The concepts of sustainability, as the title name says， systematically introduces the what sustainability is to me. It is easy to understand that sustainability or sustainable development should meet the needs of the current generation without sacrificing the ability and needs of the future generation. Another interesting thing that I take away is the 3E, which is “Environment, Economy, and Equity”. Compared to 3R, 3E theoretically explain how to be sustainable: We should simultaneously protect the environment, preserve economic growth and promoting equity.
Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic mainly discover the birth of PET and the recycling of PET material. By reading this section, I learn how PET flooded into the market. At first, the beverages industry seek a material to take place of glass, and PET could be that role. PET as a bottle, package for food, is cheap to produce and almost weightless. What worths thinking is that “package is designed to be thrown away”. Starting from the original intention, PET is not the most suitable material because it is hard to be recycled. PET had a fast-speed development, causing that people could not realize its effects until its proliferation.
Interestingly, after reading these two articles, I realize that using PET material totally deviates from the path of sustainability. Firstly, using PET will leave bunches of environmental issues for the future generation; Besides, the carrying capacity of our planet will decrease gradually with the use of PET. In the long term, plastic pollution has a big possibility of destroying our ecosystem even if the advance of technology and science can power carrying capacity of the planet. We should not take any risk.
According to the talk on previous Wednesday, to recycle is the collective responsibility around the globe. But from the first reading, it is shocking to know that even in the most developed country–the U.S, the concept of sustainability is ambiguous and has not taken firmly. Sustainability is not just the work of China or Vietnam, but the work of the whole planet; it is not a current work or the work can be solved in once, it is a permanent topic across the history and last till the end of the human history. We should keep moving on in the path of sustainability.
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