Week 2: Topic: Plastic Waste and Its Impact on Ecosystems

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed
Date:18th September 2019
Professor: Marcela Godoy

Week 2: Topic: Plastic Waste and Its Impact on Ecosystems

I found both of the readings fairly interesting;

“The Concepts of Sustainability” MIT Press & “Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic”

As for the first reading I found the introduction regarding sustainability very useful but it was not something which was very unusual. Moreover, great angles of sustainability were covered and it was approached through different views in order to basically understand what It really is. It was also interesting to know that how the concept of Sustainability went through so much of evolution since the 1980s. Further, according to Google’s Ngram tool, by 1990 it was 10 times more frequent in English than it had been in 1980; by 2008 it was a 70x multiple. Therefore,it has been said to rest on “three E’s”: environment, economy and equity.This really helped me to understand that the concept of sustainability can only be achieved if all the three elements are worked closely together on. Moreover, it talk about suitability further explanation by making the reader understand that “It is clear that, it at its core, suitability is the concept that focuses on the conditions of the earth biophysical environment, particularly with respect to the use and depletion of natural resources. It is not the same as environmental protection”.This further clarifies the ambiguities that sustainability does not have a direct connection with the protection of the environment. Finally, we can say that we must all strive towards a more sustainable life so that the choices for our future generations are not narrowed by us in any way and they are also able to enjoy all the non-renewable resources. Its not just important to protect the resources for our future but also for our present because as it is said in the article that those cities are progressing very rapidly economically which have started to work in a more sustainable way.

“Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic Plastic economies: Made to be wasted PET and topologies of disposability”

I found this reading very interesting and it basically talks about the increased usage of plastic due to multiple reasons such as it ready to hand nature, its durability and how it completely changed the packaging industry. Nowadays, plastic being so cheap has completely changed even the perspective of the consumers because they believe plastic could be thrown away anytime because of its low value but we consumers do not understand that how plastic has led to the degradation of our environment.Therefore we must change our practices and shift to the more sustainable ways even if they are expensive but they would not harm our Mother Earth as much as plastic.

Guest Lecture- Richard Brubaker

The guest speaker for last week was Richard Brubaker and he is the founder of Collective Responsibility.I found the talk by Richard very illuminating because how he explained that collecting garbage could be so beneficial actually really intrigued me and how he shared his friends and his personal anecdotes also added a lot of weightage to his lecture and my learning through it. To be honest, I had no idea that garbage collectors could be one of the richest people and thus, shedding light on how you could save your enivdrnmet/plant and at the same time earn money was very interesting. He addressed many areas of waste pollution and the one which really got me in was the textile waste because we actually do not ever wear 70% of our closet.