A Brief Analysis of the Waste Phenomenon in the US

Nowadays, with the improvement of people’s living standards, the society witnesses a phenomenon that people are pursuing a healthier lifestyle and a higher living standard. That includes the best organic food and the most fashionable articles of daily use. The items they discard in Dumpsters are no longer only things that are broken or rotten, but things they don’t like or are less perfect than they expect. The US has become a wasteful society. In On Dumpster Diving, Eighner shares his experience of living on dumpster diving, which vividly exposes the waste phenomenon in the US and inspires people to reflect their wasteful deeds. Based on this article, this paper aims at analyzing the waste phenomenon in three aspects: the waste phenomenon in the US, the cause of this waste phenomenon, and the possible solution. The analysis shows that due to the high expectation of living standards and little attention on the wealth contrast, people in the modern society discard a lot of food and items that are still edible and of normal functions. This phenomenon causes a great waste of social resources. In order to improve this phenomenon, the government could promote the concept of an economical lifestyle via social medias and set up volunteering institutes to distribute those discarded items to the need.

To begin with, with the improvement of people’s living standards, their standards of discarding items change from broken and useless to unsatisfied and imperfect. The large supply of foods and articles of daily use enables people to enjoy their daily life without the concern of shortage. And the increase in their income makes foods and articles of daily use occupy only a little portion of their spending. In other words, people have enough money to purchase, and there are always enough items in the market. Without any concern for items that maintain their daily life, people start to require more and higher. Due to the promotion of the media, people’s concepts of living change. They want a healthier life and a higher living taste. Thus, the food they discard may not be rotten or inedible. The food might just fail to satisfy them with inadequate nutrition or less perfect than they expect. However, as Eighner depicts, “Raw fruits and vegetables with intact skins seem perfectly safe to me.Many are discarded for minor imperfections that can be pared away” (Eighner 715). Eighner supports himself during the homeless period simply by diving the dumpster. With proper experience and judgment, food like canned goods, dry foods, raw fruits and vegetables with intact skins, candy can all be edible in a healthy way. Even respectable employed people will sometimes find something tempting from a Dumpster. If people could live their life comparatively healthily from discarded things from the dumpster, the society is suffering from the waste problem. People start to abandon things that could still be useful to some other people. That is a waste of the social resource. Meanwhile, besides people’s daily lives, shops and supermarkets are doing the same. According to Eighner’s experience, when pizzas are delivered cold or baked incorrectly, the shop will discard these pizzas in boxes. As long as a person carefully observes the situation for a certain time, he/she could distinguish the fresh discarded pizza and have them for free (Eighner 715). The only difference is those discarded pizzas are not as warm as those ordered in the pizza shop. But these pizzas are equally healthy and nutritious. And students tend to throw more things useful at the end of the semester, especially those affluent college students. Students do not have a strong sense of controlling living expense, so it is more usual for them to throw fresh items that are still frozen or freshly thawed. Clearly, people in the modern society measure the standard of discarded things not by if these items are still of value, but if they need them currently or not. So if they don’t need the refrigerator, or they simply purchase a new one, a refrigerator that is still in normal operation could still be discarded. This behavior, however, causes a great waste of the social resources.

In addition, the waste phenomenon in the current society is caused by people’s high expectation of living standards and little attention on the social wealth contrast problem. With the improvement of living standards, people in the modern society tend to neglect the importance of an economical lifestyle. Many people, especially youngsters, hold the lifestyle of hedonism. They choose only things of the best quality and abandon whatever they think is of no use to them currently. They pursue fashion and high standards, and the high expectations and requirements for food and items of daily use make them easy to discard things that fail to meet their expectations. So even though the clothes is still quite new, they abandon it because it is not the latest style this year. Even though the yogurt is still fresh in the refrigerator, they abandon it because it has been in the refrigerator for several days. And the social media always encourage people to purchase the high-quality food and items for their health and personal tastes. Shops and companies always persuade customers to update their items to the latest versions due to some new changes and functions. The continuing purchases make many things less useful even though they are still in normal operation. So many things of good quality are discarded, and much fresh food is discarded because the food is not the freshest or lack some nutrients. However, this concept may boost the economy, but it causes a non-economical lifestyle and a lot of wastes. There are still many people in need dream about the items these people discard. If people realize the huge wealth contrast in the society, they may not discard those things so casually. They will prefer to donate those items to others rather than simply discard them in the dumpster. And they may consider for a while before they insist their luxurious lifestyle.

Last but not least, in order to improve the waste problem in the US, the government should concentrate on promoting an economical lifestyle and set up related institutes to help the homeless with useful discarded items. Although the US is currently viewed as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the severe wealth contrast still leads to millions of homeless people. According to Eighner’s opinion, it is estimated that ten million people experienced homelessness in the US in the late 1980s alone (Eighner 713). But the proper use of the useful discarded items from the public could help to support these homeless people and reduce the government’s burden. The public should be aware that there are so many homeless people that they could help and what they have discarded could support other people’s lives. Under no circumstances should citizens of a country be encouraged to lead a prodigal life. The government and the social media should encourage the public to lead an economic life. By proper promotion and circulation of the social media, people could learn how to save the usage of water, how to distinguish if the food is still fresh and edible, and how to avoid unnecessary wastes. In that case, if people have doubts about if the food is healthy and if the item is still of use, they could get access to related information, and they will consider a second time before they decide to discard the food or items of daily use. Furthermore, if there is something that they decide to discard, there should be an institute to help homeless people get this in time. It is much easier for the government to set up such an institute than try to prevent the negative impact that homeless people pose o the society. The institute could be led by the government and maintained by social volunteers. People in this institute are in charge of collecting the discarded food or discarded items. After a simple classification and selection, they could send the food and items to those homeless people and let them decide if they need these items or not. In this way, things like the food out of expire but still edible, pizzas cold but healthy, clothes out of date but still clean, could be fully used. By setting up an institute in every community and university, the unnecessary waste could be reduced to the minimum level, and people in need could get proper help. These institutes could be defined as volunteering organizations, and things that people send to these organizations are not rubbish that they discard, but kindness and favor they show to others. In this way, people will be encouraged to help others and get to know each other more. Also, homeless people or other people in need are free to choose if they accept the food or items or not. To protect their rights and dignity, they should realize that they are bagging the food and items to support their lives. They are enjoying the social welfare that the government offers them. In this way, the conflict and misunderstanding that might be aroused by these institutes will be replaced by gratitude and kindness. Meanwhile, it helps those homeless people to control their weight with a healthier diet and gain comparatively healthier food than they pick up from dumpsters themselves.

In sum, the improvement of people’s living standards has changed their concepts of lifestyle. It is people’s freedom to pursue the lifestyle they want, but the social resources should not be wasted by simply being discarded in the dumpster. Eighner’s experience has proved the common waste phenomenon in the US. The government and the social media should take some measures to make full use of those discarded items and try to balance the social need aroused by the wealth contrast.