Throw-away society

The throw-away society is a human society strongly influenced by consumerism. The term describes a critical view of overconsumption and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items.

Origin of the term

In its August 1, 1955 issue, pp 43ff, Life magazine published an article titled "Throwaway Living". This article has been cited as the source that first used the term "throw-away society".

Rise of packaging waste

Between the start of New York City waste collections in 1905 and 2005 there was a tenfold rise in "product waste" (packaging and old products), from 92 to 1,242 pounds (41.7 to 563.4 kilograms) per person per year. Containers and packaging now represent 32 percent of all municipal solid waste. Non-durable goods (products used less than three years) are 27 percent, and durable goods are 16 percent.

Food service disposable tableware waste

In 2002, Taiwan began taking action to reduce the use of disposable tableware at institutions and businesses, and to reduce the use of plastic bags. Yearly, the nation of 17.7 million people was producing 59,000 tons of disposable tableware waste and 105,000 tons of waste plastic bags, and increasing measures have been taken in the years since then to reduce the amount of waste. In 2013, Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) banned outright the use of disposable tableware in the nation's 968 schools, government agencies and hospitals. The ban is expected to eliminate 2,600 metric tons of waste yearly.

Society

A society is a group of people involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.

A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.

San Francisco

San Francisco (/sæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California and the only consolidated city-county in California. San Francisco encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, which makes it the smallest county in the state. It has a density of about 18,187 people per square mile (7,022 people per km²), making it the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose, and the 13th-most populous city in the United States—with a Census-estimated 2014 population of 852,469. The city and its surrounding areas are known as the San Francisco Bay Area, and are a part of the larger OMB designated San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth most populous in the nation with an estimated population of 8.6 million.

Police

A police force is a constituted body of persons empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder. Their powers include the legitimized use of force. The term is most commonly associated with police services of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. Police forces are often defined as being separate from military or other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing.

Law enforcement, however, constitutes only part of policing activity. Policing has included an array of activities in different situations, but the predominant ones are concerned with the preservation of order. In some societies, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these developed within the context of maintaining the class system and the protection of private property. Many police forces suffer from police corruption to a greater or lesser degree. The police force is usually a public sector service, meaning they are paid through taxes.

Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. The city is located in North Central Texas and covers nearly 350 square miles (910 km²) in Tarrant, Denton, Parker, and Wise counties—serving as the seat for Tarrant County. According to the 2014 census estimates, Fort Worth has a population of 812,238. The city is the second-largest in the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area (the "DFW Metroplex").

The city was established in 1849 as an Army outpost on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River. Today Fort Worth still embraces its Western heritage and traditional architecture and design.USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) is the first ship of the United States Navy named after the city.

Fort Worth is home to the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and several world-class museums. The Kimbell Art Museum, considered to have one of the best collections in Texas, is housed in what is widely regarded as one of Texas' foremost works of modern architecture designed by Louis Kahn and Renzo Piano. Also of note are the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, designed by Tadao Ando, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, which houses one of the most extensive collections of American art in the world in a building designed by Philip Johnson. The city is also home to Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas A&M University School of Law, and many multinational corporations including Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin, American Airlines, Pier 1 Imports, Radio Shack, and others.