Most people are going to say that we live in throwaway society, but Kenneth Finkel, a professor and distinguished lecturer at Temple University in Philadelphia, has another way of looking at it.

“We live in a world where, in reality, nothing gets thrown away,” Finkel said. “We just move it around from place to place. So the notion of “throwaway” predates an understanding of ecology.

“Our “thrown away” electronics end up in landfills; our ‘thrown away’ clothes end up in landfills or in thrift shops,” Finkel said. “We have more stuff now than anyone has in the history of our species. That was necessary to keep our industrial/commercial/consumer society going. And we invented the idea that we could actually throw it away. But we can’t really.”

Our old shirts also regularly wind up as rags, used to clean our cars and trucks. Obsolete and/or broken electronics, as well as the batteries that we use to power those devices, are almost always recycled. Materials like various metals and plastics are also often recycled, though the occasional plastic bottle may find its way into the regular garbage.

“The “invention of the idea of a throwaway society came out of the fact that we produce more than we have, more than we want and need,” Finkel said. “Our economy depends on this seemingly endless cycle. Then we also had to invent the notion that we can and should dispense with things we no longer need and replace them (or augment them) with newer things even when we don’t need them. So the main influence on the ‘throwaway society’ is our dependence on the economics of excess.”

In the end, we do technically live in a “throwaway society.” If a TV,  iPod or an air-conditioner in a vehicle breaks down, sometimes the cost of labor to fix it (or keep fixing it year after year) is simply not worth it. The same is true for residential central air-conditioners and heating systems when they get older. When something like a car or truck, or a central air-conditioning unit, continues to annually nickel-and-dime its owner, it makes much more financial sense to replace the item in question with a new one that won’t continually have problems, than it does to keep fixing the aging item year after year, month after month, and possibly in extreme cases, week after week or day after day.

But when central air-conditioners are replaced, the old units are typically broken down for materials like aluminum and copper, which is in turn recycled. The non-recyclable parts more than likely end up in the landfill. Cars, trucks, and other vehicles are also recycled when they are either wrecked or reach the end of their lifespan. As was the case with Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, derelict automobiles also begin new lives as piece of art. Computer parts, plastics, various metals, and even glass all get recycled, so to say we live in a throwaway society is not entirely accurate.

If we lived in a throwaway society, the point Finkel is trying to make is that discarded items would simply disappear. Most items are recycled, and those that are not recycled do not disappear, but instead typically wind up in a landfill. “Throwaway Society” is basically an incorrect term.