Teaching Sustainability

Abbott

Food waste is something I always viewed as a necessary evil. Although I felt overcome with guilt each time I threw away a piece of food, whether spotted with mold or just deemed “too old” to eat, I believed that consuming a piece of expired food would cause greater harm to myself than disposal of the item would cause to the environment or greater good. This belief has followed me throughout my childhood and into my teenage years, and even through my first few years at my university. Despite learning more about human impact on the environment and the adverse effects of food waste, I still did not make a direct connection between my own personal actions and choices and slow but steady environmental destruction. It was not until I watched Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story , a 74-minute documentary film about food waste and food rescue (Baldwin et al., 2014; Peg Leg Films., n.d.) that I finally realized the impact of my actions and how small changes in my day-to-day life could decrease my carbon footprint.

Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story focuses on one couple's journey into food waste, following them as they attempt to go six months without consuming any food that would not otherwise be thrown away. The documentary features several striking images and scenarios, such as an entire dumpster full of hundreds of packages of unexpired hummus, that effectively illustrate just how big the problem of food waste is. Although these scenes do show the extent of the problem, I found them to be almost too overwhelming, causing a sense of alarm that nearly convinced me that the issue is more than I can handle. I find this to be a problem in a few environmental movies, books, and classes: the breadth of environmental issues is so great that in presentation it is often too difficult to digest, forcing the average viewer to create a separation between themselves and their actions and the issue at hand. As I kept watching the film, however, one scene stood out, and I believe helped me bridge the gap between myself and environmental destruction. In the scene, one half of the couple is at the grocery store searching for food that has a high risk of being thrown out. She targets cartons of eggs with cracked shells and fresh meat or produce with next day “Best By” dates, noting how these products are likely to be disposed of due to their unattractiveness to most shoppers. This scene was a turning point for me as it took a huge topic such as food waste and made it applicable to my everyday life, showing small changes that are both relevant and doable.

Since watching the film, I have strived to cut down my food waste by making small but impactful changes, such as buying groceries for the week based on the food I already have instead of the meals I have to buy all new ingredients for. Additionally, I try to buy more “unattractive”products, such as bruised fruit and vegetables, close-to-expiring meats, and products in damaged or imperfect packaging. I have also been trying harder to reflect on the issues I learn about through classes, documentaries, books, and/or friends and view them with empathy, generating a greater sense of responsibility for my contribution to adverse environmental effects.

Khadija

What one thinks about food waste typically depends on their nationality, culture, and social class. To some, food waste is a norm. This means that throwing away food is almost a daily activity that is done unconsciously. To other people, food waste is frowned upon, and they will do as much as they can to decrease the amount of food discarded. Growing up, my elder family members, including my mother, always repeated a cultural proverb, which most children growing up in Egypt would constantly hear. They would tell me, “If you leave any leftover food in your plate it will run after you in your afterlife,” and I would always picture a grain of rice running after me. Until one day I realized this was not true; it was just something they would tell children in my culture to discourage us from throwing away any food. My parents would also tell me that there are millions in the world that have nothing to eat, and therefore I should never throw away any food that I had the privilege of eating.

Other than being socially and morally frowned upon, food waste also has negative effects on the environment. I always realized that there is a perception that food waste can biodegrade, and therefore has no negative effect on the environment. However, “food waste is not only a social cost, but it contributes to growing environmental problems like climate change” (Nixon, 2015). “Trashed food from Americans accounts for the largest percentage of landfill content” and “95% of food waste goes to landfills, which produce methane, the leading culprit in climate change” (Gayton, 2019). When food is piled up on top of one another, no air can circulate, which causes the production of methane, a greenhouse gas.

The documentary Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story opened my eyes to the critical issue of food waste, of which most people lack knowledge and awareness. Because our community is used to seeing excess amounts of food, our thinking has now shifted to identifying food as an inanimate object available in abundance, thus completely disregarding its value. We have gotten used to seeing well-stocked supermarkets, large portions at restaurants, stocked fridges, and leftovers at restaurants, to the extent that we do not even take notice of the waste anymore. Furthermore, the documentary also stated that 20 percent to 70 percent of the produced fruits are never sent to the market because they are not aesthetically pleasing, or they do not look perfect, and therefore there is no market for them.

Learning about this issue has changed my behavior. I typically go grocery shopping once a week, but since viewing the film and learning about the impacts of food waste, I have created a food schedule for myself. I split my food into three categories: fruits/vegetables, protein, and carbohydrates. I usually limit myself to one or two types of vegetables and fruit per week. If I want another kind, then I usually wait until the following week to purchase it. If these items are sold in large quantities, then I usually split it with a friend. I follow the same system with my carbohydrates if I want to purchase items such as potatoes or sweet potatoes; however, items such as rice and pasta can be stored. Furthermore, I only purchase protein items when I need them because they can be stored in the freezer. Since watching the documentary, I began spreading awareness about the food waste issue to my friends and family, as it is a topic that they probably lack awareness of and is something they can play a role in addressing. This is critical considering that the lack of knowledge and awareness of this issue is the main reason people do not do much to change their purchasing and eating habits. I was in this position until recently.

Kiira

“True cost” is a term that I have come across in literature and in classes on sustainability, but never in mainstream media. The concept is that prices are not indicative of the actual cost of an item because they do not consider externalities. The exclusion of these costs leads to overproduction and overconsumption and fast fashion is a perfect example of both.

Externalities are an invisible but incredibly damaging by-product of the fast fashion industry. They affect human, social, and environmental systems with little-to-no regard for those affected (Kazancoglu et al., 2020). The issue with fast fashion is that people don't consider that an item on sale for $5 may have a true cost of $20 or more; if cost cutting in labor, resources, transportation, waste disposal, and all other elements of the item's life cycle were accounted for, the cost of clothing would be too high to enable the rapid production, consumption, and disposal that forms the basis of profits for the industry.

Increased information on production practices and their impacts have made it to social media providing a clicktivism catalyst for social action. However, social media hashtags and “likes” are not always enough to promote action.

Similarly, the academic approach to addressing the issues created by fast fashion appear to be limited to discussion, not action or fostering a little subjectivity. In fact, in texts that I have read throughout many of my classes, individuals are regarded as “consumers,” “agents,” and on occasion “individuals,” but individual experiences are rarely named. Even in research where demographics are identified, this is usually done quantitatively; people are identified by age group or income level, but I have rarely found research in which individual experiences are elaborated upon. In contrast, documentaries, such as The True Cost (Morgan et al., 2015), are more effective modes of education. Not only do they solicit an emotional response, but they are also good at activating questions about morality and providing physical context of the impact of externalities. Specific examples are helpful in creating a sense of scale, enhancing a sense of responsibility, and facilitating the individual and collective ability to foster change. It is one thing to learn that fast fashion will account for 8 percent of global emissions by 2030, but understanding that changing individual habits can save tons of water makes the individual impact more compelling and, in my experience, makes people more likely to act (Hodges & Klein, 2001). Film provides access to this tangibility.

Julianne

It is common knowledge that fast fashion utilizes low-wage labor and exploits workers for profit (Niinimäki et al., 2020). Manufacturing occurs in developing countries with workers, some still children, working long hours in dangerous conditions. However, many people justify the cost of fast fashion because of the economic benefits being generated. In short, many proponents of sweatshops argue textbook economics summarized in the statement by Joan Robinson, “The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” (Robinson, 1964). This comment highlights the theoretical assumption that economic growth will eventually lead to better wages and working conditions; a plausible assumption in a classroom, but one that has less appeal in the living world.

The True Cost (Morgan et al., 2015) highlights the price of fashion, inclusive of externalities that consumers generally overlook. Fast fashion has allowed for the price of clothing to significantly decrease, with new trends and looks released not just for a “fall and spring season”—every week is basically a new season full of new merchandise. The True Cost doesn't only emphasize how much fashion has changed, but how these changes have affected society's most vulnerable. It makes us ask basic questions that we should have considered from the start: Where did my clothes come from? Who made my clothes? What is their life like and how does my consumerism affect them? Many people assume that buying into fast fashion can only help the workers because of the influx of money coming in, but that money rarely trickles down to the workers and only exacerbates a system in which they are exploited for production gains. The documentary really makes you realize that “cheaper” quite literally comes at a cost, and often it's at the cost of people halfway around the world from us. It can be hard to connect with and realize our faults in perpetuating this system of exploitation. But in an age of heightened technology and communication, it should be easier than ever to connect with anyone, anywhere. Our ignorance or isolation is no longer an excuse—it's a choice.

Justin

My perception about plastic waste has been significantly altered following my exposure to the extensive life cycle of single-use plastic products. This raised many questions about what I was taught about plastic recycling throughout my education and why I was taught these things. It has taken me all the way to a second-year undergraduate course to grasp the destructive loop of plastic production and disposal our society is entrenched in. A short anecdote: I remember vividly going on a field trip to a recycling plant in elementary school. This company, called Eco-Cycle was no different from many other proponents of recycling. They preached about their accomplishments of recycling plastic waste and lowering landfill volume. As a young child, I too believed their green cycle logo and impressive statistics about why I should focus on recycling. It turns out, I was merely greenwashed from a young age. Not until my second year of university at the age of 19 years, did I realize recycling is not sustainable, and is not an effective solution to our plastic problem.

Very little of the plastics produced end up reintegrated into the production infrastructure. Much of it ends up in landfills or overseas to be incinerated or recycled. One of the most groundbreaking perceptions I've had since exposure to this information is how much the recycling process is just a massive case of greenwashing, which doesn't effectively help the environment whatsoever. As I saw in Plastic China (Chen et al., 2016), lots of plastics end up overseas rather than being recycled here. People in China expose themselves to tons of chemicals regularly by trying to renew and sort plastics in their own home. They are then resold back into the market so they can undergo the same process again until they completely break down. This means that in the end, plastic will always end up in landfills, no matter how much it is recycled. We need to consider eliminating the problem at its source, not treat the symptom that is the plastic pollution problem.

Following exposure to this contextual information, I think I can explain a lot more about my past perceptions of the life cycle of convenience plastics. So much of what we think depends on what we learn at a young age or are shown in advertisements with no background information. Why would 10-year-old me ever question Eco-Cycle? My educators made me believe recycling is strictly positive. They didn't tell me that some of their waste would be heading to China to be handled by a severely underpaid worker and their children. Much of this has to do with the out-of-sight/out-of-mind concept. I have run into similar thought processes related to other environmental problems discussed in my somewhat limited environmental studies coursework. There is such a large disconnect between the producer, consumer, and disposer in these industries. As consumers, we have no idea where, how, or who created this single use plastic item. All we worry about is the price and after consumption, the accessibility of trash can. And just like that, it's out of sight, out of mind. If people saw where their product was manufactured and disposed of, maybe they would be enticed to pay more, or not buy a product at all.

We need more people to watch films and physically see pictures of where their everyday plastic products start and end up. To me, the most valuable approach is pathos, people are relatively sympathetic. They can be dissuaded from consuming something they know negatively affects others. Firms should accountably show where each a product was made, and who specifically made it. We need to close the gap between production consumption and disposal because without it, consumers see no other information other than price.

That's the value of films. They provide a glimpse of other stages of production and disposal that unseen would not be known otherwise.

Alexandra

Essentially, we are taught that consumption has a limited impact because of recycling. But this is a lie. The life cycle of a plastic bottle is much deeper than that, and the responsibility of the consumer doesn't end with a recycling bin. Most plastics are shipped overseas to China and other vulnerable countries where entire communities survive on minor profits from household recycling. The film Plastic China (Chen & Wang, 2016) follows the life of 11-year-old Yi-Jie who was moved to a household recycling workshop. The story shows how extreme the disparity is between these communities and Western capitalist communities that value consumption over all else. These families recycle plastic with their bare hands. They drink and bathe in highly contaminated water. To say they are put at risk for pollution and disease is an understatement. Families are cornered into these businesses to make a daily living. There is no security or assistance for the work they do and the danger they are in from handling these toxic materials.

Films like Plastic China (Chen & Wang, 2016) are important for plastics education because they show the reality of the dire situation. Plastic China especially appeals to human empathy by telling Yi-Jie's story, as she represents thousands of children subjected to these dangerous conditions. It is important to view films like this and witness the real human impacts plastics consumption has on the world. Especially when it comes to culture in the United States, people have blinders on about environmental issues. If it doesn't impact their lives directly, there is no need to fix it. This self-interest mindset perpetuates overconsumption and worsens impacts on vulnerable groups. Accurate representation for these communities should be taught in a mandatory capacity. We learn when we are children that your actions have consequences, that being mean to other people is bad. These elementary lessons are still applicable in every aspect of consumption. Schools should teach the impact of consumption because our decisions directly impact families and people like Yi-Jie.

Documentary films also can relay a holistic perspective and with respect to plastic, the adverse impact extends beyond just recycling. There are political and socio-economic implications of convenience plastic as well.

The film Tapped (Soechtig et al., 2010) reflects the impact of convenience plastic, specifically when it comes to plastic water bottles, and how large corporations seek large profits at the expense of citizens, consumers, and the environment. Water is a naturally occurring human necessity that corporations bottle and sell for a profit. The only value created by bottled water is to corporations. Consumers of plastic products, including water, are at higher risk for harmful chemical contamination.

Many people believe that bottled water is “safer” than tap water. However, it is the opposite. Tap water is regularly tested, multiple times a day and the results are published on municipal websites. There is great transparency because of certain water regulations. Bottled water companies are largely unregulated. Their huge profits allow them political sway and other methods of avoiding regulations they would otherwise have to abide by. They conduct their own testing and create biased reports that do not provide the accurate transparency necessary for consumer protection. However, their marketing efforts have been extremely successful in avoiding these facts and creating a message that has dubbed tap water as “dirty” and bottled water as “clean.”

Focusing on mass marketing campaigns teaches us why we consume plastic products in the first place. Especially when it comes to education, it is important to learn about the source of certain social standards. Even when it comes to economics, we learn that people have an insatiable appetite for consumption. This insatiable appetite is created and perpetuated by large corporations to make profits. This lens is not often available until higher education. Yet, greenwashing efforts, such as recycling, are taught in early childhood. Providing an accurate life cycle of plastics during early schooling is important to prevent generations from continuing this cycle of overconsumption.