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Consumption of products and services can affect the environment in a number of different ways. It’s important to realize that every product at some point in its life cycle, whether directly or indirectly, contributes to environmental issues such as climate change, pollution, and resource depletion. Not only does the production, processing, and consumption of products require extracting and using natural resources; factories need to be built and run using more of these resources. These factories in turn emit greenhouse gases and create pollution and waste which all contribute to climate change (Shah). Consumption in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing; after all, economic growth is measured by gross national product (GNP) – the total goods and services produced by a country in a given year. The problems with consumption lie in how and what resources are being consumed in the process, overconsumption, and waste. Take bottled water for instance. It requires the energy equivalent of over 17 million barrels of oil to produce the plastic bottles for 31.2 billion liters of water, the amount purchased by Americans in 2006 (Pacific Institute). Even more energy is consumed in transporting the bottled water to the consumer, cooling it in stores or at home, and in the recycling process. It takes twice the water than what is contained in each bottle to manufacture it, so one full liter of water essentially requires 3 liters of water to produce. Manufacturing one ton of plastic bottles produces around 3 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). The process for creating the plastic bottles for water is clearly inefficient. Furthermore, it can be argued that purchasing bottled water is wasteful when you consider that you can get th... ... middle of paper ... ...tal impacts of beef: habitat conversion. (n.d.). WWF. Retrieved December 10, 2013, from http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/beef/environmental_impacts/habitat_conversion/ greenercars.org | automobiles & the environment. (n.d.). greenercars.org | automobiles & the environment. Retrieved December 10, 2013, from http://www.greenercars.org/guide_environment.htm Pacific Institute: Research for People and the Planet. (n.d.). Pacific Institute. Retrieved December 9, 2013, from http://www.pacinst.org/publication/bottled-water-and-energy-a-fact-sheet/ Shah, A. (n.d.). Effects of Consumerism. - Global Issues. Retrieved December 7, 2013, from http://www.globalissues.org/article/238/effects-of-consumerism World Population Awareness. (n.d.). WOA!! World Ovepopulation Awareness. Retrieved December 10, 2013, from http://www.overpopulation.org/solutions.html
Pacific Institute (2008). Bottled Water and Energy: A Fact Sheet. Retrieved July 31, 2008, Web site: http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/bottled_water/bottled_water_and_energy.html
Together, the passages “Business in a Bottle”, by Cynthia Barnett and “Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show”, by Peter Gleick, portray how bottled water has taken a superficial and deceptive image due to false advertising and pseudoscientific claims by greedy bottling companies, whose purpose is to take advantage of a free resource in order to make millions in profit; destroying the environment as they go. Both passages expose the bottling companies’ manipulative tricks, in order to bring awareness and open the populations’ eyes to the lies they have been fed for many years, however the authors utilize distinct styles to achieve their goal. Barnett focuses on specific bottling companies’ data and incorporates analysts for support,
Cynthia Barnett and Peter H. Gleick both address the business behind the bottled water industry. In “Business in a Bottle”, Barnett explains how the bottled water industry started, how the industry is struggling with the law regarding drawing its water from natural resources, and how it uses its marketing to imply the false location on where they got the water (128-138). Barnett then concludes that the bottled water industry helps economy with the job opportunities they provided and that consumers do not really care about the content of their bottled water because all they care about are the “convenience, the packaging, and the price” (141). On the other hand, in “Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show”, Gleick
Americans live in a consumer society where majority of products are packaged ready for use. This is attributed to the availability of disposable merchandise that is favorable and efficient in delivering the various products that are on demand. Among the various favorably consumed packed products is bottled water. It does not however, make sense for people to buy bottled water and throw the container away after they have emptied it. This is because the plastic bottles have a number of defects to the environment as well as to the general welfare of the economy. For example, in 1976 an average American drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water and since then the quantity has increased to an average of 30 gallons whereby a lot of resources are spent importing synthetic fiber in spite of the pollution plastic cans have caused to the environment (Didier 214). The move has had an alarming statistic because some of the chemicals that are contained in the plastic water bottles have been recently proven to be harmful for the human consumption. The two types of chemicals that are particularly harmful are phthalates and biphenyl-A which are used to make the plastic bottles flexible. The use and manufacturing of plastic water bottles has negative consequences for humanity because it has health risks, is damaging to the environment, and is a waste of fossil fuels. Furthermore, there are other more feasible alternatives to bottled water.
Zhang, J. (2009, July 13). More Scrutiny Urged for Bottled Water . Retrieved April 19, 2014, from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203577304574276473594279310?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052970203577304574276473594279310.html
The environment has seen and dealt with numerous changes in our society over the years. The environment has suffered through one of the most monumental but extremely damaging times in our history, the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. The world saw a major increase in population during that period, which led to the depletion of natural resources. The use of chemicals and fuel in factories resulted in increased air and water pollution and an increased use of fossil fuels. The industrial revolution caused a huge environmental problem that has surfaced in the last couple of decades, climate change. (Gillaspy, 2017). Climate change occurs due to rise in global warming which occurs due to
In today’s society it is uncommon to see people walking around without water. Those who carry water with them either have their water in a reusable bottle or have bought bottled water. Bottled water is the more commonly found type of water carried around, reason being that it is easy to just buy a huge pack so that a person can just grab a bottle a go. The problem with bottled water is that more often than not, the bottle does not get recycled, but instead gets thrown into the garbage. The problem with this is that the bottles end up in a landfill. However, in this past year alone American’s used “about 50 billion plastic water bottles” (Ban The Bottle, n.d., Para. 4). Most people do not see the big difference between bottled water and tap
Consumerism has continued to increase. Americans today own "twice as many cars per person, eat out twice as often and enjoy endless other [new] commodities" (CITATION). According to a Mount Holyoke article, "consumerism leads to materialism, or the mentality for the need for excess" (CITATION). MT. HOLYOKE cites the prominence of advertisements as a cause of people purchasing products in
While watching “The Story of Bottled Water,” I thought to myself, “Is this all true, or is this really being blown out of proportion?” I simply couldn’t grasp the idea that we as consumers are that wasteful. So, I decided to watch the film again to really grasp the narrator’s message. Then it hit me: in high school AP History, we discussed how bottled water started and how it has become a multi billion-dollar company. From a business point of view, it seems so ignorantly deceptive, yet it was absolutely genius. With a little marketing, bottled water became a huge success. However, it is killing the environment and the water is usually comparable to tap water regardless. The “The Story of Bottled Water” is a very well-made short
For ever water bottle made, non-renewable resources are wasted to produce an unnecessary luxury. For the bottled water Americans enjoy, seventeen million barrels of oil are used (excluding transportation), which could fuel more than 1.3 million cars for a year. Most water is imported and exported from places that are thousands of miles away, like Fiji. Although oil is controversial in nature, for every one liter of water produced, three liters are used; the excess water wasted can supply clean water to the world’s poorest countries. Moreover, the energy used in bottle production can supply energy to over 190,000 homes. The resources that can be replaced by ceasing the production of water bottles can solve many global problems faced by a growing population.
According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees the bottled-water industry, Americans drink more than eight billiongallons of bottled water each year. Most of that water is packaged in plastic bottles.The EPA estimates that plastics such as those used to make water bottles make up nearly 13 percent of our trash. An industry watchdog group reports that it takes nearly eighteen million barrels of oil to make the amount of plastic needed to meet Americans'thirst for bottled water. That's about the same amount of oil that a million vehicles use in one year. Oil is a nonrenewable resource—once it's gone, it's gone. Worse yet, the vehicles used to move bottled water from place to place release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Perhaps more alarming is that people recycle fewer than 20 percent of their empty bottles. Most emptybottles are tossed in the trash. From there, they end up in a landfill, where they cause further environmental damage.
Today the consumerism plays an extremely important role in contemporary societies; consumerism has carried a part of the planet to the edge of Ecological, social and economic abyss, and every day becomes more evident. But naturally, it goes against a process that has become common in the daily life of people, The consumers need to advise about nature of the products, the value and the consequences of the consumption of certain products in the environment. One of the most creative ways to solve this problem is to minimize consumption of newly manufactured products, either by buying items with a longer shelf life or buying used items, new resources are not used in the manufacturing and industrial pollution and carbon dioxide will be lower. We can Recycling and reusing, also make reasonable use of natural resources, energy, and water, this contribute to the mitigation of climate impacts, will require manufacturers to use more sustainable technologies.
The single most important environmental issue today is over-consumerism, which leads to excess waste. We buy too much. We think we always need new and better stuff. Will we ever be satisfied? There will always be something better or cooler on the market. Because we live in a capitalistic consumer culture, we have absorbed things like: “Get it while the getting’s good,” “Offer ends soon, buy while it lasts,” “For great deals, come on down…Sunday Sunday Sunday!” We, kids from 1 to 92, have become saturated with commercials like: Obey your thirst. How much of our consumption is compulsive buying, merely obeying our momentary thirst? Do we actually need all that we buy? Could we survive efficiently, even happily, without making so many shopping center runs? Once after I made a Target run with mom, I noticed that most of the bulkiness within my plastic bags with red targets symbols on them was made up of the products’ packaging. I then thought about all the bags that were piled on the floor near us…all of the bags piled on the floors of many homes throughout America daily.
Water is one of the most essential non-renewable natural resources on the Earth. Technically, an un-hydrated human being can live no more than three days. In the United States, people consume water mainly from tap water and bottle water. However, the consumption between these two sources is not even but lean to one side heavily. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, people consume from 240 to over 10000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they usually do for tap water. (NRDC) In addition, according to a survey from US National Library of Medicines, only 17% of the participants prefer to drink tap water exclusively.(US National Library) Compared to the bottled water which is shining like a superstar, tap water is like a diligent worker in the shade, unpopular but useful. The extremely unbalance of bottled water consumption implies that a commonly hold conception exists: bottle water is superior to tap water. In fact, scientific evidence proves that tap water is nothing different than bottle water. More importantly, the excessive consumption of bottled water is an irrational use of resources and creates severe environmental issues.
The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid wastes each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet. The number landfills in the United States are decreasing, but the amount and volume of waste being thrown into the new landfills is increasing (Russell 4). Because of this escalating amount of garbage, Methane which contributes to global warming is an outcome of these landfills (Russell 7). As a result, our planet is suffering because of this epidemic. The garbage being put in the landfills could be recycled, but not enough businesses, ...