Material economy
Introduction:
The cycle of stuff moves respectively from
extraction to production to the distribution to consumption to disposal. This
system is interacting with cutlers, economies, and the environment. Because of
consumerism, the natural resources are running out quickly as we cut down
trees, demolish mountains, and wipe out the animals. Today there is 80% of the
world’s forest has consumed, as a result, the CO2 emission which is the major
cause of global warming has hugely rose up and the environment got polluted.
Extraction:
As stated
in the Story of stuff "Extraction means taking the planet’s resources-
wood, minerals, coal, fossil fuel, water, plants, animals, and soil out of the
earth and starting their journey through the materials economy"(2007).
This through decades have changed the climate, wiped out species, used up
potable water and create environment pollution affecting our health and
increased illnesses and serious diseases threatening our life like cancer.
Worker who
are directly involved in extraction process get exposed to health hazards and
fatal accidents at work. Therefore, it is highly recommended to start from now
eliminate our consumption of resources and improving our extractive habits and
find ways to preserve the natural resources and increase material by looking
into other alternates to secure our forthcoming generations.
Production:
Production
process relies basically on row materials, energy and chemicals. Ultimately we
consume huge amount of natural resources to produce toxic products and
eventually polluting the environment. This process utilize water, trees and
minerals lead after short time to health problems as most of the products
contain harmful toxics affecting our health and the environment like climate
change, water depletion, waste, air pollution and toxics everywhere around us
causing serious illnesses. Poor factory workers from both sex exposed to toxic
chemicals in the workplaces everyday more than others and. As stated in the
story of stuff "Recycling and
composting are necessary steps in the path to Zero Waste – and we can do much
better than subsidizing polluters and pretending we’re too broke to invest in a
healthier future"( Wilson,
2012)
.Distribution:
Distribution
is to sell out as much as product as quickly as possible with the most minimum
cost in order not to increase the price and get more customers and subsequently
secures materials movement. However the distribution needed and the energy
consumed, is not taken into account when costs of stuff are measured. The
environment impact here is very obvious as the used energy for transporting the
products and temperature control to keep the stuff in good conditions and the
area of transporting and storing the huge stuff around the world eating more
lands and affecting the wildlife and farms. In order to keep low price,
companies using cheap workers for long term without health care. We therefore should plan to reduce
the negative impact against environment and society by following efficient
strategies like fair trade agreements, green buildings, sustainability in land
use.
Consumption:
Consumption
is the practice that we do to any substance of things lead to damaging them,
like utilization of goods or services that affect our income and the natural
resources. The ways of man consumption is not fair and need to be changed to
preserve all related aspects that might be affected as we abuse consumption
behavior like environment, health and natural resources. Obviously
the consumption level is rising as more people using more resources and energy
which generate more waste affect environment. The huge development in the world
made us hungry to own the latest products, and people work much more under
stress which leads to negative impact to our families stability and health.
Therefore, we start these behaviors and consume the least as needed, we need to
get rid of consumerism and start thinking differently.
Disposal:
As stated
in the Story of stuff "Virtually all the resources flowing through the materials
economy eventually end up as waste to be disposed somewhere, usually dumped or
burned or recovered for recycling" (2007). All wastes will need to be
disposed properly either by dumping, burning
or recycling, where each of these ways has negative impact to the
environment and land space which in turn reduce the natural resources. Disposal
process whether landfill or recycling has contamination emission which threat
all creatures health including man who either directly or indict get exposed. Therefore, we need to eliminate our
consumption to our need, reduce the amount of waste and start thinking in
efficient ways of disposing process with less contaminates.
Consumerism
in UAE:
As stated
in the National "A prevailing state of consumerism has hindered the
strengthening of Emirati society for the last generation"(Humaid, 2011).
Consumerism is often observed as a desire to spend more, for the last two
decades, UAE became one of the most growing economy in the middle east where
both local and expatriates are living very high life standard. This lead to
growth of consumerism and had greatly affected the social, cultural and
economic structure of UAE society. The high desires of individuals to change
and improve their living conditions had led to negative impact and helped
consumerism to increase in the lives of people as they earn high income in
comparison with their Arab counterparts and they became unethically customers
in exercising their rights in the marketplace. In order to eliminate the level of
consumerism, people need to be aware to how to preserve and respect the legacy
of the first generations to be more creative than consumers.
Conclusion:
In
conclusion, as explained above, the main factors driving the cycle of stuff
movement are extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal.
Each one is virtually affecting our life in different aspects as lack of
natural resources, pollution to the environment around us and subsequently
threating to the new generations future. Awareness sessions should be conducted
to educate people of the disadvantages of abuses and irresponsible exploitation
of the natural resources.
NAME:
SALEH SALEM ALKURBI
WORDS:
980
CIQ
