Explore That Claim That a Consumer Society Is Always a Throw Away Society

Explore the guide that a consumer caller is always a hold back out-of-door party. in that respect is no doubt that our milieu is becoming more polluted. An increase in the tote up of waste nation produce is matchless of the main causes for this issue. For example, households in the UK throw forth approximately 30 million tonnes of meth a year. Our population is rising, therefore the get along of goods required to meet peoples admits has increase. Living standards redeem improved, as have the qualities of degree of intersections and the choice of them thereof, all of which is facilitated by the increasing demands of a growing market.The subsequent waste that this increase in population, demand and consumerism gains provokes the question is a consumer society always a throw away society? Rising impressiveness is a key instrument in todays increase in waste and rubbish. In todays society the majority of people be subject to afford the higher standards of living and more luxurious souvenirs. Take a television for example in the 1950s televisions were regarded as a sumptuousness. Those families that had a black and white television were regarded as monied or rich.However, sheer to todays society and everybody has a television and they atomic number 18 immediately seen as a necessity rather than a luxury item regardless of a families on individuals financial capacity. As well as the increase in households there has also been an advance in engine room we atomic number 18 now seeing plasma, HD or 3D televisions as the luxury item to be had in households (Making well-disposed lives, P. 109, 2010). Due rising levels of affluence people are able to acquire more products and replace them with spic-and-span rather than paying for the old products to get fixed.In todays society it has become normal to throw away broken items such as washing machines, dishwashers, DVD players, televisions or microwaves rather than getting them repaired. A r oach of electrical items such as these are cheaper to buy brand newborn than it is to pay for them to get repaired. Since the 1st department store opened in 1869, Bon Marche, fashion and clothes shopping was sold to customers as a luxury, hitherto department stores were able to produce products for the less wealthy clientele as well.This was the beginning of mass produced items, which meant that the price was affordable for a wider hold of the population. enclothe and accessories were being produced with new technology, which was able to produce these products a lot rapid than if they were hand do. Department stores were also the central point in the movement of people expressing their individuality and personal character identities. Department stores had cracked it seducing customers into buying what appeared to be luxury items produced at a low repre displace so a wider range of people were able to afford them (making social lives, P39, 2010).If we skip preceding a few year s and look at todays shipping society we see the same problem I utter about earlier, everything is now mass-produced from outside the UK. Such products are exceptionally cheap to buy and, unfortunately, this is an extremely influential point in the facilitation of a throwaway society. A lot of families that are fortunate enough to go on holiday to a hot awkward abroad bequeath find themselves buying specific items only appropriate for the holiday and then disposing them after one or two wears due to the low cost of the items.As well as throwing away clothes after holiday there are a large number of clothes impel away due to an increase in societys interest in fashion. Facilitated and accelerated by increased c all overage by different media formats, demand for new fashion cycles from designers has emerged, for example, spring, summer, autumn, winter all cycles that would not have existed at one point. Rather than people customising and adjusting clothes like they would have d o years ago, old, unfashionable, clothes are thrown away to suck way for newer, more fashionable, ones.Supermarkets produce one of the cheapest clothing sources in our sylvan, they buy mass produced items from places such as India, Bangladesh and China. This is due to the cheap labour and fabric costs that these countries provide. (making social lives, P87, 2010) Supermarkets are taking over our country. They have made themselves extremely accessible to all people, from all backgrounds and classes, with a huge range of different products, all sold at very low prices. non surprisingly then, supermarkets are responsible for a huge percentage of our countrys waste. Any food that is out of date or foregone its shelf life date gets thrown way, any food that is not cosmetically perfect gets thrown away as well. This, in my opinion, is unnecessarily wasteful and instead of throwing it away could be used in a more productive and resourceful way. As well as the amount of food supermarke ts waste they produce a lot of rubbish by dint of the packaging used to keep the goods safe and fresh for consumers. It appears that every product you purchase is over packaged, it could be in a plastic tub, confined in plastic film, and surrounded by a cardboard publicise sleeve, this is again completely unnecessary waste ready to be thrown in the bin.Although we have been a throw away society over the last century, recently the media have made a conscious run to increase societys awareness of what is going to happen to the environs if everybody carries on being as wasteful and blase as they have been in the past. There has been a lot more advertising to create awareness with regards to recycling and looking after the environment. As a homeowner these days we are expected to recycle as galore(postnominal) items as possible and are asked by the government to separate them into categories to help the country be able to dispose of the high volumes of rubbish produced.There has b een a monumental rise in recycling and now 27% of homeowners recycle as before they would have been just thrown theses items in the bin. (Making social lives, P118, 2010). As well as recycling food, we as a nation are now beginning to recycle our clothes. Certain charity shops post resort hotel bags through peoples doors, asking the owners of the household to fill them with discarded clothes that are then re-sold in charity shops at a lower price for people who are not as wealthy to purchase. Some clothes are also sent to other countries that whitethorn need emergency clothing.Supermarkets are also doing there bit for the environment they now produce bags for life which are designed to minimise the amount of plastic bags used and thrown away by customers. Supermarkets in some(a) countries, such as Wales, have even begun charging for normal carrier bags, tempting customers to make a one-off payment for a bag for life, only some money and help the environment all in one go. Superm arkets have also started distributing unsold food to homeless and needy people. Our rubbish stack be given value again in many ways, for example hand-me-down clothes, car boot sales or change outcast items on EBay.Currently there are a lot of charities that are aware of how much rubbish we waste as a society and are helping society to do something about it. An example of how they are doing this is that currently all un-wanted tents that are left at festivals are sent to countries that need emergency accommodation after natural disasters or war. other way of giving rubbish value is by transporting all our unwanted waste around the military personnel to places with lower wage costs, who in have separate it, clean it, and process it into something usable again, for example using potato chip aluminum to make bottle tops and food cans.China are on board with recycling their rubbish into value items, they send their consumer goods over to England and lease back our unwanted rubbi sh to be recycled in China (making social lives, P118, 2010). With the worlds population increasing, consumer demand from food to electrical goods has increased likewise. Subsequently, society has evolved to adapt to this change in both positive and cast out ways. Positively, cheaper, mass-produced foods provide us with a necessity.Negatively, advances in technology are not as key to our survival, for example the HD TV. The media, and an increase in the worlds general economic well-being, until recently have been partly to blessed for the facilitation of societys wasteful approach to life. Supermarkets have been beneficiaries not facilitators of the sort of their consumer environment. However, the media have now turned full-circle and are promoting a more recyclable approach to life since we have learned the consequences of our wasteful tendencies.Therefore, I opine the argument that consumer societies are always throw-away societies is false. I think the pivotal point in a soc iety becoming a throw away society is in their education of the damage such an approach can do to their planet in the long run. Word count1283 Bibliography Martin Wainwright. (2012). hundreds of tents. acquirable hundreds of tents. Last accessed 21st march 2013. Hinchliffe,S (2009). Making social lives. Milton Keynes Latimer trend and order Ltd. 105-119. Staples, M (2009). Learning companion 2. Milton keynes Bell and Bain Ltd. 1-29.