Astrid Avalos
English 101
June 2, 2008.
Essay 4
Consumption and the Environment
Consumption and consumerism have been for a long time a main topic
worldwide. Consumerism, according to the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, is
“the fact or practice of an increasing consumption of goods” (437), and
consumption is “the act of using up goods and services having an exchangeable
value” (437). The economy of every society in the world is based on the
consumption of goods. Consumption let people to get goods, such as, food and
clothes, to meet their basic needs. The controversial point is not the consumption
of goods, but the way in what we consume those goods. Consumerist societies
do not want only to cover their basic needs, they need more. They need to
accumulate non-essential goods. As David Aaker says “consumerism is
economically manifested in the chronic purchasing of new goods and services,
with little attention to their true need, durability, product origin or the
environmental consequences of manufacture and disposal.” (32) In other words,
societies characterized by consumerism will buy goods without stop, regardless
of the real necessity of them, and of the consequences that the production of
those goods can cause. Sadly for us, consumerism is spreading everywhere,
basically due to an increase in the population. That is why I believe that, as a part
of a consumerist society, people need to know how consumerism is affecting the
environment and what we can do to reduce its impact on earth.
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Astrid Avalos
English 101
June 2, 2008.
Essay 4
Our ecosystem has a large, but limited capacity to support our economy.
The way that we consume, and for what purposes would define how we extract
resources, create products and produce pollution and waste. Robert Constanza
wrote “the imperative is to maintain the size of the global economy to within the
capacity of the ecosystem to sustain it.”(7) In other words, we need to set up our
needs according to the capacity and availability of our natural resources, but that
seems very far from our current reality.
The increase of the population is causing an increase in the consumption
and production of goods. Most of the products that people consume, especially
those who came from agriculture, cause land degradation. In fact, “practically all
(97%) of our food comes from land rather than from aquatic or ocean systems.
Since 35% of the Earth’s land already is degraded, and since this figure is
increasing and largely irreversible in any time scale of interest to society, such
degradation is a sign that we have exceed the regenerative capacity of the
earth’s soil source.” (Constanza 13) Exceeding the capacity of Earth would have
terrible consequences to people, especially the ones related to food supply. For
instance, if land is degraded it would become unproductive. Farmers would not
longer grow their crops in those lands, and they would need to find new ones to
do it. This would generate a raise in the food prices, letting a lot people without
the possibility of afford food. The increase of food’s prices would create more
hunger and poverty on the world.
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Astrid Avalos
English 101
June 2, 2008.
Essay 4
All the products and goods that we consume leave some kind of waste. At
home, people create or generate ordinary garbage, such as food’s residuals and
the packages of the products that we buy. Industries in the other hand create
solid and hazardous waste, for example chemicals that contaminate the soil and
water, and that can be dangerous to the health of people and animals exposed to
them.
According
to
the
Organization
for
Economic
Co-operation
and
Development (OECD) “Americans dispose of some 720 kg of garbage per
person every year, more than people in any other country in the world” (Princen
160). The average of garbage, which is the kind of waste that can not be reused,
has increase through the years basically due to the increase of the consumption,
and the advance of the technology.
The rise of consumption shows a strong bond with the increase of waste
because as consumption increases the waste that it generates also tends to
increase. Also, “the use of synthetic materials, those that do not break down so
quickly, has risen remarkably over the last 50 years, making the waste disposal
problem more pressing.” (Princen 161) A good example is the increase in the use
of plastic for the packaging of the products. Now, the products have more
sophisticated packages than twenty years ago, and industries use tremendous
amount of plastic for its production. All these packages, later, would become
waste. In fact, “about one-third of U.S. municipal solid waste is discarded
packaging.” (Prince 162)
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Astrid Avalos
English 101
June 2, 2008.
Essay 4
Another factor that increases the creation of waste is the advance of the
technology. Nowadays technology advances so fast that the product that we buy
at the beginning of the year may be obsolete by the end of it. Mass production
creates less durable products, to be sold at affordable prices. For example, it is
easier to buy the newest version of the product that you want instead of to repair
an old one. Not only easier, but cheaper because the reparation costs are usually
as high as buy a new product. This of course, increases the generation of postconsume waste.
Consumption would always generate waste and it would have an impact in
the environment, but we can learn how to diminish its impact on Earth. In the
case of the industries a change is needed. As Constanza says “as economies
change from agrarian through industrial to more service-oriented then throughput
growth may change to growth that is less damaging of sources and sinks. We
must shift rapidly to production that is less throughput-intensive.” (16) Having a
more efficient technology would lead us to improvements in production. The main
goal is to produce more with less.
In our personal cases, even though Erickson says that “recycling grants
you forgiveness for all environmental transgressions and relieves you of the need
for any further action” (395), there is more to be done. For example, EPA
suggested some easy steps to help us get started. First, we have to reduce our
packaging by buying bulk or concentrated products, in this way we would buy
products with less plastic or synthetic-material. Then, we need to reduce toxicity
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Astrid Avalos
English 101
June 2, 2008.
Essay 4
by recycling the batteries of our devices, and by using batteries with reduce
mercury. Another important step is to use and buy reusable and durable
products, the ones that you can wash and re-use again, such as tableware, and
utensils, and the ones that would not need to be replaced in a long time, such as
good quality furniture and equipments. Finally it is important to buy products
made
from
recycled
material
because
“as
consumers
demand
more
environmentally sound products, manufacturers will continue to meet that
demand by producing high-quality recycled products.” (EPA)
To conclude, consumption is part of our economy and it let us obtain all
the goods that we need to survive. We cannot live without consumption, but we
can reach a decent standard of it, to diminish its effects on Earth. As we saw, we
have the solutions in our hands. It depends of us. We have the chance to commit
ourselves to have a better life and a better place to live in.
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Astrid Avalos
English 101
June 2, 2008.
Essay 4
Works Cited
Aaker, David A. and George S. Day, ed. Consumerism: Search for the Consumer
Interest. 4th ed. New York: The Free Press, 1982.
Costanza, Robert, John Cumberland, Herman Daly, Robert Goodland and
Richard Norgaard. An Introduction to Ecological Economics. Boca Raton,
Florida: St. Lucie Press, 2000.
Erickson, Rita J. “Paper or Plastic? Energy, Environment and Consumerism in
Sweden and America” Rev. by Bruce Hackett. Contemporary Sociology
27.4 (1998):394-395. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOHost. LaGuardia
Community Coll. Lib., Long Island City, NY. 5 May 2008.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=93278
0&site=ehost-live
Princen, Thomas, Michael Maniates, and Ken Conce. Confronting Consumption.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002.
United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Waste and Recycling. World
Wide Web, 18 May 2008. <www.epa.gov>
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. 2nd ed. New York: Random House Inc. 2001.
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