“Throwaway Culture: The Excess of Consumerism”

In the United States we have a “throw away culture.” Our relative wealth, cheap overseas labor, and a ravenous appetite for quick profits have combined to bring out the worst of capitalism. It leads to wasteful economics and more environmental degradation. Worst of all, it doesn’t make our lives better. While millions of people living near landfills and dumps scavenge anything of value from the trash we discard, Hugh Taft-Morales asks, “Can’t we come up with a better way to live?”

Hugh Taft-Morales joined the Baltimore Ethical Society as its professional leader in 2010, the same year he was certified by the American Ethical Union as an Ethical Culture Leader. He also serves as Leader of the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia. His presence in Ethical Culture has been termed “invigorating.” Taft-Morales lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, with his wife Maureen, a Latin American Analyst with the Congressional Research Service, with whom he has three beloved children, Sean, Maya, and Justin.