Janelle McGuire (Edison)- Just how wasteful are Americans?

America is a nation among the top quintile.  Which means we, as a nation, contribute to the usage of 80% of the worlds resources.  This number was astonishing to me, but believable.  My family just hosted an exchange student named Sophia, from Taiwan.  The first night when we brought Sophia to our home, as we walked in the door she commented on how cool the house was.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later in her stay she told me that she thought we had left the air conditioner running as a special welcome for her.  She was surprised to learn that we leave the air on 24/7.  In Taiwan she lives in a small apartment in the city.  They have a window unit air conditioner, but they only run it for about two hours a day.  I really started thinking about how wasteful I am, along with most other Americans.  I leave my air set at 78 degrees and running for the eight hours a day that NO ONE IS HOME!  At one point during her stay with us, sophia told my oldest daughter that it gets cold in the shower when she turns the water off to wash her hair and body.  Of course my daughter replied by laughing and saying “Sophia, you are supposed to leave the water running while you’re in the shower!  You don’t have to turn it off.”  What a revelation this must have been to a girl who only uses the water to get wet and then to rinse off.  What a revalation it was to me about how wasteful we are, and it didn’t stop there.  My three daughters were all watching the exact same TV show, but in three different rooms.  Sophia politely asked, “Why not all watch together?”  To which my children had no reply, but also didn’t comply.

Food is another area of waste.  While 20 million children die from hunger each year, yet my trash can is always full of leftovers that nobody wants to eat, or food that we just let go bad.  Sophia wouldn’t throw food away.  The very first night she was here, there was a pot luck dinner.  Her plate was loaded with food, and she was looking like she couldn’t eat another bite.  I told her she didn’t have to finish if she was full, but she said, “I put on my plate, I can eat it.  I don’t want to waste.”

What an eye opener this experience has been for me and my family.  We take so much for granted in this country every day and don’t stop to think about those who don’t have the same glutenous life styles that we are so accustomed to.  Where do we get off using 80 % of the worlds resources when we only represent a portion of the top 20% of the worlds population?  Sophia left yesterday and will be greatly missed, but hopefully we will be able to improve our wasteful habits and maintain more practical ones.

This entry was posted on 3. August 2010 at 23:25 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.