasteful consuming habits, and unfortunately the development of wasteful and irrational spending habits, as we borrow money to pay for our Starbucks coffee cups, happy meals, and electronic gizmo’s. We have become so preoccupied with out throw-away consumerism that we have invented the term disposable- income to coincide with it. The combined amount of personal debt in the US is $2 trillion which is about the GDP of England. (textbook). That means Americans are in debt more than a country earns in a year! Even though Americans are hard-working and industrious people the under take too much debt and save too little. From this information it is easy to see the financial toll on Americans as they struggle to maintain a system of economics and consumerism, that is ultimately unsustainable both morally and environmentally. Let’s face it, disposable income equals debt and eventual environmental destruction. In light of the environmental, financial, and human consequences to living in a throw-away society we must all take the responsibility and incentive to change our wasteful and destructive course. As individuals we must be more conscious of the environmental impact our Norton 6
consuming actions have and to insist that businesses and manufactures begin producing and packaging environmentally friendly products. Some easy changes in our wasteful ways like using reusable sports bottles of water, using canvas shopping bags instead of plastic or paper, using more cloth diapers, composing more biodegradable materials, purchasing more recycled products, could go a long way in protecting the environment and our future quality of life.
Work Cited
Meadows, Donella. “The Great Disposable Debate” Voice of a Global Citizen, www.sustainer.org. Web, 20 April, 2012
Potash, Ressa, Plastic Bottle Facts”, eHow.com ,2009, Web, 20 April, 2012
Rooney, Andy. “Disposable Society” CBS News, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/08/30/60,minutes/rooney/main/308969. Web, 15 April, 2012
Zimmerman, E.A. “How We Became A Throw-away Society” Our Better Nature, May 10,2010, www.ourbetternature,org. Web, 20 April, 2012