Background

According to Fundacion Basura, each person in Chile generates 1,5 kilograms of trash per day. Additionally, large part of this trash is plastic, material with important pollution rates and without an organic degradation. Therefore, these elements remain in time, destroying the sea, the air and the ground.

The neoliberalism of our time imposes a culture of consumption and waste, in a frenetic rhythm where anything is made with plastic and disposable, just for use in a short space of time. This garbage is affecting the earth and affecting ourselves, which has made the situation critic and probably, unsustainable later. It is very important begin now to change that, is a responsibility that we have with the earth, and with the future generations.

Problem

It is relevant that the common people changes there daily life for a life with less waste and more recycling. We must to question our habits and our thoughts; moreover, we have to question our culture, because here is a part of the problem. Is necessary don’t forget the industrial factor. It is true that we as common people have responsibilities about the ecology, but the companies and the industries (like the extractive industries) are destroying the environment on a large-scale, is necessary to stop them. Anyway, this work is oriented to the people and to contribute to a cultural change that can solve the problem about the inorganic wastes.

Anthropology can help to solve this problem, with this discipline we can identify and analyze cultural practices that produce a lot of waste, in this way, we can question this practices and show that to the people, exposing others alternatives, oriented to clean and protect the nature.   

Solution

We must change our practices that produce too much inorganic garbage. Incorporating a subject in the primary school to teach the children’s about environment pollution, and showing the destructive that can be our simple practices of our daily life we can change the practices of the new generations, more than that, is very important that people know about the climate change and about the nature contamination. But we need more than that to change the destructive traits of the culture imposed for the neoliberalism. We must have the material conditions to make an effective recycling, is very important to increase things like the recycling points in the city. In addition to this, we must educate all the sectors of the society, through free workshops and any kind of dissemination of information about this topic. Not just the destruction of our practices must be exposing, information about alternatives and recycle practices can make the difference. It is true that the industries and companies will keep contaminating, but we must make our part, obviously, without forgetting this problem.