Landfill, Civilization, Disposability, Material Culture, - Essay Example

LANDFILL, CIVILIZATION, DISPOSABILITY, MATERIAL CULTURE According to Mary Douglas, people did not realize that waste was a threat until the age of urbanization. As cities grew and population increased, people buried their personal trash, burned it, or let it pile. The piling of waste in urban centers caused stench, contaminated water supplies, perpetuated human disease and harbored rats. The crises led to invention of good waste management techniques. The early methods of managing waste products included disposing them or recycling.

Recycling methods include using green waste as manure, or feeding it to livestock while metals melted and reused in other areas. 1Production of disposable materials is a key concept in waste management. Common waste management practices include decreasing overall waste production, production of disposable materials, use of landfill and recycling. However, use of disposable materials as means of managing waste products has received much criticism from environmentalists.2 For example, recycling of disposable glass bottles, needles and syringes is responsible for spreading HIV, Hepatitis and other viral diseases.

In addition to this, production of disposable material has led to dirtying the environment s such material take time to decompose. In addition to this, as the material decompose; they harbor bacteria and other organisms which cause diseases such as cholera. Lastly, disposable materials encourage users to be irresponsible as they throw waste material anywhere hoping it will decompose.3It is therefore pointless for individuals to rely on disposable products. Instead, they should rely on recyclable materials.

For example, shoppers can carry their goods in reusable bags rather than disposable plastic bags. Similarly, hand towels as well as other disposables should be replaced with cloth towel or hand dryers.4Bibliography1. Gissen, David. 2009. Subnature: architectures other environments : atmospheres, matter, life. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.2. Sheumaker, Helen, and Shirley Teresa Wajda. 2008. Material culture in America: understanding everyday life. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO.3.

Sluiter, I., and Ralph Mark Rosen. 2008. Kakos: badness and anti-value in classical antiquity. Leiden: Brill.4. Trubek, Amy B. 2009. The Taste of Place a Cultural Journey into Terroir. Berkeley: University Presses of California, Columbia and Princeton.