A throw away society and why I'm scared for the future of our planet.

therose789

Please excuse this rant/whatever. It's all in my head and it needs to come out somewhere. 

I live in a small village just outside of a trading estate in Gateshead. A couple of months ago I went out for a walk along the road leading into the village from the trading estate. Normally I will keep my head up when I am walking but for some reason this time I was looking down and I noticed the amount of rubbish that was at the side of the road from people just throwing things out their windows - there was hods of it! 

It wasn't anything I hadn't seen before but it really bothered me this time. 

I have never really been an 'eco warrior' or whatever people would call it, I use my recycling bin every other week but that's about it. However I got thinking about all the waste that ends up in landfills and every single piece of rubbish that I throw away and how every bit of 'un recyclable' material has to go somewhere. 

It then got me thinking about Clothes, and how as a society we buy cheap but it doesn't last however its ok because its just as cheap to buy again. 

So I watched The True Cost on netflix which is a film about the repercussions of us buying from places like primark and H&M etc... (its a very eye opening film, you should watch it) and how cheap clothes are actually designed to not last so you have to go back and buy more. 

Then I started following greenpeace on facebook and saw a video about micro beads  which really started to scare me. 

That got me thinking about technology and how 'throw away' it is. I'm pretty certain things like iPhones are only designed to have a short life so you have to constantly get the latest one. (i have no facts to support this but im sure a round of googling will give me something!)

These are just a few of the many things that I think are problematic but we don't realise it! 

I'm not normally one to be swayed by things i have read online but the more i look into this kind of thing, the more it scares me just how much we throw away and how our actions unknowingly disregard other lives and our planet. 

It's overwhelming when you consider just how much of a throw away society we live in, driven by how much money people can make turning a blind eye to the state of the planet and the mistreatment of others. 

I was telling one of the lads at work the other day about how i am trying much harder to be more conscious of what I throw away and what I recycle to which he said 'alright greenpeace!' as if it was a bad thing that I am trying to look after the planet more. 

Have we been conditioned to think that everything is ok? Are the government burying their heads in the sand about these kind of issues or are they blinded by greed? How long will it take before something is done about it?  

I know it means one thing for me to look at labels and see if they are ethically sourced but if i put packet of something down because it isnt ethically sourced, it is still there and has still been sourced from somewhere. It is such a huge issue I really don't know what can be done about it. Maybe an education to the problems may be an answer but I really don't know! 

Sorry for the rant, it needed to get out of my head! 

lloyd

There is nothing you can do as an individual that will make much difference, this comes down to the whole world coming together and sorting it at a higher level.

Doing your bit is important of course as it will normalise it...eventually, but for every person over here turning lights off and reusing plastic bags, there's 50 more throwing everything in the bin.

I try recycling but still have a full bin every 2 weeks.

Modern life creates rubbish/waste/damage, unless we all go back to subsistence living I can't see it going away.

UnclePsychosis

lloyd said:

Modern life creates rubbish/waste/damage, unless we all go back to subsistence living I can't see it going away.

Maybe, but we can change the fact that we generate a truly ridiculous amount of totally unnecessary waste.

Why, when every single large organisation in the UK is at least *pretending* that they are environmentally friendly, do bananas still come in bags in the supermarket? They've got their own fucking wrapping ffs.

lloyd

UnclePsychosis said:

lloyd said:

Modern life creates rubbish/waste/damage, unless we all go back to subsistence living I can't see it going away.

Maybe, but we can change the fact that we generate a truly ridiculous amount of totally unnecessary waste.

Why, when every single large organisation in the UK is at least *pretending* that they are environmentally friendly, do bananas still come in bags in the supermarket? They've got their own fucking wrapping ffs.

How do you change this?

I agree that things are overwrapped but I've not started a campaign to end it. Even if I did, what good would it do? Bananas are an easy target for this but they do last much longer in their man-made packaging and we all want all fruit all year round so it stays.

Shit like this has to come from the top down, yeah a well ran campaign on facebook could change the odd supermarkets policies but a law reducing it would stop it instantly.

There's no political will because it's not an issue to a lot of people, it will take years before it is.

Drew_TNBD

Humans are really bad at seeing the long term effects of their actions.

eSully

lloyd said:

There's no political will because it's not an issue to a lot of people, it will take years before it is.

I think there's no political will because it would be an issue for a lot of people. You're in a no win situation if you were trying to sort out lower end clothing/electrical goods that as stated are designed to have limited life span. If you try to stop this you automatically drive prices up and will be accused of pricing/taxing the poor out of having 'nice' things.

ICBM

Things can be changed if there is the political will to do it, even when they are not popular with either consumers or big business.

Look at the carrier bag charge for an example - there has been a roughly 80% reduction in the number used, despite a lot of people saying it was a terrible idea, a stealth tax and/or wouldn't work.

Recycling of domestic plastic waste is also now the norm rather than the exception.

The difficulties are motivating the politicians, and getting people to understand why it's often better not to go for the cheapest/easiest option.

lloyd

ICBM said:

Things can be changed if there is the political will to do it, even when they are not popular with either consumers or big business.

Look at the carrier bag charge for an example - there has been a roughly 80% reduction in the number used, despite a lot of people saying it was a terrible idea, a stealth tax and/or wouldn't work.

Recycling of domestic plastic waste is also now the norm rather than the exception.

The difficulties are motivating the politicians, and getting people to understand why it's often better not to go for the cheapest/easiest option.

Exactly, politicians will do something when it's either popular amongst the people or something they feel is good/needful/money making/saving.

If the government wanted to make changes to packaging and recycling laws and regs they would.

The only reason we recycle these days is because it's become cheaper to do it than to throw much of it away-the different grades of plastic are mostly recyclable but it costs too much or China won't take it off us, not because the local councils were feeling green.

chillidoggy

We do live in a throwaway society. So much of what we buy is not built to be repaired, and if it is, then the costs of doing so can outweigh the price of a new one. The biggest outlay is very often the price of labour, and these days, if a kitchen appliance breaks, I don't bother fixing it, I just buy a new one.

Strangely enough, I found myself staring at the contents of my rubbish bin the other day (yeah, I know, I have senior moments like that), and the vast majority of it was plastic.

lloyd

chillidoggy said:

the vast majority of it was plastic.

The vast majority of this could be recycled too, it's just that councils won't take it because it's too expensive to do so.

crunchman

Things can be done about packaging, and about (types of) energy use with the political will.

Even there though, attempts to improve the situation often backfire.  The regulations on vacuum cleaner power consumption are well meaning, but if you just make people spend twice as long doing their vacuuming then you have achieved nothing except lose respect for the authorities.  The latest EU one on the power of kettles (that they are holding back until after the referendum) just sounds like complete idiocy.
 
Things like throwaway electricals are difficult with the rate of change of technology.  Using TVs as an example, if you buy a TV that is built well enough to last 15 years, it will be obsolete well before the end of it's life.  Maybe 4k will become a standard, or maybe it will be 8k or the one after 8k.  Until something has become the "standard" it's going to be very difficult to get decent life out of them.  The same is true of phones, computers and music playback equipment.  I bought a HiFi 10 or 12 years back, and now I have to use a D to A converter (with it's wall wart) to be able to play sound from my TV through it.  I bought an iPod dock a few years ago that's now basically obselete.

You could legislate "standards" but then you stifle progress.  You need some kind of balance.  It doesn't help though when companies like Apple deliberately use different connectors and ports than everyone else, and don't provide ongoing support for their stuff.  They killed the Youtube app on their gen 2 crApple TV while people probably had ones they bought new that were less than 2 years old.

Phil_aka_Pip

I've always preferred to "fix an old one" rather than "get a new one". But an American chap once told me to think of the factory worker: "He can't produce if you won't buy".

tricky problem. I do hate built-in obsolesence though.

scrumhalf

Planned obsolescence is a huge problem, but it's been common for maybe sixty years, certainly since Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders", which came out in 1957 (thank you, internet).

As I see it there are problems with:
1) Planned obsolescence, both in terms of shoddily-made goods and well-made goods designed to be not capable of repair or planned to be superseded by technology currently in development.
2) Increased consumption of goods per capita.
3) Increase of consumers of these goods.
4) Wasteful packaging.
5) Slovenliness.

Sadly, I'm not sure anyone in authority has the balls to make decisions about this. We could probably eliminate the packaging problem but I would imagine that would require EU legislation. good luck with that.

I find the whole slovenliness, littering, fly-tipping things to be hugely annoying. It's actually unnecessary. People should be better behaved. I would have no hesitation in swingeing fines being imposed for this, and I mean really swingeing fines to make people think again. Local authorities should also do more, providing more litter bins with more frequent emptying of those bins, and making it less of an ordeal to legally dispose of waste.

fob

I was working in an office recently where the staff had proudly promoted the awards they had received for being 'green' in their staffroom; Bronze, Silver, Gold awards for recycling and eco-initiatives etc. They had half-a-dozen different bins peppered around the (very big) office for paper/plastic/metal etc - even a small bin for chewing gum. I spoke to a couple of the people who were involved with this and they said a small group were given a couple of hours a month (paid) to consolidate their 'industry leading position' in this regard and come up with new ideas - it was clear they took it very seriously; even passionate about it.

 

Then, one morning, I was in early and saw the cleaners walking along the office, emptying all the diverse bins into one large bin bag. I have a feeling this happens on a global scale.

thebreeze

It's about individuals and about sorting it out at a political level.  They both go hand in hand.  There has to be a paradigm shift in how we do things but in such a way that people can go with it.

I've sited this company in a couple of threads before but I'll do so again because they are such a great example.  http://riversimple.com

There is no obsolescence (or very little) built into the business model - unlike all the conventional car manufacturers who's whole business model is built around obsolescence and getting people to upgrade every 3 years etc.  There's no ownership of the product, the cars run on hydrogen, they do all the maintenance, keeping it going for decades etc before it needs replacing, all the parts are made fully recyclable etc.  The key thing though is that it's not just about the car being more energy efficient but it's about every aspect of that business being run along the lines of trying to have a sustainable future in every way.  They have managed to find a business model which works but doesn't just depend on producing endless units of product that will get thrown away or worse has to be thrown away so that you can get people to buy more.

The more that individuals turn to these kinds of ways of going about things the more politicians will have take notice.

It's not the changes in technology that will get us out of the mess but changes in our thinking and how we use our technology.

Phil_aka_Pip

@fob You're right. We used to put our glass religiously in the bottle banks by the footie ground. The chap in the pub told us we were wasting our time - he was the driver of the truck that picked the bottle banks up when they were full ... and took them straight to the landfill site.

Although I'd like to think that the council were getting us to change our behaviour so that when recycling was genuinely available, we would by that time have acquired the habit of putting our waste in the right receptacles.

thebreeze

Bit more on their philosophy

http://riversimple.com/whole-system-design/

Bogwhoppit

I don't see a problem.  Collectively, world powers are never going to resolve this; however, the world will survive, and the humans that inhabit and screw 'everything' up will die out - problem solved.  Its been a long time coming...around 200,000 years.

ICBM

scrumhalf said:

Planned obsolescence is a huge problem, but it's been common for maybe sixty years, certainly since Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders", which came out in 1957 (thank you, internet).

Longer than that - getting on for a hundred at least. One of Henry Ford's ideas was to send men round the car breakers' yards to examine old Fords and look for the components that *hadn't* failed. These parts were then downgraded. The goal was to make a car where everything lasted about 20 years and then all fell apart at once, making the owner buy a new car rather than continue repairing the old one. That is still true of cars today, although possibly with a slightly shorter life expectancy. (To be fair, Ford also upgraded the parts that did break too.)

It wouldn't surprise me if the beginnings of this sort of lifespan engineering went back as far as the Victorian age.

CabbageCat

I think youngsters are more aware of it then we were at their age and are more prepared to make green adjustments. I'm sure we'll continue to make things worse for a generation or two but if the trend continues things will eventually get better. 

Evilmags

And lots of old ford's are now hotrods in the US.