IELTS Task2

Hi,

Would you have a look at the following essay, please?

Many people believe that we have become a 'disposable' society, throwing things away rather than repairing them and reusing them. Why do you think that is? What are some of the possible problems this can cause?

There is a widely-held belief that the present communities have turned into a throwaway ones. It seems that the root causes of this lie in two major factors, and there can be some adverse environmental consequences.

Perhaps the problem ensues from both the planned obsolescence of products and low-cost production. Gone are the days that commodities used to be produced durably with longer lifespans, allowing users to use a product for a long time or have it repaired. The existing market, however, is replete with goods whose standards are inferior to those of the past, tempting users to buy a newer model in lieu of fixing them. As well as that, it is the relatively low price of the finished products that has exacerbated the situation. One major contributing factor to cheaper prices is the fact that the majority of manufacturers are outsourcing their production line to other countries whose labor cost is low. Therefore, the corollary of this would be the understandable reluctance to bother with repairing an item on the side of customers.

Turning to knock-on effects, it is probably the environment that is harmed in different ways. To start with, modern gadgets like smartphones require a range of different metals and rare ores. These are often mined in parts of the developing world from Chile to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where environmental standards are much lower than the developed nations. And the faster the resources are exploited, the larger amount of refuse is created which has to be dumped in landfills. Eventually, as many components of such gadgets are not degradable, like plastic, it could in the long term cause havoc on the natural world around us.

In summary, not only the built-in obsolescence, but also the low prices of consumer goods may well give rise to the issue of the disposable societies. As long as this dismal trend is not halted, environmentally-damaging consequences are bound to ensue.