The functionalist theory asserts that if one part of the system fails to work correctly, all of the other parts of the system are harmed; one can see this with the consequences of dumping. Families are harmed when drinking water is contaminated with hazardous fluids that seep into waterways from dump sites and are not completely filtered. The government faces higher costs to clean up dump sites and litter so it raises revenue by increasing taxes on citizens. The money that goes toward funding cleanup crews could have potentially gone to schools to hire more teachers or fund research grants so educational institutions also are harmed. Religious institutions, which already manage themselves financially on the margin, may pay costs to restore property. The economy suffers because the forgone profits used to restore property could have been used by businesses to hire employees or renovate equipment. The broad effects that illegal dumping has on society reveal what may be considered isolated, harmless events contribute to a larger malaise explained by the functionalist perspective.
Illegal dumping can be viewed as an inequality problem because individuals who are guilty of doing it abuse property rights for their own personal gain and break social contracts with society. The social strain felt by all parts of society are caused by individuals or corporations taking advantage of the system. Since equality is valued in American society, it is permissible that either everybody is allowed to dump or nobody is allowed to dump. Since society values clean properties and resources, laws are established for the common good that ban everybody from certain acts of dumping that are enforceable by the legal system.
Due to the broad nature of ille...
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...tes. Adopting an attitude of public service by throwing away litter in public places is an activity that anyone can do to keep our nation clean.
References
Integrated Waste Management Board. (2014). What is illegal dumping? Sonoma County Department of Health Services: Environmental Health Division. Retrieved from http://www.keepsonomaclean.org/ill_dumping.htm
Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. (2014). Highway beautification/adopt-a-highway – enforcing litter laws. Pennsylvania Resources Council. Retrieved from http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Internet/Bureaus/pdHwyBeau.nsf/infoEnforce?OpenForm
Kendall, D. (2013). Sociology in our times (9th ed.). United States of America: Cengage Learning.
Louisvill Metro Government. (2013). Illegal dumping in louisville. City of Louisville, Kentucky. Retrieved from http://www.louisvilleky.gov/SolidWaste/illegaldumping/dumping_louisville.htm
Kendall, D., Linden, R., & Murray, J. L. (2008). Sociology in our times: The essentials (4th Cdn
Macionis. J, J. Plummer, K. (2005). Sociology. A global Introduction. Pearson Education Limited. Essex. (UK) Third Edition.
In Indianapolis, I see people toss trash out of their car, throw trash onto the ground, and have seen somebody aim for a garbage can, noticed that they missed it, and just left it on the ground. One person throwing garbage on the ground might not think much of it, however, when that piece trash collects other trash, they start to build up and soon form big loads of junk. For example, I am sure people never supposed that if they littered, that their trash would eventually end up in some kind of body of water. Typically, no one thinks about it until they actually go to a sea or lake and see how disgusting it looks because of the people who were too lazy to throw their garbage away. To worsen matters, littering has become very mutual, which must be stopped because in most instances, trash is not disposed of appropriately, which eventually leads to innocent individuals having to spend money on cleaning up. Some people know about the littering in Indianapolis, but most do not care, and that is only because they are not aware of the consequences it can bring or the way it appears to others. For the ones who do recognize it needs to spread the news around so there can be a solution.
Interstate garbage transfers are a topic that has been under intense public scrutiny from all sides. This scrutiny comes not only from environmental protection agencies and lobbyists, but also from concerned, outraged, and/or disgusted citizens. The natural metaphor would reduce this situation to neighbors. Imagine if one’s neighbor took his trash and through it in one’s trash cans. Who gives him the right to do such a thing? How can he justify giving the things that his family has deemed “trash” to another family? He simply cannot. But if this metaphor is evolved into a more comparable situation to interstate waste transfer, opinions can change. Say this same neighbor took his trash, put it in another family’s garbage, explained that he was
The reason why I pick “dumpster diving and food waste “ is one of important subjects that I strongly believe in. First, I would like to talk about is dumpster diving. Dumpster diving has the cons and their pros. People often dumpster dive for useful things like cans food, clothes , and useful furniture. Things that people need that they cannot afford. There is a saying “Another man's trash is another man's treasure”. Meaning for this quote, a man can throw something away and forget about it. Then someone else will find it makes it their own.
"Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2010." United States Environmental Protection Agency. November 2011. http://www.epa.gov (accessed November 30, 2011).
Although littering may not always be intentional, sixty percent of pedestrians and forty percent of motorist deliberately do it (“NCDPS”). Because of all the littering being done, there is an island of trash two times the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean (Cruice-Barnett). This enormous amount of trash damages our environment more and more each day. When looking at it from that perspective, it is much easier to understand exactly how large of a problem littering actually is.
Schaefer, Richard T. Sociology Matters, 6th Ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 01 Jan. 2013. 228-232
People of all ages and gender litter; there is no specific type of people to litter, just about everyone has littered before. When one trash is thrown out it allows other people to think that it is okay to litter as well. Littering affects everyone and people must learn to preserve wildlife. No one really realizes the effect littering can have on not only in everyone’s lives, but also the wild life itself. According to Keep America Beautiful, authors of “LITTER PREVENTION: WHY, WHO, WHERE”, “People of all ages and social backgrounds have been observed littering -- men and women, children, and all ages in between are likely to litter.” At some point everyone has littered, whether it was intentional or not. Keep America Beautiful also claims that “When illegal dumping occurs, days and sometimes weeks or months will pass before it gets cleaned up. In the meantime, people, animals and wildlife are naturally attracted, trash bags are opened, and the trash is distributed on the ground.” Animals are curious creatures and if they smell food, naturally the animals will want to go investigate it. As the trash is now exposed to the open, it can blow in the wind and travel to different places. There are easy ways to help prevent littering; Cathy, the author of the article “12 ways you can prevent litter”, states that “Set an example by not littering.” If you show good
We always hear "do not litter!" or "throw your litter in the bins", maybe some of you bored to hear that yet we still do not throw it in the correct place. Litter is a serious habit problem to just throw away objects on the ground or leave them lying on the ground, instead of putting them in the garbage can. In Indonesia, the amount of litter is 175.000 ton/day and this is increasing every day. But we don't have to see that far, just look around us, our campus, Sanata Dharma University is still facing the littering problems. Each day, although there are various spots of bins and it is never full yet there are many litters lying in the floor, you can see the student hall as the evidence that even though it has 10 spots of bins, we still find people throwing their litter everywhere.
Murray, Jane Lothian, Linden, Rick and Kendall, Diane. (2011). SOCIOLOGY IN OUR TIMES, Fifth Canadian Edition by Nelson Education Limited, Published by Thomson Wadsworth, USA.
It may seem harmless and innocent, but littering is an unhealthy habit people of all ages in each country do every day. Littering is a second nature to some people; after doing it for so long and often, they do not realize they do it. As more and more people continue to litter, environments, animals, and humans are being harmed by people’s carless actions. Americans, as well as all humans, need to be more aware of how hazardous and costly littering is to the world and the creatures living in it. Littering shows lack of respect for the world, and needs to be prevented in order for future generations to live in a clean and healthy environment.
Schaefer, R.T. (2009). Sociology: a brief introduction, 8th edition. New York, New York, USA: McGraw-Hill.
Have you ever seen a pile of garbage on the side of the road that someone dumped illegally because they did not want to pay fifteen dollars to take it to the landfill and throw it away? Illegal dumping is a problem that is rising in America every single day. With the population growing and more people on the earth, there is more garbage so there needs to be more landfills around the world.
garbage in the U.S is getting higher at a rapid rate, causing problems to our environment, health,