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"Throwaway Society" Hurts the Earth
"Throwaway Society" Hurts the Earth
by Marvin Andrew Co (10A) | Published November 2020
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Do we live in a “Throwaway Society”? A society where things are made to be thrown away?
The things we throw in trash cans don’t just disappear. Though some of them may end up recycled, a lot end up in our landfills, oceans, and even in the air. Our society is hurting the planet.
We may as well be in coffins by the time some of the things we throw away decompose, be they the single-use packaging and plastic utensils we dispose of without a second thought, or the latest fashion fads we will never wear again, or even the high-end smartphones we think would last but end up replaced by newer models released months later. We, consumers, value less how long something will last, and instead value more its convenience and popularity at the time of purchase.
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Our throwaway society is a major contributor to environmental pollution, a longstanding problem at present in the Philippines and the world. The trash we dispose of ends up in all corners of the world, in the mouths of marine life, and even in the air we breathe.
Amidst this COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown it brought about, receiving deliveries and packages from online shopping has become the new normal. Sales like 9/9, 10/10, and 11/11 that are trendy have become excuses for us to buy and splurge on unnecessary things. The consumers have simply thrown the idea of cutting down on waste and making a change for a greener environment out the window and into space. Furthermore, ordering food online increases the amount of packaging needed, and leads to even more waste.
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Things weren’t always like this. In the past, people rarely threw things away. Everything could be reused, and everything had value. It was wasteful to throw away things that could be repaired. But as with everything, times are ever-changing and nowadays, a lot of things can simply be thrown away and replaced when broken, leading to our current society. With the arrival of the 21st century and the changes it brought about, consumers have started to buy what is “trendy” and get rid of what is “out of style”.
The trash we throw away without second thought will end up literally anywhere in the world if we don’t properly dispose of it. Even here in the Philippines, there is no proper waste segregation--which means proper waste management practically does not exist. We should all strive for greater environmental awareness at this point, now more than ever, supporting more sustainable products and eliminating our reliance on throwaway items, setting an example of how we combat pollution and climate change, and giving way to our future generations.
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