The bad news first: The model is broken, and it will likely take at least a year or more to become stable, but far from fixed. The model is based on consumerism, the American Way, which is supposed to bring us the American Dream. People work themselves into the ground to shop at Wal-Mart and buy products produced by someone else, somewhere else. The prices we demand do not support the wages we need to have everything we need and want. So we turn to credit. Over the past 40 years, we, as a nation, have become entrenched in debt. Credit has been handled irresponsibly on either sides, and now we, as a nation, are feeling the effects firsthand.

Because we exported the majority of our industry and manufacturing to support the low prices we demanded, and to cut costs and increase profits for corporations, we are now seeing increased unemployment. Our demand on natural resources and products is so great, as soon as our own demand decreases, we affect the ability for millions to work. Our model is broken.

People turn to government for support. Millions of people can’t afford health care, housing or food, the basic necessities for life and happiness, without government assistance. Somehow, the government must fund our increased need for services, while tax revenues from sales, permits and personal and business income are decreased due to the same situation.

In the meantime, we have a material management, otherwise known as a waste management, issue. Even in this recession, we are still consuming 25% of the world’s resources. The U.S. population accounts for roughly 5% of the world’s total population. We consume products and their corresponding resources at an alarming rate, and within a matter of months, days, minutes, sometimes even seconds, we discard what we have consumed. And we start the process all over again.

The majority of our discards are put into landfills, where they do not breakdown but stay in a static form for hundreds of years. In an EPA drill at a landfill 60 years deep, they discovered carrot tops that looked as though they had just been cut. A newspaper handled as though it had just come off the rack. Why? A landfill is designed to lock out oxygen and water, the two basic ingredients needed for materials to decompose. If things do breakdown anaerobically (without oxygen), it releases methane into the atmosphere, trapping heat and contributing to global warming.

These examples are rather benign additions to our landfill. Others, like batteries, electronics, chemicals and petroleum products, may form corrosive liquids that eat through the protective liners and contaminate our ground water and streams, our insects and fish. This is already happening in some places, whether from landfills or production lands. This contamination eventually works its way up the food chain and is ingested, by us.

Insects are important to the survival of humans. Bees pollinate a large majority of the food we grow and eat in the U.S., and they are dying off at alarming rates the world over. No one is quite sure why. We will ultimately suffer their loss. Most people do not even realize this is happening.

The solution: I believe one of our greatest resources as a nation right now is what we discard. We could provide for the entire nation, possibly even the world’s needs, just in what we don’t want anymore. Rather than burying it in the ground, where it is wasted and can lead to ill effects in the future, why can we not employee people collecting, repurposing and selling our used goods to others in need. Scrapping and reusing parts from our electronic devices that we often use for a year, or less, before replacing with updated versions. If this toxic exposure is too high for our own citizens to handle, why do we allow these products to be sold in the first place? Let’s take responsibility for our consumerism, let’s ask the companies that produce products to take responsibility, and find a way to benefit from it, as a nation.

I do not propose that this system would pay for itself. However, if the government is going to fund a bailout, it would be nice to see it address multiple issues at one time, the entire life cycle of issues. The need for resources on all levels is a growing concern for our country, our world. Let’s use our resources wisely, over and over again, rather than extracting raw materials at escalating economic and environmental costs while depriving ourselves of basic needs.

The old model is broken. The American Dream of retirement will not exist for my generation. I am 37. We will be dealing with food, water and climate related issues in the very near future. Things won’t get better if we are truly past the tipping point as scientists indicate. Our only hope is to tear down the old model that is consuming our resources and us along with it, and to build a new, sustainable model, starting today.

Stop consuming, start reusing. Live wisely with the world in mind.