The culture of consumerism has blurred the lines between wants and needs which is a huge contributing factor to the negative effects on the environment. In the article “Waste Not, Want Not” Bill McKibben attempts to expose the wastefulness in our current lifestyles. Not only does he present strong statistics on the amount of stuff we discard, he also points out the amount of time and energy we spend on useless tasks. Environmentalist Bill McKibben has made huge efforts in promoting environmental awareness thru books and articles he has written, as well as thru work he’s done with several environmental campaigns and protests. In a world where everything is made to be easily accessible and to save time, we have sacrificed a lifestyle that is kinder to the environment and to the spirit. A few examples talked about in the article that harm the earth are: 1. Cutting Trees and killing forests 2.Harmful effects of fuel inefficiency and oil 3.Industrialization. In addition, wasteful habits that also lead to loss of heart are: 1.Time 2.Change in relationship dynamics and 3.Energy spent on trivial matters. First, forests are depleted to print hundreds of thousands of unnecessary junk mail advertising and promoting items on sale or services to be rendered. Everywhere you go you see paper passed around or mailed or put on display. The objective is to attract people to buy more things they don’t need and get good deals that they don’t even want. Some of these papers are sent to recycling centers but the rest are just scattered around, littering our surroundings. Bill McKibber’s point is, we should not even have the need to recycle these if we had not created them in the first place. Second, Engineers are focused on how cars should be built for speed and functions are upgraded. Slowly, more funds are put into research and development for more fuel efficient cars that would be better for the environment. But during the time that