Earth Day Analysis: How Waste Hurts the Economy
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/04/22/earth-day-analysis-how-waste-hurts-the-economy/
This article offered a different perspective on how waste affects everyone's lives. Most articles focus on the environmental impacts of how much waste we produce. Scientists can point to the ever increasing landfills and the runoff from them or how greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change. While these are certainly important aspects of waste to look at, cost is something that affects everyone. No one likes cost. Looking at waste in terms of how much it is costing you might help people to waste less. The examples that the article cites are: junk mail, water bottles, and milk.
Junk mail accounts for 50% of the mail in the United States. No one reads this junk mail, and less than half of it gets recycled. Interestingly enough, junk mail is subsidized by our tax dollars. Switching junk mail from letters to email would take less of your tax dollars.
American consumers spent about $11 billion on water bottles in the year 2010 and they cost more per ounce gasoline. Our tap water across the entire United States is at a much higher quality than any other country. Most bottled water just turns out to be bottled tap water with a fancy label, anyway. The amount of oil it takes to produce and deliver the water bottles is about 18 million barrels for just one day of consumption of water bottles. Filling up a reusable water bottle with your tap water will save you money and decrease oil consumption.
30% of all milk is thrown away because of our inability to consume it before the expiration date. One third of everything that goes into the production of milk-cattle feed, storage, pasteurization, shipping, etc.-is wasted. Hunger is a huge problem in the US today, and statistics show that nearly a quarter of our food supply ends up in a landfill. Decreased consumption or more efficient shopping trips will save you money, and the land fill from taking precious food away from your hungry neighbors.
Economic analysis is a great way to think about waste this Earth Day. Hidden costs don't just come in the form of increased greenhouse gas pollution; they impact your wallet, as well.
I think this is an enlightening new way to view the issue of waste in our country. It does seem that Americans justify their waste by glossing over the environmental impacts because they are not readily apparent to the majority of us. However, personal cost to us cannot be ignored. These specific cost numbers should be publicized and compared to other costs we incur on a daily basis to get Americans to realize the needless waste. The issue of junk mail seems absolutely avoidable and needless, and we actually subsidize it with our tax dollars. I feel that a systematic revamping of our mailing system would not be that difficult to implement given the widespread integration of email in our country in the first place. These efforts should be brought about by increased awareness among Americans. Maybe there could be a separate line item on our tax bill that points out the total amount of dollars that contribute to direct wastes every year. If all of us knew of these wasteful costs that directly affect us everyday, we will be willing to change it.
ReplyDeleteDrawing attention to the monetary impact of waste is a great tactic for reducing consumption in the U.S. Especially during these tough economic times, people are doing all they can to save some extra money. Now is the perfect time to promote waste reduction with this approach. However, in keeping with the theme of saving money, many people in the U.S. don't currently recycle because of the cost. In most communities, there is a fee associated with recycling services and some people just aren't willing to pay. If there was some way that our tax dollars could go to support recycling services rather than subsidizing junk mail, we would not only be reducing waste but also increasing recycling. That being said, I think it is also necessary for the government to put some regulations on the amount of junk mail being sent out each year. The fact that possibly half the total mail circulated in the U.S. is thrown away without being read is astounding. Just think of how much money and resources our country would save if a few restrictions were placed on companies and organizations who frequently send out junk mail. I had not considered these options for money saving prior to reading this article, but if our country is looking for ways to save, waste reduction is clearly a great place to start.
ReplyDeleteI still think that it is a sad thing that we have to find secondary means of incentivizing people to respect our planet, but I like that we are so able to put the cost of our consumption in other terms. It gives people yet another way to look at the cost-benefit analysis of consumption here. We can try to appeal to the ethos of environmentalism by showing pictures of birds dying and fields cleared and oil leaks causing problems, but at some point we also have to address the logos of a problem. Especially in today’s age of information, breaking consumption—and waste—down to the numbers of cost-benefit can sell frugality to those who might not necessarily feel the need to make necessary life style changes in order to save the far away panda, “keystone” spider, or valuable shrub. It’s strange that, in order to encourage a lack of waste from consumption, we have to illustrate an opportunity for excess funds that could be used for additional spending (and waste). How does that work?
ReplyDeleteOne thing that really surprised me about this article was the dairy: it makes perfect sense, but I could not believe that a third of dairy was wasted. People make the claim about how cruel or unclean the dairy industry is, but the fact is that there is an apparently wasted demand for dairy. This is different from years ago: our parents used to talk about how nothing got wasted in their day, how they had to eat everything on their plate and be greatfull for it. My dad used to talk about how his mother, in order to provide dairy sustainably to her eight children, would make milk from powdered milk mix, then mix it with some real milk in order for everyone to get both their dairy and at least some decent taste to that. And yet today, a third of our milk, cheese, yogurt, sour cream, and other dairy is thrown out. This speaks a need to educate our generation about the power of waste and the ability to cut back.
Thanks for a sobering post
ReplyDelete