The functionalist theory asserts that if one part of the system fails to work correctly, all of the other parts of the system are harmed; one can see this with the consequences of dumping. Families are harmed when drinking water is contaminated with hazardous fluids that seep into waterways from dump sites and are not completely filtered. The government faces higher costs to clean up dump sites and litter so it raises revenue by increasing taxes on citizens. The money that goes toward funding cleanup crews could have potentially gone to schools to hire more teachers or fund research grants so educational institutions also are harmed. Religious institutions, which already manage themselves financially on the margin, may pay costs to restore property. The economy suffers because the forgone profits used to restore property could have been used by businesses to hire employees or renovate equipment. The broad effects that illegal dumping has on society reveal what may be considered isolated, harmless events contribute to a larger malaise explained by the functionalist perspective.
Illegal dumping can be viewed as an inequality problem because individuals who are guilty of doing it abuse property rights for their own personal gain and break social contracts with society. The social strain felt by all parts of society are caused by individuals or corporations taking advantage of the system. Since equality is valued in American society, it is permissible that either everybody is allowed to dump or nobody is allowed to dump. Since society values clean properties and resources, laws are established for the common good that ban everybody from certain acts of dumping that are enforceable by the legal system.
Due to the broad nature of ille...
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...tes. Adopting an attitude of public service by throwing away litter in public places is an activity that anyone can do to keep our nation clean.
References
Integrated Waste Management Board. (2014). What is illegal dumping? Sonoma County Department of Health Services: Environmental Health Division. Retrieved from http://www.keepsonomaclean.org/ill_dumping.htm
Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. (2014). Highway beautification/adopt-a-highway – enforcing litter laws. Pennsylvania Resources Council. Retrieved from http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Internet/Bureaus/pdHwyBeau.nsf/infoEnforce?OpenForm
Kendall, D. (2013). Sociology in our times (9th ed.). United States of America: Cengage Learning.
Louisvill Metro Government. (2013). Illegal dumping in louisville. City of Louisville, Kentucky. Retrieved from http://www.louisvilleky.gov/SolidWaste/illegaldumping/dumping_louisville.htm
Since 1955, after Life magazine named it so, the United States of America has been called “The Throwaway Society.” In the United States, society is based on the principal of convenience. In every aspect of life, Americans seek to maximize their output while minimizing their input. Americans buy fast food so that they can eat without the burden of grocery shopping, cooking, or cleaning up. Americans get their clothes dry cleaned so that they do not have to worry about the burden of washing, drying, and hanging up their own clothes. And Americans want everything in a neat, ready-to-use package to avoid the burden of preparing it themselves. But these millions of disposable bags, disposable bottles, and disposable cups add up to be a whole mess of trash.
We always hear "do not litter!" or "throw your litter in the bins", maybe some of you bored to hear that yet we still do not throw it in the correct place. Litter is a serious habit problem to just throw away objects on the ground or leave them lying on the ground, instead of putting them in the garbage can. In Indonesia, the amount of litter is 175.000 ton/day and this is increasing every day. But we don't have to see that far, just look around us, our campus, Sanata Dharma University is still facing the littering problems. Each day, although there are various spots of bins and it is never full yet there are many litters lying in the floor, you can see the student hall as the evidence that even though it has 10 spots of bins, we still find people throwing their litter everywhere.
Interstate garbage transfers are a topic that has been under intense public scrutiny from all sides. This scrutiny comes not only from environmental protection agencies and lobbyists, but also from concerned, outraged, and/or disgusted citizens. The natural metaphor would reduce this situation to neighbors. Imagine if one’s neighbor took his trash and through it in one’s trash cans. Who gives him the right to do such a thing? How can he justify giving the things that his family has deemed “trash” to another family? He simply cannot. But if this metaphor is evolved into a more comparable situation to interstate waste transfer, opinions can change. Say this same neighbor took his trash, put it in another family’s garbage, explained that he was
The reason why I pick “dumpster diving and food waste “ is one of important subjects that I strongly believe in. First, I would like to talk about is dumpster diving. Dumpster diving has the cons and their pros. People often dumpster dive for useful things like cans food, clothes , and useful furniture. Things that people need that they cannot afford. There is a saying “Another man's trash is another man's treasure”. Meaning for this quote, a man can throw something away and forget about it. Then someone else will find it makes it their own.
Although littering may not always be intentional, sixty percent of pedestrians and forty percent of motorist deliberately do it (“NCDPS”). Because of all the littering being done, there is an island of trash two times the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean (Cruice-Barnett). This enormous amount of trash damages our environment more and more each day. When looking at it from that perspective, it is much easier to understand exactly how large of a problem littering actually is.
This is more than the amount of trash generated every year which is only 250 million. Suffice to say that people tend to throw things randomly anywhere more often that they throw garbage in trash bins. This adds up to among the reasons why marine life is depleting. If we wonder why there are a lot of fish kills reported almost every day, we might want to think about how we are contributing to it. Many of the endangered animals in the oceans are losing their homes as much as their food resource and that is thanks to the contribution of the billions of litter we produce" (litteritcostsyou.org, paragraph 2). This evidence provides a statistical analysis about littering and how it affects our oceans. Nine billion tons is a huge proportion, and all of this litter evidently comes from us. If this trend continues, it’s unlikely that the oceans’ inhabitants will live full lives and fight extinction. As GreenPeace Organization puts it, “We dump more garbage into the ocean, than the tonnage of fish we take out. We can choose to stop doing that and that will be one less pollutant choking our seas.” Society needs to make that choice quick, or else one day there may not be an ocean to protect. This may seem harsh and unrealistic, but do we really want to have a “wait and see what happens” attitude about such an important issue? Plus, cleaning up after ourselves and preventing ocean pollution is easier than you may think. Greenecoservices.com gives a great deal of insight on simple everyday things we can do to save our oceans, "There are many ways that you can help make your community cleaner. Here are 12 suggestions: Set an example by not littering… Pick up one piece of litter every day… Every week, pick up all the litter in front of your house, including the street…Ask your neighbors to properly dispose of their trash. Show them the difference between a clean area and an area spoiled by litter, and stress why it’s
Schaefer, Richard T. Sociology Matters, 6th Ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 01 Jan. 2013. 228-232
umans generate millions of tons of waste which goes to who knows where. In 2013, the United States alone accumulated 254-million tons of trash. (EPA, 2013) Unfortunately, this massive amount of garbage does not just go away. Instead, it goes somewhere else. Many developed countries, such as the European Union, resort to “environmental dumping”. This is when trash from a developed country is literally dumped onto the territory of undeveloped countries, like Africa. Although there are agreements between countries, illegal dumping still occurs. (Syeda et al., 2013)
It may seem harmless and innocent, but littering is an unhealthy habit people of all ages in each country do every day. Littering is a second nature to some people; after doing it for so long and often, they do not realize they do it. As more and more people continue to litter, environments, animals, and humans are being harmed by people’s carless actions. Americans, as well as all humans, need to be more aware of how hazardous and costly littering is to the world and the creatures living in it. Littering shows lack of respect for the world, and needs to be prevented in order for future generations to live in a clean and healthy environment.
[10] Kendall, Diana, et al. Sociology in Our Times. ITP Nelson and Co. Toronto, 1997. 126.
garbage in the U.S is getting higher at a rapid rate, causing problems to our environment, health,
We are so ignorant in regards to how we should handle this problem instead of finding clean useful alternatives we've mainly chosen to burn it releasing harmful chemicals in the air of dumping it somewhere letting it build up over time. The amount of trash build up in this country is ridiculous but i mostly blame the amount of people who ignore the trash build up in our society. Our only solution is that we find more eco friendly and more safe ways into disposing trash. Our world as we know it is heavily increasing in population with that follows our
What is Illegal dumping it is the improper waste disposal at a dumpster or any where other than a landfill or in an unauthorized landfill. It's known to pose a threat to the environment and human health which is not a good thing for humans. Illegal dumping happens most of the time at
Preserving the environment is very important. One way that would be possible is by recycling. Recycling is the recovery and reprocessing of waste materials for use in new products. There are important environmental and economic benefits connected with recycling. Common materials that are recycled consist of aluminum cans, glass, paper, wood, and plastic (“Recycling”). Cleveland, Ohio joined the ranks of requiring recycling and also fines the homeowners for not disposing of waste correctly or leaving cans out too early or too long (McElroy 1). Michele McCay says that recycling is one of the easiest, most tangible ways of taking action for the planet (par. 1). If that is the case, why is it not required in all states? Recycling should be mandatory because it saves natural resources, it conserves energy, and it reduces pollution.
People should know the negative impact throwing away a water bottle or newspaper, purchasing meat from the grocery store or consuming gasoline has on the environment, and many do not. By informing society about how their decisions affect the environment, we can help save our planet and change our attitude toward the land we live on, the water we drink and the air we breathe” and truly show respect for the stuff that we depend on. The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid waste each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and the environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet.