Is_Consumer_Society_a_Throw_Away_Society_

Personal ID: c2711493 TMA02 Is consumer society always a `throw-away` society' By: Gergely Varga Consumer society, or the word `consumer` is a label used to refer to a society which is defined as much by how and what people purchase and use as by what they make or do. (Making Social Lives, OU, Page 13.) “Throw-away” society means that members of this kind of society just get rid of what they purchase and use in their everyday life. This is a word with a negative impact, and suggests a way of living that is unsustainable, and people don`t want to give up their easy, and “quickly replaceable lifestyle”, or to pay more for goods and services. Throw-away more means more rubbish, more waste, more pollution. In the UK, household rubbish only, was 508kgs per person in 2007, and before, in 1983/84 it was “only” 308 kgs ( Defra, 2007). This is a huge increase, almost the double, and this means also, globally, an increase of using up our planet`s resources. In the 80s, it was just balanced, but in 2008 humankind was annually using up the biological capacity of 1.4 Earths (Global Footprint Network, 2008a;, nef, 2008). The reasons of these growing numbers are coming together with technologically developed, and more affluent society. Rising affluance also implies changing what are luxuries, and what are necessities. Very good examples are mobile phones, in the early 90s, only the richest possesed them, now members of the modern society cannot live without them. Most People can buy cheap, mainly disposable, and not durable goods made by faraway, exploited workforce. The price of labour, repairs are sometimes higher then to just replace goods, as the number of durable goods have decreased, and became also more expensive. In a way the change of gender roles supports mass consumption too, for example women are more carreer driven, better educated, work more not only at home, there is no time to cook, so we eat more prepared food, or take clothes to drycleaners, or even buy new ones, instead of repairing, so this way as well, we waste more food, clothes, packaging. At some point it is evident that we have to get rid of the waste, that is produced. It is a very complex, and international process, The UK itself sends a part of rubbish to China,(Ship Emma Maersk, which imports good to sell those in christmas, and returns to its dock to China loaded with rubbish to dispose.), and other countries in order to recycle, or to dispose rubbish, because of cheaper labour-work. This disposal process means more pollution, even if thereby energy is produced, or maybe it is not even transforming it into energy, but just moving it to another place. We can say there is an international disposal, and recycling industry, just as there is an international consumption goods industry (Making Social Lives OU, Page 119) . There are other ways of getting rid of unwanted goods, or rubbish, for example to pass them on, on auction websites, also through charity shops, or car boot sales. These ways we can give value to the unwanted goods, or revaluate them. About the valuation of rubbish there is a very interesting theory, by Michael Thompson, who says objects produced for ordinary use are `transient`, they just pass through a state of `being rubbish`, their value decreases to zero, and by the time passes they regain value, or even become more valuable. The ones in the rubbish category of virtually zero value: worn out clothes, or broken mobile phones (Making Social lives, OU, Page 122). His other category is the `durable` category which consists of art, or collectors` items, heritage pieces. These objects value always increases over time. His example for the increasing value of artworks is how the value of Stephengraphs increased from almost zero over two hundred years, to a considerable sum. He explains this with the increaseing demand over time, and as we are Personal ID: c2711493 speaking about artwork, made by one creator who lived in the past, the number of items stayed the same (supply), so this way, the value increased. Before that, the supply was increasing, but not the demand, thus the collectors could buy the Stephengraphs cheaply. Demand is a willingness, an ability to pay for something, or for a service and can be influenced by the chance of future price increase, consumers by fashionable items more, and also income. With increasing affluance, people can purchase more. `As we have seen, values are not consistent, they are complex, and formed as part of the social processes, so socially constructed`(Making Social Lives, OU, page 131), so it is possible to redefine them. Some artists show how sharp the revaluation process is, Jordan for example, who depicts one million plastic cups, which is the number of plastic cups used by airplane passangers in every six hours in the USA. Jordan transformed rubbish into art, and this way also gave rubbish a value, and show to people, how much they waste. Although there are people who can give value to rubbish simply by transforming them into something else, there is a constantly growing number of rubbish, and our Earth soon raeches to a `tipping point` at which beyond ecosystems suffered so much damage, that human survival on this planet will not be possible. At this point we can say, today`s consming is unsustainable. A possible solution could be to include the cost of recycling in the price of goods, so this way consumers would pay the full price of items, as today we only pay for the item itself, the packaging, maybe for labour, or service, but not for recycling. This is the undervaluation of our environment. This is a kind of debt, that ongoing generations give to new ones, and someone has to pay the price,very soon. According to estimates, if everyone was British in the world, we would need 2.5 earths annualy to sustain the same level of consumption. It does not matter if it was 2.5, or 4.5 , we only have one planet to live on. The poor, undeveloped countries pay the price instead of Europe, China, America, Russia, the big industrial countries. They suffer from harsh weather conditions, rising sea levels, decreasing living standards, and let`s face it, we all suffer from global warming. If we think on households, and not global, or within affluent countries, only a few live on high income, the rest is on low, or middling, and this is what means uniqually distributed income. Although all incomes are increasing, In 1979 the poorest household earned £130/ week, and the richest made £408 , in 2005 these numbers are: £181 for the poorest, and £734 for the richest. That is only 39% increase for the poorer, and 80% for the rich (Data: ONS, 2008b, Page 63). So the richest gained the most, and the poorest the least. Looking at the picture in whole is very difficult, as the whole process of consumption, wasting, disposal, and recycling of rubbish is a global process, and even if it is not a `throw-away society in 1%, it is in 99%. We should try to deal with the rubbish problem more effectively, because that `Debt day` is coming, we should learn from other countries about how to live without luxuries, to reuse, repair our everyday objects, produce more durable goods. Last, but not least, we should learn how not exploit each-other, and our natural resources, and we should learn quickly, and become `reuser society` instead of the `throw-away` one. 1261 words Personal ID: c2711493 My essay plan for TMA 2, (Is consumer society always a throwaway society' Introduction, and definition of ( Consumer cociety , and throwaway society. ---Examples Paragraph 1. evidence to support the claim, different concepts (waste/capitahousehold, etc.), data of food waste (Defra, Page 106, 117) growing affluance, changing of gender roles. Paragraph 2. how do we get rid of rubbish, possible solutions for paying for recycling, such as inclusion in goods prices (citations with page numbers) Paragraph 3. Views from a different aspect, Thompson`s theory, valuation, revaluation of rubbish, supply, and demand (P126.) Paragraph 4. Speaking about the (, about sustainability, and unsustainability Paragraph 5. Conclusion: in a consumer society rubbish is always there, but we should try more to protect our only Earth from `drying out` of resources, possible solutions. Self reflection: I really liked this chapter, although it was a little bit hard to select what I will write in the essay finally, and it was challanging to bond paragraphs. Chapters had a lot of evidence, and very interesting numbers, those clearly show how much we waste, and how hard is to process recycling, and how much energy humanity has to put in a possible change of we consume, and I was amazed by these facts. The drawings, and speech bubbles in the learning companion were extremely useful, and I also have seen how useful it is to attend tutorials, and discuss arguments in the topic with other people.