The Story of Stuff

This video talks about consumerism and the life of products...focusing on the US and their culture of materialism and consumerism.

This was quite a shocking video to watch with many of the statistics used being very confronting. It started with the process of extraction of raw materials from the earth. Many of these materials are sourced outside the US in developing countries. This has negative consequences for both the environment and also the countries these materials are sourced from. If the whole world were to consume resources like the US we would need at least 3 planet earths to provide this.

The next step is production. This is where energy is used to mix toxic chemicals with the natural resources to make products. There are over 100 000 synthetic chemicals used, only a hand full of which have been tested for effects on health and the environment. An example of this that the video used was Brominated Flame Retardants. These are used in many things like pillows to stop them catching on fire. These are also neurotoxin, which are toxic to the brain...yes each night we are resting our heads on chemicals toxic to our brains! Developed countries like the US don't want to be near the factories which are using all these toxic chemicals, so they too are moved to developing countries where the people who live there work with these chemicals, making both themselves and the environment sick.

Next is distribution. This is where the products are sold as cheap as they can. This means that money is taken from the previous steps, both extraction and manufacture, which both happen in developing countries, having negative effects there. 30% of kids in the Congo drop out of school to mine resources we need for our cheap products.

The driving force of this system is consumption. Ensuring consumption continues to grow is one of the top priorities for the US government. After September 11 George Bush could have advised any number of things to a country in mourning but instead he said to go out and spend. Only 1% of products purchased in the US is still being used 6 months later! This huge culture of consumption was created after World War II when the US economy needed to be stimulated. Planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence contribute greatly to this culture of consumerism. It is planned into products when they will break and become useless (planned obsolescence), or they will be seemed to be needed to be replaced (perceived obsolescence) by changing something about the product. This means that people can tell we haven't bought a new one of these products for a while and it is part of the consumerism culture to shun people who don't consume at this rate.

There is no way that people can keep all these products they keep buying, so there is an alarming amount of waste produced by each house. This either gets put in landfill, or burnt then put in landfill. Both these methods are terrible for the environment, and mean that all those resources that went into making the products are now useless. This is where recycling comes in. This helps out but does not completely solve the problem.

This is a very important video for people to watch, particularly designers. It is important for us to know the effect that our products have on the environment and people health. It is up to us to not design planned obsolescence or perceived obsolescence into our products to stop the rate of consumption. It is also important that we design our products so that when the do come to the end of there life they can be used for something else or an be very easily recycled.