The Story Of Stuff

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A jam-packed 20-minutes, The Story of Stuff can teach you a lot. But, of course, there is a ton more information out there about the topics raised in the movie. Here are some resources to get you started:

■Extraction
Extraction means taking the planet’s resources- wood, minerals, coal, fossil fuel, water, plants, animals, and soil out of the earth and starting their journey through the materials economy. The problem here is threefold: we’re using too much stuff, the processes by which we extract all that stuff cause more damage and we’re not sharing the stuff equitably.

■Production
In the production stage, we use energy to add toxic chemicals to the natural resources to make toxic products. Our industrial production systems use vast amounts of natural resources, water, energy and chemical compounds to churn out pollution, work and community health problems and products, many of which contain toxics known to be harmful to human health and the environment.

■Distribution
Distribution involved transporting and selling al the stuff quickly and cheaply. The goal here is to keep prices down, keep the people buying and keep the materials flow moving. A key strategy businesses use to keep prices down is to externalize costs. That means that the price tags on consumer products don't capture the true costs of producing and distributing all this stuff.

■Consumption
Current consumption patterns are unsustainable and inequitable and must be changed. But changing consumer behavior isn't enough. Yes, when we shop, we should buy the least damaging product available and affordable, but consumption is a systems problem, meaning our choices at the supermarkets are pre-determined and limited by political and institutional forces beyond the store. To change these, we need to step beyond our role as consumers and reclaim our identity as engaged citizens in a democracy.

■Disposal
Virtually all the resources flowing through the materials economy eventually end up as waste to be disposed somewhere, usually dumped or burned or recovered for recycling. As the volume and toxicity of waste grows, recycling can't solve the whole problem. Waste needs to be designed out of the system from the start-through cleaner production, better product design, composting, recycling and using less stuff overall.

■Another Way
Each of us can promote sustainability and justice at multiple levels. But there is no single simple thing to do, because the set of problems we’re addressing just isn’t simple. Click around our site to get started on the individual level and contact groups listed on our site to get involved at the city, state and national level. These organizations are involved in diverse campaigns to address the problems and to promote solutions. It is by joining together that we can create the momentum for real change. So click around, reach out, get involved, have fun.

GET THE FACTS - Download the Fact Sheet here!

Martin Luther King said, “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. “

I hope you make an effort to embrace living the simple life - frugality as a choice.