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The Story of Stuff illustrates the broken system that is our linear, dead-end supply chain. It’s a compelling case for heeding the philosophies of Cradle-to-Cradle design.
“From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.”
For a solution to this maddness, see Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
3 responses so far ↓
1 Ro // Jul 7, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Ok, excellent presentation. Who is the target audience I wonder? By the tone, I would guess 11 and under, what with the cute icons, loopy scribbles and dumb-it-down conclusion.
A few thoughts:
- The gov shining the shoes of big biz may be *renewed* but it’s not new.
- The DVD of this video should be sold to schools only; consumer level sales defeats the entire point
- Preserving and replanting the Amazon basin rain forest could easily offset all carbon fuel consumption worldwide
- ‘Green’ products, especially hybrid car batteries, are being shoe-horned into the materials lifecycle described in the video. That’s a problem.
- Excellent point about recycling NEVER being enough; that can’t be repeated often enough.
- Why soft-peddle the fact that the waste industry incinerates because it’s run by the mob? Even if I am a 10 yr old, I’m old enough to know.
- Education of women remains the #1 antidote against poverty and an environmental degration world wide.
- What about local manufacturing (i.e. industrial caliber factories sacrificing economy of scale in exchange for economy of distance)?
All things considered, it was an excellent video, and it looks to be a slickly produced micro-site.
Thanks.
2 Mary // Jul 8, 2008 at 7:25 am
The education of women as the lead consumer and habit former for the home is indeed a key solution to this increasing problem. We also need rules for the manufacturers to follow or else we’ll continue to bump along with no way to compete in the market, or compare in the stock market.
Story of Stuff explains all the issues that impact a Life Cycle Assessment of a product. That’s not easy to do and yet Annie pulled it off. It doesn’t offer solutions, but it does an excellent job of bringing everyone up to speed.
Since you’re from Santa Monica, you’ll find today’s press release interesting. Go straight to the video and see why Santa Monica is using the SMaRT Sustainable Product certification.
http://www.csrwire.com/News/12578.html
3 Ky // Jul 8, 2008 at 10:57 am
McDonough’s Cradle to Cradle is a good reminder that conventional manufacturing and disposal of products is wasteful, inefficient and environmentally damaging. As an office supply company, we try to do what we can to pressure our business partners to operate in more sustainable ways, such as using biodegradable package peanuts. Additionally we feel it’s essential to support manufacturers that already have sustainable operations and create green products. As part of the responsibility that we’ve taken up, we have a gadget on our website called the Green Screen that lets our customers know the environmental attributes of all products. We also have pages and pages of office greening tips. For more information, please visit us at http://www.thegreenoffice.com/ . Happy greening!
The Green Office
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