Text: Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Editor|Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
[Preface]
As the most economically developed country in the world, the United States has led the development of the world in many fields and has made a great contribution to the development of the world economy.
In the United States, the per capita proportion of land is very high, this country has very rich resources, but the population is very small, so the living standards of American residents in all aspects are relatively high, in daily consumption, whether it is food or transportation, prices are generally higher than other countries.
Behind this developed life is the waste of resources in the United States, which in their own statistics accounts for 40% of the country's food supply chain in a year.
And many high-power electrical appliances will not be turned off even if they are not in use, for example, when there is no one indoors in the mainland, they will definitely turn off the air conditioner to reduce the waste of resources and avoid the impact and damage to the ecological environment, but Americans do not have this habit and awareness.
To what extent is this country wasting resources, and what is it that underpins the United States' "waste first"?
【Huge power consumption】
According to a previous comparative analysis, the annual electricity consumption of the mainland is about 8.85 trillion kWh, while the electricity consumption of the United States is about 4.5 trillion kWh.
But interestingly, from a per capita point of view, the per capita electricity consumption of the United States is more than five times that of the mainland, and among the mainland's electricity consumption data, industrial electricity consumption is the largest, but the United States is mainly concentrated in the lives of residents.
And their electricity consumption is increasing, which has led some people to wonder why the U.S. population is so small, why does its residents consume so much electricity in their daily lives.
This is from the perspective of habit formation, and there is no concept of "waste and shame" in the daily life of Americans.
In the mainland, the concept instilled by parents since childhood is not to waste, waste is shameful, the meal must be finished, the lights should be turned off and the faucet should be turned off, and the consumption of money should not be extravagant and wasteful.
If the children don't listen, then they will talk about their fathers and the days when their fathers were so hungry that they could only eat wild vegetables and tree roots.
Because the word "thrift" has been engraved in the bones of Chinese since childhood, but there is no such education in American culture.
In their daily life, whether it is to turn on the air conditioner in summer or the heating in winter, there is very little awareness of turning it off when no one is around, and the power of their electrical appliances is also very large, so it is naturally very power-consuming.
Their lack of electricity consumption is also reflected in their use of kitchen appliances, and cooking over open flames has never existed in American life.
Even if they make an egg, they use corresponding high-power electrical appliances, such as microwave ovens, induction cookers, ovens, dishwashers, etc., which are all things that are often used every day.
In some states, it is forbidden to dry laundry outdoors, in the patio, or on the balcony, otherwise you will face fines.
Most of the clothes dried indoors have a smell, so in many American families, the dryer is a must-have household goodie, and the dryer is also a high-power electrical appliance.
According to relevant statistics, the number of dryers in use in the United States is about 88 million, and the annual electricity consumption is even more than the power generation of the Three Gorges Dam on the mainland.
In addition, because there is no awareness of conservation, electrical engineers in the United States do not think about how to save electricity when building power grids.
Therefore, they do not have UHV transmission technology, and even some power poles are made of wood, which greatly increases their power loss, so their overall per capita power consumption is higher than that of our populous country.
【Food Waste】
In addition to the waste in the field of electricity, there is also the well-known waste of food resources in the country, and the United States has been officially reported on the issue of food waste more than once.
As early as 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a report saying that the U.S. had to throw away about 34 million tons of food every year, and its ratio had reached 21% of the entire food production, harvest and purchase.
Therefore, they advocate for the launch of relevant anti-waste activities, hoping that the American people can stop waste, in this wasted food, 40% of the food waste comes from American households, and the rest is various enterprises and institutions in American society.
Global Network also reported in 2018 that Americans waste about 150,000 tons of food every day, of which fruits and vegetables are the most wasted.
About 7% of the U.S. farmland grows food in the trash, and irrigation water is wasted.
And this kind of waste is not our traditional concept of wasting because we can't finish eating too much, they have all kinds of reasons to throw away clean food that has never been eaten.
For example, in the report of the Natural Resources Defense Council in the United States, because the shape of carrots is not good-looking, standard normal carrots are made into mini carrots.
The mini part of the carrot is 30% the size of the original standard carrot, while the part outside the mini is thrown away, and this phenomenon is also common with other foods, such as potatoes, onions, etc.
The same is true for some meats, the products in American supermarkets pay more attention to the appearance of food, some animal offal, chicken feet and pig trotters, etc., Americans almost don't want it, and in the end only 30% of the amount is sold to people, and the rest is all thrown away.
During the holidays, it is the peak time for food waste, such as Halloween, the amount of pumpkin waste is simply shocking.
In 2020, an environmental non-profit organization in the United Kingdom made a count of the pumpkins it wasted on Halloween, and about 12 million pumpkins were discarded and wasted.
You must know that if these pumpkins were made into pumpkin soup, they could make a bowl for 66 million people, and the waste in the United States on Halloween is even more exaggerated than in the United Kingdom.
They also carve jack-o-lanterns, and in one year they wasted 590,000 tons of pumpkins on Halloween, and in their trash cans, an entire bin of tossed bread has become commonplace.
【U.S. Solid Waste Generation】
Because of the serious waste, the per capita garbage generation of Americans is also very high, ranking in the forefront of the world's per capita garbage production, which is three times the per capita garbage production of the mainland.
The U.S. generates about 239 million tons of municipal solid waste each year, in large part because of their high food waste.
In 2019, the Guardian reported data showing that while the U.S. population is only 4% of the world's population, it produces 12% of municipal solid waste.
And their recycling volume is also very low, their recycling rate has reached 35%, in addition to food waste, they also have a very serious phenomenon of overconsumption and purchase in fast fashion.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, each family spends about $1,700 on clothes every year, and about 30 kilograms of clothes are thrown away every year.
[What supports the United States' "waste first"]
In fact, Americans also had a period of thrift and frugality.
In the 1920s, the United States was a great social and economic boom, and the people's lives could almost be described as extravagant, and in 1929, American society had realized a family and a small car.
The atmosphere of the whole society is to compare with each other, extravagance and waste has become a common phenomenon in American families, even enterprises and society, and consumer credit has also become the daily life of American people.
Then they ushered in the period of the Great Depression, a 360-degree change in social climate, and poverty began to become a "fashion trend".
Everyone no longer drove to work, but began to ride bicycles to work, and the whole form of life began to move towards simplicity and frugality, not going out to dinner, nor wearing formal clothes, and clothes made of coarse cloth had to be deliberately pulled two openings to deliberately "show poverty".
The economic depression and the non-consumption of people are mutually causal, and the economy of American society has also entered a vicious circle, and the US government has begun to save the American economy from the Great Depression.
Under such circumstances, the "American Dream" began to be born, which probably means that everyone should live a good and prosperous life, and the American Dream is not just about cars, not just high wages, but a kind of social order.
Encouraged by this idea, the consumerism of the Americans began to prevail again, consumption was re-energized, and the American economy began to recover.
As a result, people gradually formed the idea that "consumption can save the country", and everyone's purpose became that they could spend money with or without money, and they could borrow it anyway, and the dollar was still the world currency, which further bred the extravagance of their daily life.
Later, after 2000, the concept of the "American dream" was tied to buying a house, and Wall Street financial institutions even came up with a policy of mortgaging the house twice.
It is to mortgage the value-added part of their house, so that the American people can buy a house without spending money.
Nourished by such an environment, the American people have long formed a culture of extravagant consumerism.
Links to previous issues
China's top ten "forbidden dishes" are very cruel and simply sins on the tip of the tongue!
Chinese "dwelling" in New York: men and women live together, no privacy, why are they still reluctant to return to China
The Japanese national anthem is only 28 words, and when it was translated into Chinese, it was only when I understood what the Japanese were saying
Resources:
1. Global Network - "Americans waste 150,000 tons of food every day, and fruits and vegetables are discarded the most"
2. China News Network - "Data shows that Americans lose 34 million tons of food every year, and the waste is amazing"
3. Guangming.com - "The United States wasted 15 million doses of vaccines in half a year, health experts: this is really sad"