Story of stuff
Pollution of
the environment has involved a lot of people worldwide. The progress and
development of many countries have led to increasing house hold consumption in
addition to increasing the process of manufacturing. Although the process of manufacturing
materials is important to provide people’s need, it has serious and bad impacts
on our environment whether during the process of manufacturing or after the use
of the new products. There are five parts of the process which are linked to
consumerism.
Extraction:
Cutting down
the forests trees to use their wood in different purposes may give us clear
evidence that man uses the earth resources severely. The “Story of stuff”
(2007) shows that people need three to five planets to face the human needs of
these products. The process of extraction affects the environment badly from
the point of cutting down the trees to get wood until burning them to get coal
for manufacturing. Burning the coal releases carbon dioxide which helps increase
the global warming.
Production:
During the stage of production we have to use
energy to make things for sale. That means a lot of our products contain toxin.
“From
the foods we eat to how we maintain our yards and clean our homes, we can be exposed
to chemicals in many ways” (Colborn, 2004). For example,
chemicals are used to make vegetables grow better and faster. Hence, these
vegetables contain toxin which affects consumers’ health badly consequently,
this creates many dangerous problems.
Distribution
Distribution
is an important step as in this stage products are distributed and sold to the
customers. Some of these products are dangerous because they are poisonous.
These products are sold to families. These toxic products should be treated in
a safe way so as to avoid their harm.
Consumption
Consumption of
products adds to the problem because people use the products and continue
buying stuff. Factories and shopping centers concentrate on consumers as they
are the main source of getting money. From time to time consumers like to
change some of what they own as they became old fashion. With the help of hard
sell and soft sell advertisements people may change their minds and buy new
products. For example, some costumers sell their old TV sets and buy new flat
screen TV sets. The factories and companies work hard to persuade people to buy
new products.
Disposal
How can
people get rid of their old products? It may be burnt and dumped in landfills. However,
burning the old products is too serious which creates poisonous materials. “Residents
of Connecticut, reusing or recycling these items can reduce the amount and
toxicity of the garbage that is disposed in our state”
(Dannel, 2013).
Consumerism
in the UAE
The UAE is one of the most developing
countries in its region and it is witnessing a great industrial revolution and
this in its turn increases the amount of carbon toxic to the environment. Also
there are sources which add more carbon toxic such as house hold. These sources
increase the problem of releasing carbon toxic to the environment. Hence the
UAE had to find successful solutions for this problem. Firstly, the government
tries hard to make people have special awareness to the global issues. Secondly,
the UAE government has started establishing the first city in the whole world
which is free from carbon toxic. Above all the UAE government takes wide steps
in exploiting the clear and clean renewable energy. “Clean energy includes
energy efficiency and clean energy supply options like highly efficient
combined heat and power as well as renewable energy sources” (Clean Energy, 2013).
Moreover the UAE urges people to use public transport to save burning so much
petrol so as to reduce carbon toxin.
In
conclusion, the issue of consumption comes at first as it causes different
kinds of pollution. So we have to think deeply of things that increase
consumption and raise the rate of global warming and pollution. We must do our
best to reduce the amount of things that creates a great amount of carbon toxin
so as to be happy as the amount of pollution will be reduced.
Words: 691
References
Clean Energy |
US EPA. (2013, May 20). US Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved
May 24, 2013, from http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/
Colborn, W. W., Dumanoski,
C. D., Myers, D. J.(2001, January 1). Earth Problems - Pollution. Web of
Creation. Retrieved May 20, 2013, from
http://www.webofcreation.org/Earth%20Problems/pollution.htm
Cutright, A.
(2013, January 14). The Environmental Costs of Emissions from Shale Gas
Extraction | RAND. RAND Corporation Provides Objective Research Services and
Public Policy Analysis. Retrieved May 20, 2013, from
http://www.rand.org/blog/2013/02/the-environmental-costs-of-emissions-from-shale-gas.html
Dannel, G.
(2013, May 8). DEEP: What Do I Do With...?. CT.gov Portal. Retrieved May
24, 2013, from http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2718&q=325496&deepNav_GID=1645%20
Oil and Gas
Extraction Effluent Guidelines | Oil & Gas Extraction | US EPA. (2013,
April 12). Home | Water | US EPA. Retrieved May 20, 2013, from
http://water.epa.gov/scitech/wastetech/guide/oilandgas/
Reduce toxic
chemical use in your home. (2004, January 1). Reduce Waste: If Not You, Who?.
Retrieved May 24, 2013, from http://156.98.19.245/toxics/
Story of Stuff
(2007, OFFICIAL Version) - YouTube. (2007, January 1). YouTube.
Retrieved May 20, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
WONG, E. (2013,
March 21). As Pollution Worsens in China, Solutions Succumb to Infighting -
NYTimes.com. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia.
Retrieved May 19, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/world/asia/as-chinas-environmental-woes-worsen-infighting-emerges-as-biggest-obstacle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0/
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