IELTS WRITING TASK 2 TOPIC: It is argued that we are living in a throw-away society: people throw away what they use in daily life, instead of recycling or reusing them. Why has this happened and how to address this issue? Nowadays people tend to discard the products used only once even though the items are still reusable, while previous generations used to recycle these goods for quite a long time. This essay is to explore the causes of this worrying trend and figure out solutions accordingly. Consumers no longer keep goods for a long period of time because these products are not so expensive as before and new products emerge and fade more frequently. In general, not only does individual income of common people gradually increase, but, meanwhile, the costs on manufacturing are remarkably reduced year by year with the advances of technology and batch production applied to a large variety of goods. Therefore, products become cheaper to most of them. What is more, new products with a fair price in place of the old are created to cater to and spur consumer demand. For instance, people, especially youths, are keen on new mobile phones not so expensive but with new functions, usually out of curiosity and to follow the fashion, and naturally, abandon the old ones. Another reason is that most of people tend to neglect the environmental problems caused by this kind of lifestyle. Ignorant of the process of garbage disposal, people are too apt to underestimate the massive resource consumption and severe pollution generated by the waste of various products so easily discarded. For example, mobile phones are hard to degrade when ending up in landfill sites, and heavy metals in the battery can utterly lay waste to acres of soil. As the overconsumption of consumer goods is pervasive, it is important to take some measures to mitigate the problem. Environmental groups can disseminate the knowledge of how to recycle disposable goods and household appliances in order to raise people’s environmental awareness. The government can levy environmental taxes on some disposable products such as plastic bags to deter consumers from overconsumption and encourage people to use eco-friendly alternatives. In conclusion, the main cause of excessive consumption of disposable items is the change of people’s attitudes toward consumption and the increase in disposable income. To solve this problem, it is crucial to raise the awareness of environmental protection which leads to a change of lifestyle.