The Story of

Stuff

Narrated by Annie Leonard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
 Materials Economy

1. Extraction
2. Production
3. Distribution
4. Consumption
5. Disposal
 Materials Economy

• Portrayed as a linear system

– Cannot run a linear system on a finite planet
indefinitely.
– What is the definition of finite?
 Materials Economy

• A system in crisis
– Runs up against limits at every stage
Materials Economy

• Not linear
– The system
interacts with the
world at every
stage.
• People
• Governments
• Corporations
 People

• The system
bumps up
against
societies,
cultures, and
environments.
• Who is
important?
People who don’t own land, don’t buy stuff, don’t have value…
 Government

• Supposed to take care of people, that’s the

governments job!
• Beholden to giant corporations.
 Corporations
• Now the largest
economies on the
planet-not
governments.
• Corporations are
BIGGER than
governments.
– Massive growth last
60 years.
 Extraction
• Removal of trees • 4% of USA original
• Removal of forest left
mountains for metals/ • 40% of water polluted
coal USA
• Depletion or pollution • World 80% of original
of water forest GONE
• Destruction of • 75% of fisheries in
animals/wildlife serious peril
– Running out
Resources are FINITE and we are running out!
 Extraction
• Look at the USA:
– 5% of world population
– Uses 30% of resources
– Creates 30% of waste
• When we run out of
our own resources, we
take them from the
third world.
 Production
• Over 100,000 chemicals in use and only a
handful have ever been tested for their
effects on human health individually, never
mind synergistically.
• So we mix toxic chemicals with natural
resources to get TOXIC PRODUCTS.
 Production
• BFR example:
– Used in appliances, couches, computers,
pillows:
• SUPER TOXIC flame retardant!
– As brilliant a nation as we are, can we not find
a better way to keep our heads from catching
on fire while we sleep?
 Production
• Toxics in, Toxics out
• Food Chain: where do the toxics go?
• Human Breast Milk example: one of the
most toxic substances : (

Rocket Fuel in Breast Milk

 Production
• Hey isn’t the government supposed to
protect us from this?

Toxic fire retardants

found in breast milk
 Production
• Factory Workers
WORLDWIDE!!
– Bear the biggest brunt, often
women of reproductive age.
– Why would they do that??
– No other option…
• Erosion of local
environments ensures a
steady supply of people with
NO OPTION.
• Some 200,000 people leave
rural areas EVERY DAY to
move to cities.
 Production
• People are wasted all along the system,
just as resources are wasted.
Production

• Pollution
– US industry
ADMITS to
releasing 4
billion
pounds per
year.
– They
release
more…
 Production
– Export the pollution
to other countries,
like China
– It comes back to us,
especially on the
Pacific Coast and in
California
 Production
– Export the pollution to
other countries, like
China
• It comes back to us,
especially on the
Pacific Coast and in
California
– Acid Rain and THE
most polluted river in
the USA: the New
River (draining from
the Maquiladoras into
the Salton Sea)
 Distribution
• Goals:
– Keep prices down
– Keep inventory moving as fast as possible
 Distribution
• How can they do this??
• By EXTERNALIZING COSTS
– The real cost of producing the products is
NOT captured in the price.
 Distribution
• Externalized Costs:
– Don’t pay workers fair wages or provide
healthcare
• So the workers pay part of the externalized costs
 Distribution

• Externalized Costs:
– They don’t pay the real
costs for extraction of
resources
• People pay for that with
the loss of their resources:
mountains, forests, clean
water, clean air.
• People pay for it with the
loss of good health due to
cancers, asthma, and
other diseases caused by
environmental exposure.
 Distribution
• Externalized Costs:
– People pay with the loss of their futures:
– Coltan mining in the Congo, kids drop out of
school to mine it.
 Distribution
• Externalized costs:
– Workers in the USA pay for it with the loss of
healthcare and low wages.
– Who REALLY ends up paying for those short
comings??
• Think about it for a minute, we all do.

The ONLY way

more than 40
million
Americans get to
see a doctor…
 Consumption Go Shopping!!

• USA: Consumer Nation!!

• Bush after 9/11: SHOP

• We measure value by how much we

consume.
 Consumption
• Our ULTIMATE GOAL is to produce more
consumer goods.
• What??

• How did this happen?

 Consumption
• It was deliberate, it was done in the
1950’s to ramp up the US economy.
– Make consumerism a way of life, seek
satisfaction in consumption…
• Interesting correlation with
happiness: Happiness peaked in
1950 in the USA and has declined
ever since we adopted this goal.
 Consumption
• After 6 months of use, 99% of the stuff we
buy is trashed.
– Levels of “Throughput” are TOO high.
• What happened to stewardship, thrift, and
resourcefulness? Old fashioned values…
 Consumption
• Obsolescence planned and
perceived
• Designed to break so you
have to buy a new one
– Cars, computers
– Design journals!!
• Designed to look different
so you look outdated using
a product that may still be
perfectly useful
– Fashion…
 Consumption
• Ads
– To make you unhappy with what you have to
you will buy new stuff.
– We see more in one year today that people
50 years ago did in a lifetime.
• Show you consumption and distribution, NOT the
extraction or production process…

Americas Number One and Two Past Times: Shopping and Watching TV

We have less leisure time now than all the past societies until the feudal era.
 Disposal
• For every one trash can you throw out as
a household, 70 we thrown out in the
industrial process.
 Disposal
• Recycling
– It’s good, but not good enough because it
does not address the root of the problem.
• Industrial waste is ENORMOUS
• Some product are designed not to be recycled like
juice boxes.
• Some products are too toxic to recycle.
 Disposal
• How we dispose:
• Landfills,
Incinerators
– Incinerator toxic
• DIOXIN the most
toxic substance
know to man, all
from burning trash,
could be stopped
right now.
 Disposal
• Unfortunately we have a Throw Away
Mindset…

• That needs to change.

 Many Points of Intervention
• One good thing about this type of system are the
MANY places that intervention can and are
occurring:
– Saving forests
– Labor rights
– Fair trade
– Blocking incinerators/landfills
– Clean production
– Conscious consumerism
– Taking back our government
 Many Points of Intervention

• The BIG PICTURE

–People created the system
and people can change it.
 Change the System
• Change it from linear to circular:
– Change to a system that does not waste
resources or people.

to
 A New System
• Based on: • Some say it’s fantasy
– Sustainability to think we can do
– Equity this.
– Green Chemistry • It is a fantasy to think
– Zero Waste we can continue
– Closed Loop using the current
– Renewable Energy system.
– Local Living
Economies

People created the system we use today and

people CAN change it!