‘The Story of Stuff’ Video Goes Viral

‘The Story of Stuff’ explores consumerism

A new video called “The Story of Stuff,” created and hosted by Annie Leonard, has become popular in classrooms across the United States. “The Story of Stuff” analyzes the cycle of consumerism, from extraction to disposal.

“We’re using too much stuff,” Leonard explains. She says the linear system of consumption can’t be sustained indefinitely on a finite planet.

Out of sight

“The Story of Stuff” explores waste, toxins, pollution and the economy. She talks about how, in the distribution part of the process, big-box stores go to great lengths to keep costs down. For the most part, this means externalizing costs.

That means we are using natural resources and polluting air in other countries. Leonard teaches this and many other lessons about how money and prices affect people in other countries.

“Our primary identity has become that of being consumers,” Leonard says.

So next time you’re looking at getting a cash advance to buy something disposable, you might want to reconsider.

Disposable society

Leonard explains that 99 percent of consumer goods are disposed of within six months. Our planet can’t support this amount of waste much longer, she says.

She also stresses that products are designed this way on purpose. Manufacturers in the 1950s, at the beginning of the consumer era, purposely created goods that would need to be replaced in short order.

Throwing it all away

Leonard encourages a few solutions to ending this dangerous cycle of consumerism. Her first, and most important, solution is that people just stop buying stuff. She discusses perceived obsolescence, which makes people throw out stuff that is still perfectly functional to replace it with new stuff.

She also stresses recycling. Recycling will help, but it won’t solve the problem on its own. Using sustainable goods and refusing to continue the cycle of consumption and disposal is the only way to reduce waste, toxins and depletion of natural resources.

She says: “What we really need to chuck is that old-school, throwaway mindset.”

By the people, for the people?

Leonard also discusses the government and its relationship with corporations, which creates the motivation behind the campaign to convince Americans to continue buying more and more stuff.

We have had it pounded into our heads that we must shop, shop, shop in order to sustain the U.S. economy. Spending money and “feeding the system” have been proposed as the answer to our economic problems.

Prioritizing

If we followed Leonard’s advice and just stopped buying stuff, would our economy collapse? Yes, it probably would. However, Leonard also points out that as consumerism has gone up, overall happiness has gone steadily down.

Whatever your priorities, it’s an interesting video to watch that holds attention well and contains lots of useful tidbits and points. You can watch “The Story of Stuff” at The Huffington Post, and read about Leonard and order copies of the video at www.storyofstuff.com.