Tma1
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- Date Submitted: 09/14/2011 05:56 AM
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TMA 02. Outline the ways in which rubbish can be said to have a value in a consumer society.
Consumerism, value and use all play key roles in the way we look at “rubbish”. Rubbish and waste can play either a positive or negative effect on our environment depending on its worth and social distinctions. Through this essay I shall portray how in today’s society rubbish can be sees as having value whether through economical means or material means and also how we value such items. “Items don’t simply have value by virtue of their physical properties. Items have value because people value them”. (Making social lives p.105)
How we as society value.
When we look at how we value items it is important to understand that items take on more or less value depending on who is valuing such objects. With this concept in mind we can see how “value” as a universal perception can have different senses such as “use value” “intrinsic value” and “economic value”. All these senses determine just how we categorize what we see before us. How we value is also dependant on how we live our lives for example our moral standing in society can give what others may see as rubbish or waste value. A concern for the environment has also had a dramatic effect on how we value such items for example items that were once thought of as worthless now generate value through there recyclable worth such as plastics, glass and food waste .it is now more cost effective to recycle rather than start from zero and safer to the environment. In his book Rubbish theory Michael Thompson suggests that there are three different categories’ that determine how objects pass into and out of the category of rubbish, these are as follows ‘transient’ which gives items a sort of expirery date suggesting that items lose value over time such as mobile phones, then the ‘rubbish category’ made up of items with zero value such as obsolete or broken phones which have no saleable value and lastly the ‘durable’ category for...
Consumerism, value and use all play key roles in the way we look at “rubbish”. Rubbish and waste can play either a positive or negative effect on our environment depending on its worth and social distinctions. Through this essay I shall portray how in today’s society rubbish can be sees as having value whether through economical means or material means and also how we value such items. “Items don’t simply have value by virtue of their physical properties. Items have value because people value them”. (Making social lives p.105)
How we as society value.
When we look at how we value items it is important to understand that items take on more or less value depending on who is valuing such objects. With this concept in mind we can see how “value” as a universal perception can have different senses such as “use value” “intrinsic value” and “economic value”. All these senses determine just how we categorize what we see before us. How we value is also dependant on how we live our lives for example our moral standing in society can give what others may see as rubbish or waste value. A concern for the environment has also had a dramatic effect on how we value such items for example items that were once thought of as worthless now generate value through there recyclable worth such as plastics, glass and food waste .it is now more cost effective to recycle rather than start from zero and safer to the environment. In his book Rubbish theory Michael Thompson suggests that there are three different categories’ that determine how objects pass into and out of the category of rubbish, these are as follows ‘transient’ which gives items a sort of expirery date suggesting that items lose value over time such as mobile phones, then the ‘rubbish category’ made up of items with zero value such as obsolete or broken phones which have no saleable value and lastly the ‘durable’ category for...