production and consumption

Question 1

what are consumer goods?

Answer 1

products you buy to use yourself

Question 2

what is consumerism?

Answer 2

This repeated cycle of: businesses making new goods; businesses convincing people old goods are no good anymore; people buying new goods (and throwing the old stuff away)is called

Question 3

what are the environmental impacts?

Answer 3

cutting down trees, toxic chemicals, waste, garbage,

Question 4

social and economic impacts?

Answer 4

Raw materials mined or farmed in poor countries
Another poor country transforms these into manufactured products
Products sold for high prices in rich countries
Consumerism has lifted a lot of people out of poverty.

Question 5

what is e waste recycling?

Answer 5

the process of extracting valuable materials after shredding the e-waste into tiny pieces that could be reused in a new electronic appliance.

Question 6

what can you do as an individual?

Answer 6

Maintain your car, clothes, appliances for as long as possible before buying new ones
Eat less meat (meat production causes much more damage than vegetarian foods)
Buy from businesses that have good environmental policies (and make sure the bad ones know that you’re avoiding them until they change) – Apple did this in response to customer concerns, eliminating toxic chemicals like mercury from all of their products

Question 7

health impacts of e waste recyccling

Answer 7

people breath in toxic metals like lead
When it rains (, toxic chemicals end up in drinking water or in the soil where crops are grown
no safety equipment, they end up exposing their skin to dangerous materials (ending up with rashes) and cuts end up getting infected

Question 8

health impacts of lead

Answer 8

Brain damage, intellectual disabilities in children, miscarriages in women

Question 9

beryllium

Answer 9

Lung cancer, skin diseases

Question 10

mercury

Answer 10

Brain damage

Question 11

cadmium

Answer 11

Kidney disease, brain damage

Question 12

at can governments o?

Answer 12

Ban the use of certain inputs (e.g. mercury in LCD screens)
Tax certain types of products more than others to discourage people from buying them (e.g. the high taxes on cigarettes)
Tax companies for polluting (e.g. a tax on carbon, which was tried in Australia but business fought hard against)
Sign international agreements with other countries to stop the export of waste (which is what 183 countries have done already, but it still happens)

Question 13

what can groups of people do

Answer 13

Groups of people can also take action against consumerism.

For example, Greenpeace has used advertising campaigns to push companies to stop harming the environment.