STAFF EDITORIAL
A World Without Waste Begins with US The United States as a country is not conscientious enough about the environmental impacts of its common lifestyle and should be doing more in the name of conservation.
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ipping from that plastic straw, leaving that leaky faucet unrepaired or turning a nose up to that banana that has supposedly gone too brown all seems to occur without a second thought. With this comes the mentality that one person, one action can’t make a significant detriment to the environment. But if this is the outlook of an entire nation, it morphs into one gargantuan carbon footprint. With the rise of a disposable and high-standard culture, the United States is foreseeably on the road to a major conservational problem if people’s lifestyle habits are not readily mended. One major roadblock that has undermined the effectiveness of many ecological issues is the politicization and gradual divisiveness of environmental issues such as climate change. These topics used to be much more bipartisan, and it wasn’t a matter of if they existed, but of how best to approach combating them, according to Time. The United States is fairly unique in its manipulation of these issues into the political agenda in comparison to a number of other developed countries that take problems presented by concerns such as climate change much more seriously, according to CBS News. The growing controversy in these environmental discussions has led to a stagnancy in the passage of any conservational legislation and has given rise to a startling number of Americans questioning the validity of scientific research pertaining to climate change, according to Time. A poll conducted by CBS News and the New York Times found that only 72 percent of Democrats and 32 percent of Republicans believe global warming is caused by human activity. The bleak possibility of national cooperation to take the proper measures toward becoming more environmentally cautious is coupled by the high standard of American living, especially in terms of food, that has led
to an increase in the annual stockpiles of waste in the United States. This growing selectiveness in the realm of food has opened way to a “camera cuisine” phenomenon. People are becoming obsessed about the aesthetics of what is on their plates and raising a standard of acceptance to that of being flawless enough to potentially be put on social media, according to The Atlantic. This infatuation with perfect food has made the general public more discriminatory in the grocery stores, leaving behind produce that, other than being slightly browned, blemished or disfigured, would be perfectly edible. This trend has resulted in over 50 percent, or 60 million tons, of produce in the United States being wasted every year. Now this discarded food is becoming the single largest resident in landfills, according to The Atlantic. The unsustainable national standard of living is even further exacerbated by the expanding fixation with cheap and disposable products. This incessant desire for the newest trend and overall disregard for the old has led to a market of expendability and wastefulness, according to US News. One industry that has exploited this call for fast and cheap products is that of textiles, which has embraced a “fast fashion” mentality. It capitalizes on inexpensive foreign labor and unsustainable environmental practices, according to US News. This practice of low-quality clothing encourages a dangerous disposability where items are worn once or twice and then thrown out, only to continue the process. This throwaway culture is further compounded by the staggering amounts of plastic bottles that are bought and disposed each year and the lack of regard for the global consequences. Worldwide, over 1 million plastic bottles are purchased per minute, but only nine percent of those bottles are actually recycled, according to Forbes. A larger presented problem by these kinds of recyclable yet wasted products is the materials they are manufactured with. A significant percentage of plastic bottles is created with polyethylene terephthalate, a recyclable material that, when thrown out, can take over 400 years to decompose. If the demand for plastic bottles continues to rise, as projections show, by 2050 oceans will contain more weight in plastic than fish, according to Forbes.
SUSTAINABLE STUDENTS
40.7% would
throw away produce if it was blemished but still edible
85.5% believe
Americans should be required to recycle or compost *based on a poll of 172 students (Illustrations by Meg Travis)
10 LE JOURNAL
This startling and unsustainable society that U.S. citizens have instituted has become quite a mountain, but not completely unclimbable yet. In order for these destructive trends to slow down, and potentially even reverse, there must be a widespread call for national and global cooperation and a renewed belief in the power of individual action. It takes the culmination of singular environmental disregards to expedite the deterioration of our global home. But with that could also be the culmination of singular environmental consciousness to preserve Earth and guarantee a prosperous planet for future generations. All it needs to start is that purchase of a reusable straw, that repair to the leaky faucet, and a bite from that blemished banana. This editorial reflects the views of the Le Journal Staff. Twenty-six out of twentysix staff members voted in favor of this editorial.
