The Hidden Life Of Garbage Analysis

we’re wasteful. In order to find solutions for our trash problem, we must first admit that we are

The book, American Wasteland: How American Throw Away Nearly Half of Its Food, written by Jonathan Bloom, deeply describes the situation of food waste in America. The author, Bloom, starts off the book by mentioning that each day America squanders enough food tone fill up the Rose Bowl, the football stadium in Pasadena, California (xi). Bloom even brings out a specific number to prove that how much food were wasted in the United States, which is 160 billion pounds annually (xii). From that description and figure, we can see that food waste problem is really serious today.

Heather Roger claims our current garbage disposal methods are short term and etiquette. Rogers’s position is clear that we need to minimize the use of landfills and create better means to discard trash. In supporting Rogers’s environment views I think that we need to create a more economic and environmental friendly garbage disposal system. Heather Rogers and Lars Eighner both acknowledge the issue with society’s throwaway mentality. Eighner proves that we throw away perfectly working stuff, having survived off others discarded materials. Eighner argues against excessive waste we create but does not have any prospected solutions. Whereas Rogers acknowledges the obvious need to minimize our consumption of waste but argues the need

5 Ways You Give The Government Control” written by Kenneth Coats shows how the devices we use daily slowly take over individuals lives. Coats states, “Today, most people in the United States carry a mobile phone that accompanies them wherever they go. We use them for everything...This essentially makes them the perfect tracking and bugging devices”. Although electronic devices are known to be safe, they allow outside people to figure out individuals personal life. Due to the need for devices such as cell phones, each individual has a high chance of being socially stalked once in their lifetime. Coats then states, “Not only do intelligence agencies gather information via mobile companies, but… your phone can be hacked using spyware. Even if your phone is turned off, it can be remotely accessed to recorded conversations and take photographs”. This issue causes a panic due to the wide spread of inappropriate pictures and private conversations in one's life. Even though technology is viewed as a privileged, it is also taking away people's lives without their

Nicholas Carr is an American author who writes the majority of books and articles about the continuously evolving world of technology and how it is effecting our society. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. In this essay I will be rhetorically analyzing Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” published in 2008. The purpose of Carr’s essay was to bring light to an issue that many of us face but only a meniscal few have come to terms with; and that is that technology is mentally incapacitating our society and simultaneously making us lazy. This essay was intended for anyone was has been consumed in today’s culture by new technological advances to the extent of not being able to function without some sort of device, IE cellphone, laptop or tablet on a daily basis.

Food waste is an environmental, economic, and ethical problem that can lead to less calorie intake and unnecessary damage of our assets. Individual behavior can redesign food waste at home and lead to bigger changes in the ecosystem. The problem is Americans throw out more food than glass, paper, and plastic. Also about 25% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane— a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Many individuals are accustomed to waste at least a portion of what they buy, whether it is food, clothes, furniture, supplies, or materials worldwide. According to the article: “On Dumpster Diving” many valuable items were found by the homeless who searched the dumpster for food. Surprisingly, they found useful items that helped them survive throughout each day. In fact, the products were worth for the exchange of money. At certain times, I myself may be considered to be a wasteful person during certain times such as, not finishing my drink and throwing more than half of it away. While rushing at work during break, this is a usual situation for many people Although, it isn't necessarily on purpose it is considered wasteful, valuable and influence advertising.

Technology has become more accessible to the point it has become easier for government to watch everyone's move. In this generation technology takes over everyone's daily life, where people wakes up and the first thing is look at is the phone. A phone there are many things on it, like text, pictures and videos. Phones can do many things, but there is a possibility where the government can tap into a phone and look through it. The government can watch everyone’s: text, history, private info, and pictures. Government has no right to looking through people’s personal info because it violates Fourth amendment, Blackmail, and Creates fear.

“Google is my best friend,” said many people in today’s world. Technology was made to make life much easier than it is, but is it really making easier or is it making people stupid? In the article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, author Nicholas Carr conveys a message to his readers on how he believes the internet is making people today stupid and how it is fake knowledge. Carr starts off with an explanation on how he feels while reading a book to get his readers to connect with him by letting his audience that he gets fidgety and zones out when reading and a lot of people can relate to this because they too can get fidgety and lose focus when reading a text. “For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the internet,” (3). Carr goes to talk about his life surrounding the internet and how it brings upon the issues that he has when it comes to reading a single text. Carr uses many rhetorical devices such as imagery and personal experience to draw his readers in to inform and

This is a result of the attitude of knowing one can get more where they got what they have. In “On Dumpster Diving,” Lars Eighner explains how we get an attitude of knowing we can always get more. “I think this is an attitude I share with the very wealthy - we both know there is plenty more where what we have came from” (Eighner, 13). When one works to earn something whether it be money or an object of value, they are less likely to be wasteful. Also, Lars Eighner explains how what he has already been thrown out once so it is valueless to someone.

Mostly everyone in the population owns a cell phone, which has a feature that allows it to be tracked. A perfect example is found on an iPhone because it has a feature called, “Find my iPhone” and once you turn it on it gives you the exact location of it. In the article, “That’s no Phone. That’s my Tracker” by The New York Times talks about this specific feature and the fact that the law enforcement requests for the call data (Maass 1). The article also states that the government has been monitoring the calls people have made and the location they were made. When the government asks for the data they do not need any search warrants when they ask for the location data from the carriers. The cellular device does not only track us, but also saves our text messages, our web history, and the amount of money we have saved (Maass 1). This helps prove that the government can use our own personal information against us, whenever they have evidence that we have committed a crime. The novel Nineteen Eighty- Four talks about having television monitors that recorded every person in what they did and said. The government used this to make sure crime rates went down and that fugitives were easily found (Maass 1). In the article it also states that we have been using our cell phones more for web browsing, playing games, and listening to music rather than making phone calls (Maass 1). This is honestly true

Throughout history each new-fangled communication revolution arrived with warnings and forecasts of the upcoming termination of civilization as we know it. In Nikki Swartz article “Mobile Phone Tracking Scrutinized," and "Reach Out and Track Someone," published by Terry J. Allen, are two articles that address the topic of accessible cell phone tracking data. Both of the articles list the companies who are guilty of obtaining and possessing the information of people’s whereabouts via cellphones. Swartz scrutiny on whether cell phone tracking by the government is right or wrong, and Allen’s belief that unauthorized phone tracking should be allowed and that law enforcement and government use this information to solve crimes and aid in putting the people who do horrible things in our society away, have forced me to consider how cell phones have affected the lives of American citizens.

In our homes waste caused because we don’t pay attention; we are inattentive and ignorant. For some of us, it just isn’t important. (Jones, Dive!)

In America, we are constantly surrounded by abundance. Food is a prevalent waste item in the United States. Most people do not think about the resources it took to produce, transport, and prepare the food they throw away. Our food waste is not actually just trash; it is the key to human survival. Ordinary consumers can change the future with one small action: to stop wasting food. Actions at the individual level can decrease food waste and feed those in need. Twenty five percent of purchased food is thrown away. (TED) Often this is because food has spoiled, but it can be for other reasons such as oversupply, misread labels, or individual consumer shopping and eating habits. http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3347e/i3347e.pdf

American citizens throw away millions of tons of garbage each year, and this trash has to go somewhere. While there are projects underway to clean and reuse this refuse most of it gets dumped into huge landfills. These landfills are disgusting festering blisters on our country's landscape. But people continue to consume and throw away more and more in the name of convenience. As they see it, when things get old, throw it away and get a new one. They blame the government for the trash problem, but the truth blame should be placed on themselves.