Nowadays, we are living in a throw-away society. What are its causes and what are its problems?
Environmentalists today are campaigning for “reduce, recycle and re-use” in a bid to save the world, but we as a nation, have adopted “replace” as our mantra. This and many other factors are leading to a throwaway society, and there are many problems being caused by this which I shall discuss in this essay.
The reasons for our becoming a throwaway society are manifold. Firstly, in a quest for better living standards, we wish to own the latest equipments and gadgets. Once new things are acquired, we dispose-off these “unwanted” things to second hand shops or just in the trash cans.
Secondly, the markets today are flooded with cheap, single-use-only things that are more in demand than high priced quality items. Our houses and closets seem to be overflowing with goods that are more in quantity and less in value. Finally, there is too much packaging done by the companies in a bid to make their things more attractive.
The effects of this trend are also manifold. Pollution and filling up of the landfill sites by non-biodegradable material is a great cause of concern. Global warming is taking up mammoth dimensions and unless we do something about it, our earth will become uninhabitable very soon.
To add to it, there is intense competition and rivalry among the affluent for becoming society’s trend setters. This tendency has played havoc on the middle-class strata.
People are working long arduous hours to earn more and more money so that they can keep up with Joneses and Smiths or else lose face. This is creating stress among people and people are losing social and moral values.
To put it in a nutshell, I pen down saying that, the current abundance of choice coupled with the ease with which things are discarded as soon as they lose their newness has given rise to a throwaway society which is having a detrimental effect on the individuals and society.