212 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Consumerism and Waste Products
Increase in demand on depleting resources is never-ending and human beings quest to
achieve breakthroughs in technical advancements will never be final. People to satisfy their
wants and lead a more comfortable life relate the concept of consumerism to increased usage
of consumer goods. People easily adapt to disposable life-style as it leads to a cut down on
household chores. The market forces devise such things to sell comfort to people, which
attract people, the most. Soon people realize that comfort has become the necessity of life.
The Indian market trend and culture is fast adapting to the western society where packed
food material and other life supporting commodities are readily available in packed condition.
Market strategies set to work trying new tactics to get consumers buy more. People in turn
make consumption a way of their life, which leads to generation of solid Waste problems.
People consume and throwaway the refuge at an ever-growing rate.
Packed food resource consumption is, in itself a great problem to deal with. We get easy
food supply even in aeroplanes and trains in packed condition. Besides our daily life activities
related to consumption of flour, vegetable, milk, butter, marketing of household goods and
others all takes place through plastic bags, paper bags, tin cans and others. Plastic bags are
non-biodegradable. So when they are thrown away, they create havoc that is potentially
eternal. Municipal reports from Assam and Haryana speak of drains clogged by discarded
plastic bags, backflow in sewage pipes, and disease spreading through pond-like accumulation
of sewage, which also serves as sites of mosquito breeding.
Nations with high standard of living generate more of solid waste than developing
countries. This causes an ever-increasing burden of garbage, which in turn is related to their
disposal problems. Even land filling and other methods of disposal have their own limitations.
We need ample of land to bury, burn or dispose waste. Ash from incineration is also a major
problem because the ash contains lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic in various proportions
from batteries, lighting fixtures and pigments. The toxic substances are more concentrated
in the ash than in the original garbage and can lead to water pollution. Case studies shows
that even land beneath landfills get polluted and cause air pollution above the ground and
water pollution below the ground.
The most fundamental way to reduce waste is to prevent it from ever becoming waste.
Another way market operations reduce waste is by making consumer products in concentrated
form. Municipal composting is another source-reduction technique. On an individual level,
we can all attempt to reduce the amount of waste we generate. Every small personal
commitment from each of us could have the cumulative result of a significant magnitude in
reducing the solid waste production.
Residues and Wastes
As man engages in the activities associated with living, wastes are produces, these are
products, which have no apparent useful purpose, or they are of such marginal utility that
recovery is uneconomical. Such products include human, residential, agricultural, commercial
and industrial wastes of all kinds. The continuous removal and safe disposal of these wastes
is essential to the continued existence of any community. These wastes may be solid, liquid
or gaseous. Bodily discharges have historically been considered to be very hazardous to
mankind. Intestinal diseases are readily transmitted where water or food is contaminated