Story of Stuff Reflection

“Have you ever wondered where all the stuff we buy comes from? And where it goes when we throw it out?” Annie says. Is this as simple as wood can be made to textbooks and then when we throw them, they will become another paper products? From my points, it is not that simple after watching The Story of Stuff. This is an interesting video, in just 20 minutes Annie Leonard lays out the problems in our consumption of “stuff” and shows how everything is linked: environmental problems with social justice issues with declining happiness.

“Stuff moves through a system, from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. All together, it is called the materials economy.” This is a linear system, but it is in crisis. Because “we live on a finite planet and we cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely.” Just start with extraction, as what Annie says, “ extraction is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation, is a fancy word for trashing the planet.” This is a hundred percent true! Acting as the robbers, we chop down tress to build houses, we blow up mountains to get the metals inside, and we wipe out the animals for making clothes. As the example Annie says, “in the past three decades alone, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have bee consumed. And gone.” We are running out resources that undermine the planet’s very ability for us to live here! We have ONLY ONE world. All of us are living in the same planet, we need to protect our place, not only try to do to where the city or country we live. Next is the production, Annie mentions “Toxics in, Toxics out”. Like BFRs, these are super toxic. However, we still put them in our computers, our appliances, couches, mattresses, and even some pillows. This is a circular way for getting toxic chemicals from babies. What an incredible violation! We need to pay attention about using materials. Distribution, it means, “selling all this toxic-contaminated junk as quickly as possible”. From Annie’s example, $4.99 radio, this is not the real price for the radio. Every time we go to the supermarket and feel so happy to buy some cheap products. But do we ever realize the people who paid behind and even loss of their natural resource base? Time for consumption, this is the heart of the system, the engine that drives it. We spend money for buying stuffs everyday. Just because of the large demand, large supply needs to keep the materials flowing. Therefore, extraction! Finally, disposal, this is the part of the materials economy we all know the most. But we all did not do well. By burning in an incinerator, cause air pollution; dumping into a landfill, land, water pollution. And also when we try to recycle, although it helps, but we cannot really recycle all the garbage. Because some stuff is designed not to be recyclable, like the juice packs with layers of metal and paper and plastic all smooched together.

The whole system is in crisis, all along the way we are bumping up limits. We cannot waste time any more. This is our only place to live in. Saving forests, saving animals, etc., these are not enough for protecting our world. The most important thing is taking back our real government, not the one only pay attention about the money. Governments need to care about people, watch out for us. And we have to face the problems in this system, and solve. “When people along this system get united, we can reclaim and transform this linear system in to something new, a system that doesn’t waste resources or people. Because what we really need to chuck is this old-school throwaway mindset. “ As an industrial design student, these will become my aims and missions, no more “design to dump”, no more “toxic material”, no more “designed not to be recyclable” and so on. Just throw away the old way, depend on what just happen today, depend on what issue is it, and create something new!