Thursday, January 3, 2013

Useless Junk


Mrs. DeLuca has a problem... She loves office supplies!!  Can't go into a Staples or an Office Max without buying something, hands down her favorite store!!  But think about it, all the wasted energy that went into making those things, many of which will probably never be used... Just to sit in a desk.  So much wasted energy!!  The factory where these office supplies were made was running on energy.  The workers who were making the supplies used energy to get to work, the energy used in the manufacturing process, the energy used to ship these things (doubt they were made in the US) across the world, the energy used in the store where people go to buy them. The energy wasted on the drive home... and the energy wasted as this useless thing sits in a drawer...

Answer one or more of the following questions in a thoughtful post (3-5 sentences)
-What is your useless junk?  Is there something you have a collection of that is wasteful? Could you ever cut back on it?
-If we all stopped buying useless junk, what positive things would happen?  Negative?
-Why do we has humans love "stuff"?  Are we programmed that way?
-Do you honestly think the knowledge of useless junk will make you think twice about buying things in the future?
-Useless junk wastes energy, what other problems does it cause?

23 comments:

  1. Timmy Brass

    If we stopped buying useless junk then a lot more energy will be saved. Then that energy could then be used for better things other than on useless items. But it could be bad, the economy could fail and become worse because no body would buy stuff. And many stores could close if we stopped buying that useless junk.

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  2. My Useless Junk would have to be electronis. I LOVE them like Mrs. Deluca loves office supplies. Wether it is a video game or if it is something else, i really would like to have it. I do not think that this will stop because technology is growing and if you do not have some kind of the new technology, then getting information online will be difficult.

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  3. If we stop buying useless stuff we can cut down on energy, but we will hut our economy. I think that we should keep buying useless stuff to keep our economy stable. I think that even though the energy use will be cut it is not worth the risk of our already bad economy falling through the roof. I am very much against not buying useless junk.

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  4. If we all stopped buying useless junk, what positive things would happen? Negative?

    I think if everyone stopped buying useless junk it would be better for the environment, create less pollution and conserve energy, all of which are good. But the negative effects of this would be that it would hurt the economy. It also could make people lose their jobs since the less demand there is for products, the less jobs are needed.

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  5. Shannen Geller
    If we stopped buying useless junk then most of the energy would be saved. The energy that we did not use would go to more beneficial uses such as heating or electricity or just other industrial uses. Some negative things are that the economy would collapse because most of the money that the government gets is from us buying useless things. This is a very difficult thing to balance especially with the amount of money we get from these useless things.

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  6. Sean Rich

    If we stop buying useless junk, we will save energy. However, we will save most of it by it not being made. This will lower the economy and I think that the economy is more important than saving money. I think that we should get our economy back on track because we have many different ways to get energy that we could use, but only one economy.

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  7. If the nation stopped buying things it would have a negative effect on our economy. On the other hand if we slowly stopped buying things the economy may be able to adjust. I think in a way it is human to want to buy extra stuff. It is in our nature to want to be better then the person next to you. In the world that we have created the way that people are ranked is by the amount of money someone has and what type of things they have. Other than the problem of wasted energy there is the problem of the increased amount trash.

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    1. Great points!! People are valued sometimes because of what they have and not who they are.

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  8. -If we all stopped buying useless junk, what positive things would happen? Negative?

    I believe if we stopped buying useless junk there would be some positive and negative outcomes. Some positive ones could be less pollution produced due to the factories producing these goods. Another positive outcome could be each individual person spending less money so that way we could spend it on important things, such as insurance and food. We would also use much less energy to produce these goods then we are now. It will cut back on industrial waste and commercial waste. Some negative effects of stop buying useless junk could be the economy would plummet. Most politicians are worried about the decreasing economy and this would certainly not help the situation. One more bad effect could be people spending there money on less important things than the current junk. It could turn into a passion devoted to worse things then collecting junk. Those are some reasons that could be positive, and negative outcomes on not buying as much junk.
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  9. It’s not necessarily that it is useless junk, but it’s more of that I can’t use it up faster that I get it. I have a small collection of books in my room consisting of maybe around a hundred books. I read them whenever I have time, but I just keep getting them gifted by my brother or just find them interesting and buy them, but with the time I have to read I get two to three books for every- one I read. So as I slowly read through my collection it is also getting larger and I’m having less and less space to store it. Really, like I said, the collection is not useless, but the way I use it makes it seem like it is in a way.

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  10. What is your useless junk? Is there something you have a collection of that is wasteful? Could you ever cut back on it?

    One thing in my house that could be considered useless junk is our Wii that we got a long time ago and now it just sits there in my basement and nobody ever touches it. This is the same thing with my TV in my room, it just sits there. There was a lot of energy used to just make the TV and wii, then it had to be transported to the stores. After that we went and drove to the store to buy these things using even more energy. Having them plugged in and sitting there is also just wasting electricity too. Honestly, I don't have a collection of anything but if I did and I learned how much energy goes into making those items I would most likely stop.

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  11. Billy Carr

    Do you honestly think the knowledge of useless junk will make you think twice about buying things in the future?

    I will continue to buy useless junk products even though I know it is useless junk for the same reason that most people give; I wanted it at the time. You cannot stop the human interests in buying useless things. What would happen to the economy if all of a sudden people stopped buying useless junk products? There would be massive job layoffs, from the store employees, to the truck drivers, to the production companies producing the items. Isn't there a saying that one person's junk is another man's treasure?

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  12. Kaeli Simmons

    What is your useless junk? Is there something you have a collection of that is wasteful? Could you ever cut back on it?

    My useless junk is spoons. I know it sounds weird but ever since i was little my mom got me little antique looking spoons from everywhere that we've traveled. I have some from alaska, nova scotia, british virgin islands, outer banks, prince edward island, las vegas, and other places. I could cut back on it but its kinda of a cool memory that i have from when i was little to remind me of where i've been.

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    1. Really cool memory!! I don't know if I would count that as useless since you only buy them when you travel.

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  13. The "useless" thing my house has a lot of is Bath and Body Works products. Between my two sisters, mom and I, we have a ton of the stuff that is never used. To make each of the products a lot of energy as used. That energy is wasted when it just sits in our bathrooms.

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  14. What is your useless junk? Is there something you have a collection of that is wasteful? Could you ever cut back on it?

    My useless junk would also have to be office supplies. I love going school shopping and my eyes are bigger than my head sometimes. I will buy up to 5 binders in the beginning of the school year but will not think practically that it will be uncomfortable to carry them around all day. Therefore, I put my binders in my closet and switch to folders. This is very wasteful, especially since I could have thought about it before going shopping. I could definitely cut back on how many binders or notebooks I get and think to myself, "what do I REALLY need?". This would save the amount of energy being wasted and save my mom a few bucks. After all, it is better to need something and go get it than to waste something.

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  15. Why do we has humans love "stuff"? Are we programmed that way?

    The reason humans love stuff is because there so much in front of them. Humans just want the new thing and more of it. We are never satisfied with what we already have. It's just the way we are from having so much in front of us, we just want all of it.

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  16. -If we all stopped buying useless junk, what positive things would happen? Negative?

    By not buying "useless junk" we would be polluting the earth a lot less. The company doesn't have to make as much of the product which would also mean less resources would be used. However with less people buying this stuff the economy would go down and the producers wouldn't be making as much money.

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  17. 1. I personally have a habit of buying shoes. I have over fifteen pairs of shoes. I honestly don't think I could cut back on the amount of shoes I ave because I like to have a pair to go with every outfit and to have one that matches each sense of style/ color. I would probably go out and buy more shoes if I had the money to.

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  18. If we all stopped buying useless junk, what positive things would happen? Negative?

    If everyone were to stop buying useless junk, there would be some positive and negative effects that would result. For positives, if we did not buy these items then we would save the energy that was used in the process to manufacture these items. Also, these products would most likely eventually be thrown out and end up in a landfill. Not purchasing these items would save from occupying unnecassary space in these landfills. For the negative effects of not buying this junk though, it would be that it would hurt our economy as less of these items would be bought.

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  19. If we stopped buying useless junk then we would see less waste from thrown away items. People throw away their junk and then it doesn't get recycled and it goes into landfills and stays their for years and years. We love our useless junk because of all the pictures and images we see in the media. We see so many ads every single day, and that makes us want stuff we don't need. I think that the knowledge of useless junk will help me and others with not buying useless junk. There is no point in buying this useless junk, and we must cut down on it, and this knowledge will limit my use of useless junk.
    Roman Dolinay

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  20. I buy a lot of clothes. Knowing that clothes are a "useless junk" in my life will defiantly help me cut back on buying as much because I'm a consciously realizing that I don't actually need so much clothes. If everyone cut back on the amount of stuff they bought then we would have so much more energy and the earth would be healthier, on the downside our economy would suffer. I think people buy so much stuff because there is such a variety of different things we think we need and there is usually a good deal on them as well.
    Dasha Kostyuchek

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  21. Zachary Reilly
    My useless junk is Christmas ornaments. While hanging most of them on my tree, i notice each year more and more don't make it because of how many we get every year. There are boxes full of ones i haven't hung in forever. If we all stopped buying useless junk, i think it would help our environment by producing less pollutants but also hurting our economy since that useless junk makes up a lot of it. I think more environmentally conscious people will consider the useless junk epidemic, but most people will see it as just another statistic.

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