This essay will outline the question of whether or not a consumer society leads to a Throwaway society. It will do this by first looking at the definition of a ’Consumer Society’ and that of a ‘Throwaway Society’. It will then go on to show the claims that are made linking this consumer society to a throwaway society and the evidence that supports these claims. It will look at the rise of the consumer society and how people consume, leading directly to the growth of waste we produce. Concluding with how consumers and producers play a role within a consumer society which then produces a throwaway society. Firstly, a ‘Consumer Society’ is defined as ‘a society in which the buying and selling of consumer goods and services is the predominant social …show more content…
It was mentioned earlier, about how large percentages of goods are now produced from outside the UK, an example shown being a typical global supply chain for garment production from Asia to the U.K. (Allen,J. 2014 fig 6.8 Pg.173.) Thus, products are cheap to produce and cheap to buy, this points to being a feature of a throwaway society. There are now large amounts of clothing thrown away, mainly because of changes in fashion and price, due in part to coverage of fashion and the ‘cult’ of celebrity within the media, demanding new fashion designs from retailers and designers all at a cheap price, for consumption by us. For example, new fashion collections seem to be brought out for every season when once this would not have happened (The Open University 2016 a) Clothes and their accessories have now become so cheap that stores like Primark and online stores like the £5 shop cater for people wanting to buy stylish yet cheap items and wearing them once or twice and then discarding them. A report by Defra (2012) cited in Prabhakar (2014, p. 230) noted the evidence of this throwaway society is that with our growing Affluence it shows that there has also been a growth in waste, fig 8.1 shows that in 1991-2 household waste per person was 435 kg per year, rising and plateauing between 2006-7 to 515 kg per person per year thus showing a correlation between affluence and