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Samantha Magpusao

Indira Hood-Esparza

Humanities

08 March 2018

Consumerism Affecting our Environment

Food, water, and shelter. These are the basic human needs. With American

consumerism around our basic needs are becoming blurred with material items. Americans

spend their days working to make money for their high consumption lifestyle and because

of this there is a price to pay in our lives and the environment. American society needs to

start looking at sustainability in terms of consumption because consumerism affects the

environment in a negative way, impacts American culture, and allows companies to create

advertisements that manipulate consumers to buy their products.

With fast food being a popular demand many Americans don’t realize the negative

consequences it has on the environment. Fast food is so appealing because of how

convenient, cheap and available it is. “There are close to 50,000 fast food chain across the

United States.”“Kids between ages of 6 and 14 eat fast food 157,000,000 times every

month” (Brown). Not only is fast food bad for your health but, it's bad for the earth's health

too. Fast food packaging counts for an estimated 40% of all litter (Geer). This is one of the

many factors that fast food negatively impacts our environment. The overuse of packaging

of straws, bags, wrappings, means an overuse of plastic which ends up on the streets, or in
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the oceans. The plastic that do end up in the trash eventually meets the landfill which takes

around 10-1000 years to decompose (Leblanc). The most common waste in fast food

packaging is styrofoam, which takes 900 years to decompose (Geer). “Global agriculture

and food production are responsible for over 30 percent of all total greenhouse gas

emissions” (Tilman and Clark 2014) This means that the process to create fast food plays a

huge role in the environments climate change. The process from when the fast food is being

made, and until it is packaged each step of the way is causing harm to the environment.

Consumerism has played a big role in a cultural shift in the mentality of how we

spend our money. Now a days our society is always in search for the newest and most

expensive things and are at t at a high demand when in reality our basic needs are quite

limited (Etzioni). Consumerism has became a problem because humans are no longer

satisfied with their basic needs but, are relying on material objects to find fulfillment.

“People are incurring debt and working longer hours to pay for the high-consumption

lifestyle” (Mayell) In a culture of buy, buy, buy consumerism affects the working class to

spend more many than they can actually afford.“Diets of highly processed food and the

sedentary lifestyle that goes with heavy reliance on automobiles have led to worldwide

epidemic of obesity”. With fast food so convenient to us this is no surprise that is affecting

the health of the whole world.

Advertisements have been used to promote companies products. We see them

everyday whether it's on television, online, or in stores. As much as we think we ignore

them, they actually have an impact in our lives. “A study by the Institute of Practitioners in
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advertising found that ads with purely emotional content make twice as much profit as ads

based on rational content” (Miller) Companies create purposeful advertisements with the

intention to make money. They use this research to take advantage of what appeals to their

customers. With this research, companies use it to get creative with their advertisements.

“Researchers out of the University of Southern California shows that 31% of successful

advertising campaigns appeal to emotion rather than rationality” There's a reason why

companies spend so much money on creating advertisements. The most successful ones

appeal to the audience's emotion. For as long as american consumerism will be around,

advertisements will be too. Companies spend millions of dollars researching strategies to

advertise their product to get consumers to advertise. As much as we think that we ignore

ads they actually play a role in our spending habits.

The rise of consumerism can be argued that it gives opportunity for businesses to

employ and that it helps our economy. “The living planet calculates that humans are using

30% more resources than earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation,

degraded soils, polluted air and water” (The Guardian). “People are incurring punitive

levels of debt and working longer hours to pay for their high-consumption lifestyle”

(Baker) Not only does consumerism have a big environmental impact, but it also affects the

quality of life of individual human beings. “Every year in the United States, the paper,

aluminum, glass, plastics and other recyclable material we throw away would be worth

$11.4 billion if it were recycled instead” (Lehner) if we were to create a more sustainable

“California's goal of reaching a 75% recycle rate by 2020 could create 110,000 jobs”

(Lehener)
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As americans we need shift towards a more sustainable culture because our society

is leaving a negative impact on our earth, our values, and on how money is being spent

thanks to advertisers manipulating their customers. This may be a huge step to change how

America consumes but, being more sustainable is one big step in the right direction.

Works Cited
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Miller, Carly. “The Dangerous Power of Emotional Advertising.” Contently, Carly Miller,
14 Apr. 2016, contently.com/strategist/2016/04/14/dangerous-power-emotional-
advertising/.

Jowit, Juliette. “World Is Facing a Natural Resources Crisis Worse than Financial Crunch.”The
Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Oct. 2008,
www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/oct/29/climatechange-endangeredhabitats.

Tytyk, Kimberly. “The Psychology of Advertising,Manipulation in Advertising .” StopAd Blog:

Practical Content and Insights, Not Just about Ads, 3 Jan. 2018, stopad.io/blog/manipulating-
maslow-how-advertising-is-hijacking-our-heads-and-making-us-unhappy

Baker, Jalelah Abu. “The Good and Bad Sides of Consumerism.” The Straits Times, 10
July 2016, www.straitstimes.com/opinion/the-good-and-bad-sides-of-consumerism.

Shah, Anup. “Effects of Consumerism.” - Global Issues, 10 Aug. 2005,

www.globalissues.org/article/238/effects-of-consumerism.

Mayell, Hillary. “As Consumerism Spreads, Earth Suffers, Study Says .” National Geographic,
National Geographic Society, 12 Jan. 2004,
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0111_040112_consumerism.html.

“Consumerism and Climate Change: How the Choices You Make Can Help Mitigate the Effects
of Climate Change | Academic Impact.” United Nations, United Nations,
academicimpact.un.org/content/consumerism-and-climate-change-how-choices-you-make-can-
help-mitigate-effects-climate-chan-0.

Lehner, Peter. “Fast Food Trash Nation? Time to Cut Down on Packaging Waste.” NRDC, 15
Dec. 2016, www.nrdc.org/experts/peter-lehner/fast-food-trash-nation-time-cut-down-packaging-
waste.