Karah Hughes

Prof. Jan Babcock

RCL137H

11.19.2021

The Journey from Consumerism to Sustainability

Throughout history, humans have had to deal with the issue of waste management and the

allocation of common goods. For most of the past, the waste in question was simply biological

waste that just needed a system that would transport it to a place where it could properly

decompose without getting in the way. The people of the Indus River Valley civilizations created

primitive toilets, the people of medieval England threw their waste into gutters, and the people of

the present day have countless waste management services. But ever since the rise in

consumerism in the late nineteenth century, the production of items and their discardment

increasingly affects the Earth’s environment, leading to adverse effects like a rise in pollution

and greenhouse gas levels, endangering the public goods of the water and air supplies. These

adverse effects are contributing to the undeniable climate change, which indicates the ending of a

habitable Earth. Luckily, steps are being taken to make waste management more conducive to

preserving the environment. Much of the world has taken action to curb the progress of climate

change as a rise in sustainable habits have infiltrated personal and corporate life alike in recent

years.

Increased wasteful consumption following the second industrial revolution laid the

foundation for the United States’ current wasteful habits. Farming technology advanced,

resulting in greatly increased outputs from farms and allowing more men to join different

occupations without worrying about growing their own food to put on the table. As such,
families moved to urban locations to follow the increase of jobs. Previously on farms, families

had to use everything they could and dealt with the management of their own waste and rubbish,

but as they moved towards cities, waste began to pile up. Families could no longer compost their

food scraps or feed them to their pigs, they no longer needed to mend all of their clothes when a

department store was a block away. Waste began to pile up. Yet, this all came to a startling halt

for roughly a decade with the Great Depression, where roughly a quarter of the population was

placed out of work due to severe economic recession. People began using every scrap of

everything they came across again because they could not afford to purchase new things. But

once the economy picked up and industrialization returned during World War II, waste grew

exponentially.

The United States, along with the rest of the world, rebounded economically since the

Second World War and even more so in recent decades due to the increase in urbanization. As

people flock to urban centers in search of jobs, their waste accumulates in a small area of land,

greatly harming the area around. For instance, India’s population has increased by at least 50%

every decade from 1961 until 2001; they went from having only 2 cities with a population of

over one million in 1941 to having 35 of such cities in 2001 (Bhuvandas). Material waste piles in

rivers and smog pollutes the air. This general urbanization trend is global and affects nearly

every country, while not to such an extreme degree. But with more workers living in densely

populated areas, commerce thrives and thus the economy prospers, leading to an increase in the

average household income and therefore more expendable funds to spend on goods. These are

the conditions that feed consumerism.

Consumerism has been on the rise since the Roaring Twenties (excluding the break

during the Great Depression) and has been using progressively less sustainable methods and
materials as time goes on. Mail order catalogs made purchasing anything as easy as mailing a

check and order form ever since 1872 which only grew in popularity from then (“A Visual

History of the Catalog”). One could even buy a house through the mail at one point. Thus, fewer

people wanted to spend their time mending broken and tattered belongings when a shiny new

one was conveniently only a few business days away. As technology continued to advance, items

stopped being made of durable wood or metal and started being made of flimsy plastic.

Belongings started to break more, requiring more replacements to be purchased, and thus the

cycle continued. In recent years, mail order catalogs evolved into online shopping, and so

purchasing goods became even easier. With a few clicks of a button, nearly any good or service

can be ordered and delivered to a home, office building,or P.O. box. Amazon holds a near

monopoly on this market, offering free same-day or one-day shipping to subscription paying

patrons. But these rapid shipments entail closely departing delivery trucks and planes, efficiently

using fossil fuel for the convenience of customers. Additionally, companies like Amazon

standardize their packaging, often wasting packaging materials. At the end of the day, the waste

produced by the increase in consumerist behavior like air pollution from the fossil fuels and trash

dumped in landfills, continues to contaminate the Earth’s climate system and causes nearly

irreversible damage.

Climate studies have been around since the nineteenth century, but the findings from the

studies during the twentieth century uncovered troubling trends alluding to the near end of a

hospitable Earth. Climate science in the United States was at first used solely for military

purposes; universities and research organizations like the National Center for Atmospheric

Research (NCAR) received funding from the government to study ways to control the climate

during the Cold War (Baker). As these government scientists soon found out, humans cannot
control the weather directly through scientific inventions, but rather by behavioral changes that

span over decades. A scientist by the name of Charles David Kelling confirmed without a doubt

that carbon dioxide levels were rising in the atmosphere. Rising carbon dioxide levels changes

the composition of the atmosphere and traps heat in the atmosphere instead of letting it dissipate

back into space. Additionally, the air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels destroys the ozone

layer, a crucial defense against the Sun’s harmful rays. As holes appear in the ozone, more heat is

let in as well. Both factors contribute to the consistently rising average temperatures on Earth

(which gave the namesake “Global Warming'').

This “Global Warming” is a crisis of utmost importance, as the current ecosystems that

populate the Earth can only survive in their respectives climates, and are highly sensitive to

changes in temperature. Over the 4.6 billion years that the Earth has existed, life has only been

around for roughly 3.5 billion years, as it took the Earth one billion years to finally cool to a

hospitable temperature after its collision with Theia. It took billions of years after that for the

microbial life to evolve into multi-celled organisms, and even longer still for those organisms to

make their way onto land. Organisms need this gradual change to properly evolve to suit their

environment, and the natural process of the Earth allows for this. But the manmade climate

change the world is faced with now is accelerating far faster than any organism can adapt to. In

addition to the rise in temperature, pollution also contaminates the ecosystems, killing even more

organisms. At the given moment, the most susceptible organisms are sealife, organisms that live

in relatively barren environments, and humans of the lower class. Over her career as a doctor, Dr.

Cheryl Holder has seen the degradation of the health of a community of lower class citizens in

Florida that is directly tied to the change in climate (Holder). Dr. Holder, among countless others,
demands a change in the way the world leaders treat climate change in order to protect the world

around them.

In recent years, international organizations like the United Nations have stepped up to

create solutions to curb the progression of climate change. Working at an international level, the

United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (also known as the IPCC) assesses

the nature of climate change and the ways in which the members of the United Nations can stop

it. The IPCC is organized into three working groups and one task force that analyze the physical

characteristics of the climate system (Working Group I), the socio-economic effects of climate

change (Working Group II) and the options to mitigate the effects of climate change (Working

Group III), and to manage the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Program (Task Force I)

(IPCC). This body’s main goal is simply to analyze the intersectional data they gather relating

the changes in climate and relay it to the United Nations as a general body that will use the

information the IPCC gathered to make informed decisions. But the United Nations faces the

same problem that any international organization faces; each member of the organization has a

different opinion on how climate change should be mitigated and to what degree each state actor

should contribute to the fight against the crisis. While the facts on paper are all the same, each

member interprets it differently, which leads to prolonged meetings discussing solutions and

inadequate compromises. Thankfully solutions are still being devised as climate change begins to

take a more visible position in everyday life.

Regardless of what jargon the scientific studies use to describe the changes in climate, the

effects of such phenomena are increasingly evident to the untrained person. Many cities are

covered in visible smog such that a grey haze surrounds an otherwise beautiful skyline. In select

cities, the inhabitants are even advised to wear face masks to protect their lungs from the
pollution. Additionally, material waste litters the sides of highways and rivers, and pictures of the

trash island in the Pacific Ocean circulate around the internet from time to time. Aside from the

literally visible pollution, the effects of climate change are also visible over long periods of time.

The increase of extreme weather events over the last few decades are the leading indicator that

the Earth’s climate system is changing. Wildfires are increasingly more common as average

temperatures rise, as seen in California's exorbitant amount of wildfires each summer.

Furthermore, the now annual polar vortexes indicate that the system is changing significantly as

the sudden tundric conditions sweep as far down as Maryland at times, an area unused to such

frigid temperatures. It is no coincidence that all of these patterns are becoming more severe and

more frequent, it is all a culmination of the unsustainable habits humans have developed that

have led to this man made climate change. Because of their past actions, the future of humanity

is in jeopardy.

Humanity has always wished to exist forever, but as climate change threatens that dream,

humans begin to search for solutions. The presence of an afterlife and the emphasis on

propensity in almost all cultures implies this desire for eternal existence, but the human race

cannot live forever if the Earth cannot sustain them. The culmination of the visible degradation

of the Earth along with the statistics to support the observation have spurred a movement to lead

a more sustainable life to ensure the longevity of humanity. This shift in the general sentiments

of the public has led to various social initiatives to engage as many people as possible, with the

emphasis on what individuals can do to help change the world for the better. While climate

change is not simply a matter of unsustainable habits of each individual person, it is a start in the

right direction that grants power over a crisis that leaves a feeling of helplessness. In reality,

climate change is spurred by excessive pollution from corporations in tandem with the wasteful
behaviors of individuals. Nevertheless, each individual has power and a responsibility to do what

they can to better the Earth and make sure it does not fall to ruin due to climate change. But for

each individual to contribute to the healing of the Earth’s climate system, they first must be

educated in ways that will effectively do the aforementioned healing. This education is best

introduced to a generation when they are children, but that does not discount adults from learning

about the same practices.

The mantra preached to children since elementary school is the most viable solution to

curb the progression of climate change on the individual level. “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” has

become a commonplace that succinctly reminds everyone of the three best options to help save

the Earth. First, reduce what one uses, then reuse what one has, and finally recycle waste instead

of sending it to landfill. Most people only opt for the second step, as if the cycle presents a series

of options instead of a plan of steps to use concurrently; they purchase reusable, durable items

instead of single-use items. This is evident in the “Save the Turtles” fad that swept TikTok in

2019 and 2020, where reusable straws were a sign of sustainable efforts. This is helpful to a

point, but all steps of the cycle must be followed. But to be followed, the steps also must be

taught in a comprehensive way to fully bring about change. Initiatives have been taken in school

systems to educate students from kindergarten to university level about the sustainability cycle in

such a way that it completely changes how the future generations view sustainability. Even in

preparing teachers to teach their students about sustainability, there is a change for the better in

the way those teachers view and practice sustainability outside of the classroom, as found in a

2017 case study (Foley et al.). To put it simply, merely educating the populus brings about the

change needed to see a prosperous and healthy climate system. The commonplace of the three
R’s is a helpful starting point, but they must be explained fully in order to competently follow the

cycle.

Reducing consumption is the biggest change in order to save the planet, but demands a

change in lifestyle that many are willing to make. These changes do not necessarily have to be

huge, but they do need to occur. A case study undertaken by CalRecycle found that their printer

paper usage was reduced by a quarter by simply encouraging new behavior when it came to

printing documents (“Implementing Waste Reduction”). The CalRecycle headquarters office

simply asked their employees to make small changes like using emails instead of paper memos

or printing double-sided documents instead of single-sided ones. Paper is a relatively simple

example for reducing waste, but this principle applies to every consumable good imaginable.

Clothes are a difficult good to reduce consumption with, but an especially pertinent one. Much of

the fashion industry now is considered “fast fashion” that relies heavily on the ever-changing

fads to make exorbitant amounts of money. This type of fashion mass produces clothing in

sweatshops in foreign countries and therefore produces a lot of waste and leaves a large carbon

footprint from shipping the goods halfway across the world. But to sustainably purchase clothes

does not mean to not be in style; a simple way to achieve both is to have a closet of basic staple

clothes and on occasion purchase a trendy article of clothing. Material objects are not the only

things whose consumption should be reduced, but water and energy consumption need to be

reduced. The consumption of both use unsustainable processes to make them usable for humans;

water treatment plants need power to purify the water, and energy is often derived from

non-renewable fossil fuels. When the reduction of consumption is not possible, then there is a

need to reuse.
 Reusing items is often done unconsciously, but a more conscious effort is needed to

ensure the longevity of the Earth. Each time a new use is found for something, that item is saved

from a landfill and thus its carbon footprint is slightly reduced. Opting for reusable items has

become a trend in popular culture as mentioned before; reusable straws had their moment a few

years ago but their impact is still around. Additionally, many people have taken to substituting

single-use plastic bags with reusable tote bags and upcycling their clothes or other items that

have otherwise lost their use. Upcycling is the process of taking something that no longer serves

its original use and changing it physically to serve a new purpose. This could mean turning a

shirt into a bag or a broken plate into a wall decoration, the possibilities are endless. Upcycling

has become popular due to the ability to get creative and customize the new item. Upcycling and

reusing an object can theoretically happen an infinite amount of times, and should be pursued as

many times as possible. But not everything can be reused, when this occurs, recycling comes into

play.

Recycling, while still crucial to the sustainability cycle, still produces waste and can be

just as harmful to the environment as landfills when done incorrectly. Recycling requires a lot of

knowledge and can be intimidating, which discourages many people from pursuing it. The EPA

found that only roughly one third of households in the United States routinely recycles (US

EPA). The rules for recycling are logical yet still a hurdle that prevents many from doing so. The

machines at recycling centers can only work with certain standardized materials and many

conglomerate materials can clog or break the machines. As a general rule, clean cans, glasses,

hard plastics, cardboard, and paper can all be recycled. Some regions may take various other

items, and some recycling plants have drop-off locations for items like batteries and sheet metals.

As for clothing and homegoods, donating them accomplishes both recycling and an act of charity
to help people in need, and the donation sites manually take what they can use and discard those

they cannot use. But with more traditional recycling, there is little room for error. The difference

between the different plastics and which containers cannot be recycled can be daunting. Luckily,

some places are making it easier by providing informational graphics on how to sort the

recyclable materials.

Any effort towards leading a more sustainable life greatly benefits the Earth, regardless

of how big or small. Each individual action adds up and will eventually lead to a cleaner world.

While corporations still contribute the most waste, the citizens of the Earth still must do what

they can to minimize their consumption and waste. The world has seen rapid changes in many

aspects, from the advancement of technology to the rapidly increasing temperature of the Earth’s

biosphere. Humans have caused this crisis and thus are responsible for resolving it. In recent

years, there has been a shift in the attitude towards sustainability, where many agree it is the only

way to save the Earth and its inhabitants. People are giving up their previously comfortable lives

built on convenience for more sustainable ones to ensure the posterity of humanity. Education is

the cornerstone of this change in sentiments and the implementation of the “Reduce, Reuse,

Recycle” cycle as a commonplace shows that sustainability has become intertwined with popular

culture.
 Works Cited

“A Visual History of the Catalog.” Publitas.com, 2017,

www.publitas.com/blog/a-visual-history-of-the-catalog/.

Baker, Zeke. “Climate State: Science-State Struggles and the Formation of Climate Science in

the US from the 1930s to 1960s.” Social Studies of Science, vol. 47, no. 6, 21 Aug. 2017,

pp. 861–887, 10.1177/0306312717725205. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019.

Bhuvandas, Nishi. Impacts of Urbanisation on Environment Analysis of Trend of Extreme Daily

Temperature of Abu Dhabi City, UAE View Project. 2012.

Foley, Rider W., et al. “Learning Outcomes in Sustainability Education among Future

Elementary School Teachers.” Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, vol.

11, no. 1, Mar. 2017, pp. 33–51, 10.1177/0973408217725861. Accessed 24 Aug. 2021.

Holder, Cheryl. “The Link between Climate Change, Health and Poverty.” Www.ted.com, 1591,

www.ted.com/talks/cheryl_holder_the_link_between_climate_change_health_and_povert

y?language=en#t-246391. Accessed 19 Nov. 2021.

“Implementing Waste Reduction.” Www.calrecycle.ca.gov, 22 Nov. 2019,

www.calrecycle.ca.gov/stateagency/assistance/4rsguide/implement. Accessed 19 Nov.

2021.

IPCC. “About — IPCC.” Ipcc.ch, IPCC, 2019, www.ipcc.ch/about/.

US EPA. “National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling | US EPA.”

US EPA, US EPA, 26 Oct. 2018,

www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-f

acts-and-figures-materials.