| Cultural Commentate |
| The Disposable American Society |
| by Autumn Leigh |
| As the Christmas season is upon us, I take a look at my own views on consumerism and waste. |
The weekend before last I began my yearly ritual of going down to the basement, pulling out the bright red and green boxes marked “X-mas Decorations”. I then start the day long process of putting all the fall decorations away and then turning my once tastefully decorated home into a red and green Christmas obstacle course of meaningful and breakable objects for fun loving cats, dogs and adults.
As I opened box after box it was inevitable that I reached the most dreaded of boxes. This is the box filled with assorted collections of Christmas lights. Christmas lights for the tree, Christmas lights for the boughs and of course all the outdoor holiday lights intended to annoy and put my neighbors to shame. Last year I had the brilliant idea of taking all the strings of lights and wrapping them on small planks to keep them from tangling. This would have been a great idea if I had in fact wrapped them in an orderly coherent fashion. Instead, I thought it would be really cool to wrap them haphazardly, zigzagged manner creating an entanglement of bright bulbs and green cord-on a stick.
As the frustration of unraveling the lights began to set in and I was on my second glass of wine the thought occurred that I could toss the entire stick of lights in the trash and go buy new ones. It wouldn’t cost much since a string of lights costs about 25 cents. But then I got to thinking how wasteful and lazy that would be. I mean, money wasn’t necessarily the concern here but what about the landfills and the blatant participation in consumerism that would be demonstrated by my new light purchase?
As I continued untangling the mess I started to think about many of the luxuries we take for granted in our society and how many of us don’t give a second thought to the disposable nature our very existence perpetuates. For example, paper plates. I am a big fan of paper plates. These little things are perfect for not only large gatherings but I also use them in the summer when I am too lazy to wash a dish for a lunch time sandwich. The problem is larger than paper plates.
I remember visiting Las Vegas a couple years back when they were destroying a hotel that was built in the 80’s to make room for a newer and bigger hotel. This is common in many cities. Buildings less than 50 years old are often destroyed and discarded to make way for condos or strip malls. It amazes me how in Great Britain and Europe there are building hundreds of years old still in use. We saw a beautiful church in the center of Edinburgh, Scotland that had been renovated into private offices and a tourist center. What a great way to promote your city and save amazing architecture.
I’ve noticed from traveling and living abroad we take our way of life for granted. We have so much compared to many who have so little. We complain about the little things such as busses being rude on the road, the fact that Starbuck’s no longer carries coconut syrup (one of my gripes) and the high cost of gasoline. It still is amazing to me that even with gas prices approaching $3 a gallon we still were lower than many countries in Europe, yet we complain.
I would also be curious to know statistics on how much food the average American wastes. Not only do over 60% of Americans have a weight problem but we are given enormous portions that are many times left on plates uneaten and thrown away. We pay farmers to leave their land unfarmed so that grain prices will stay stable.
Even with the amount of recycling that is done now days I still find it strange when people can’t even recycle a pop can in the lunch room when there is a recycle bin across the room. When I lived in Japan recycling was mandatory. We had to buy up to 6 different types of trash bags and separate our waste according to this very detailed recycling system. I will admit much of it was lost on me considering I didn’t read Japanese but the intent was there.
The irony of all this is that we seem to cherish old trinkets such as jewelry and furniture because of the memory they represent or the reminder of the past. It is a shame that we can’t have that attitude more of the time with many more things. It is a shame that we don’t think of the consequences of our over consumption.
With all this said, one of my New Year’s resolutions will be to take the time and think over my purchases and use what I have. This may only be a small part of the solution but I feel it will not be contributing to the problem. I encourage all American lucky enough to live in the Land of Plenty to take stock of what we have, be thankful and think about ways to preserve what has been given to us. |
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