The True Problem of a Disposable World

“It wasn’t always like this.”

I looked up from the litter I was collecting in the park. Discarded trash was a constant battle in the city in which we lived before returning home. It became so bad that my wife and I organized events to pick up litter in the park followed by yard games with other families. The voice belonged to a very old man and I asked him what he meant, fully expecting to hear a lecture about how people were just more diligent back in his day and had more civic pride. He surprised me though.

“Nothing had its own packaging.” he explained. “Now everything has its own wrapper that you throw away.”

He was right. I looked at the litter I had just collected, a plastic wrapper from a stick of string cheese, and thought that before World War 2 you would have purchased cheese wrapped in cloth or just left to be protected by its own rind. What’s more, resource scarcity in the 1940s meant objects made of wood, glass, and metals instead were replaced with paper and plastic alternatives. The empty plastic jug of milk I had found in the gazebo would have been made of glass eighty years ago—too expensive to absentmindedly throw on the ground. Likewise, the plastic fork I pulled out from under a park bench would never have existed; the material used to make forks would never have allowed someone to be so careless. I had been grumbling to myself that afternoon that people had grown lazy and careless, that they didn’t care about their community or their environment and, although that is true to an extent, we must recognize that the disposability of things is what enables this behavior; if bottles of milk were all glass and forks were all domestically-produced metal, I posit we would see fewer of those items littering our gutters and parks. You may object and say “drinks like soda and beer are still put in glass bottles and I still see litter!” but consider the litter you see on the roadside the next time you drive and it will almost all be plastic, aluminum cans, or paper and not “harder” material like glass or steel. If something is disposable, it will be disposed of. Appliances and electronics too have become less durable and our mindsets have all-too-quickly shifted to “Just get a new one” when something breaks down.

This is a problem of course, but not for the reason you may think. Yes, there is the obvious problem that plastic waste is forming literal islands in our oceans, choking wildlife and finding its way into our bloodstreams. There is a more sinister problem at play however; the disposable materials do not just seep into our blood, they seep into our minds, our culture, our souls. When the things we touch every day are so easily thrown out, the disposability slowly, subtly, insidiously convinces us that everything is disposable.

Traditions. Places. People. We live in a disposable world, and we do not even realize that we have accepted that those things have become disposable too.

Consider first your traditions, the small daily practices you no longer honor or the larger annual celebrations you no longer hold. Perhaps your grandparents said grace before every meal but you do not. Why? What happened? Did you become too wise for religion, more enlightened than all your ancestors before you, inherently more thankful in your every passive moment? A daily prayer of thanks was perhaps rebranded as a modern meditation on gratitude or a mindfulness reflection. Safe. Inoffensive. Sterile. Taking an uncomfortable moment to reflect on why you do not carry a tradition—however minor—and answering honestly is worthwhile.

When we read about tradition, we inevitably stumble down the country lane and bump blindly into Chesterton who wrote

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Simply put, “Do not take down a fence unless you know why it was built in the first place.” Are we so certain we know why the traditions we so cavalierly dispose were held for so long before us? Are we too proud to wonder if we may be wrong in throwing them to the gutter? Are we even willing to ponder the question?

What is it keeping out? What is it keeping in?

Like traditions, places too have become disposable. We do not have the perfect opportunities, homes, or climate and we leave. We pack everything we own into a truck, turn onto the interstate, and find a city that suits us perfectly, that we can really make it in. We can return when we feel nostalgic every so often—maybe for the holidays or a funeral—and then earnestly wonder why the beloved old store, church, or school is closing down all the while checking in to our return flight to our chosen home.

We do not just leave places however. We leave people. People who knew our grandparents, who know our triumphs and faults, who remember the place as we do. We write people off though, convincing ourselves they’re stuck there, that they won’t amount to anything as we will if we break free and go places. We say that, don’t we? “That kid is going places” to indicate they’ll succeed. We immerse ourselves in language that equates leaving with success and high status. Disposing of a place and the people who belong to it is not only accepted, but is encouraged subliminally and explicitly.

Photo by my lovely wife.

All of this—the loss of traditions, the leaving of place, the alienation of people—did not start because things became disposable. The problem is exacerbated by it though. How could it not be? When we discard things multiple times every day, how could the acceptance of that tangible action not pollute our intangible thoughts, our minds, our very ethos?

How do you fight it? You start by making things that last, that are not so easily discarded. This is what we at least will do in the coming year: