After watching video’s from Annie Leonard’s “Story of Stuff” I was surprised how little I know about the production and disposal of the stuff I use everyday. Few of us think about the process products go through before and after we have them in our possession. We all know that everything we consume must be produced but, very few of us know the whole story behind the things we use on a daily basis. Throughout the “Story of Stuff” video series the viewer is educated about the process’s that must occur to produce and dispose of our stuff.
One of the most startling facts that I learned from the Story of Stuff video was that 1/3 of the world’s natural resources are used up. The U.S.’s consumer culture makes it the number one contributed to the depletion of the world’s natural resources and waste (30%) even though it only has 5% of the world’s total population. We consume 2X the amount that we did in the 50’s and 99% of the things we use are trashed after only one month. Leonard argues that this consumer culture is the child of big companies and government who want to consumer products above all else. In order to get us to consume at such an astonishing rate companies change their products every 6 months or less in order to lure the consumer in to buying the next trendy thing on the market. Since our society has become so product driven we are always interested in the latest greatest products.
I think the idea of the consumer culture is especially interesting to think about in the context of technological developments. Technology is probably one of the industries that contributes to the consumer culture the most because it is constantly being developed and improved. TV commercials have even poked fun at the fast pace of technology and unfortunately as consumers we have become used to the fact that their is constantly something new being introduced to the market. New products excite us in our consumer culture and they challenge us to stay current. Companies like Apple depend on the consumer culture to make money. New versions of their products are released constantly so that the consumer is always chasing after the latest development.
I know I have definitely been guilty of participating in the U.S.’s throw away culture and until now, I never really thought about my impact. Until consumers break this pattern of mass consumption we will continue to destroy our resources and create incredible amounts of waste. Fortunately, in the “Story of Stuff” series Anne Leonard is making consumers more aware of their impact and the things they can do to change.