Many Story of Stuff viewers have asked for Story of Stuff translations. We do have some translations on the webpage (storyofstuff.com/international) and we are currently evaluating some systems to make it easier for interested viewers to translate and post the film.  We realize that it is hard to read the subtitles going by so fast, so we really appreciate it when friends take on the job of dubbing the film, as GAIA (www.no-burn.org), an international network working on sustainable and just solutions to dealing with waste, and Fundacion Puntos de Encuentro (www.puntos.org.ni) recently did in Spanish.

The Story of Stuff is now available in Spanish at www.noalaincineracion.org/cosas

(Para más información sobre GAIA: www.no-burn.org/espanol
Para más información sobre Puntos de Encuentro: www.puntos.org.ni
Contacto: cosas@no-burn.org

Argentina. Students at the Dept. of Electromechanical Engineering, National Technological University.

Excerpt from Opportunity Green’s blog:

“Story of Stuff creator Annie Leonard and Jonah Sachs of Free Range Studios discuss the importance of storytelling when building your brand. Being authentic, speaking to the core truths and showing the connections were all themes they expounded upon.”

Read the full post HERE.

We deeply appreciate the generous outpouring of support our Project has received over the past 48 hours in response to Glenn Beck’s continuing attack against the use of The Story of Stuff in classrooms across the country.

We created The Story of Stuff to get people thinking and talking. The result over the past two years—not to mention the past two days—speaks for itself.

The messages we’ve received from thousands of teachers and students who’ve seen the film—some of whom thoroughly disagreed with it—gives us confidence that young people are not only fully capable of engaging with the subject matter in the Story of Stuff, they’re asking for it. After all, they are the ones who will have to address climate change and the other environmental and social side effects of our throw away culture.

Beck’s line of attack appears to be motivated by the release of his new book: Arguing with Idiots.

But we have better things to do.

We’re developing a two-week educational curriculum—aligned to national standards, with a strong focus on critical thinking—that provides teachers with a fuller set of tools to help students consider and debate the message of The Story of Stuff.

In response to requests from thousands of faith-based institutions for more information, we’re field-testing a study program that helps people of faith explore how their religious beliefs connect with the message of The Story of Stuff.

We’re also in production on a set of new short films, the first of which we’ll be releasing this November.

We appreciate the new viewers, Facebook friends, contributions and other support that Beck has generated for us, but rather than respond to his outrageous claims, we’re going to stay focused on building the more sustainable, safe and just world our children, and all of us, deserve.

Thanks,

Annie Leonard and the Story of Stuff Project Team

On his radio and television programs today, Glenn Beck offered up a “critique” of The Story of Stuff—a 20-minute web-film that examines the underside of America’s production and consumption patterns. In Beck’s world, an honest exploration of the environmental and social challenges our children are inheriting is worthy of scorn and ridicule, not honest engagement.

In May 2009, the New York Times called The Story of Stuff “a sleeper hit in classrooms across the country.” We’re honored that teachers from middle school through university are using our film to spark debate and engage students in critical thinking.

While it may be hard for climate change deniers like Beck and his friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Evergreen Freedom Foundation to swallow, there is a real hunger in this country for a straightforward, honest discussion of our environmental future. Teachers have told us that The Story of Stuff has been a valuable supplement to textbooks that give short shrift to issues like climate change by creating spirited debate and inspiring students to look deeper into what are truly some of the greatest challenges of the 21^st century.

Beck didn’t have the courtesy to contact The Story of Stuff Project for comment or offer a spot on his show to rebut the claims of his guests. While playing fast and loose with the facts is nothing new for Beck, we stand behind our presentation.

Viewers are welcome to visit www.storyofstuff.org to watch the film and, as Fox News would put it, decide for themselves. While on the site, visitors can check out the annotated script, which provides references for all the facts used in the film. For those who would like to use The Story of Stuff to stimulate discussions in classrooms, living rooms, community meetings or other venues, there are a number of resources, including sample discussion questions and group exercise ideas, in the resources section of the Story of Stuff webpage.

If you haven’t been to a landfill, I highly recommend it.  Transfer stations, where garbage is transferred from smaller trucks to bigger ones, and Materials Recovery Facilities, or MRFs, where some recyclables are pulled out of the trash before it is dumped, are also really interesting. Seeing the often-hidden back end of our materials economy can be a transformative, or at least a very thought provoking –if smelly – experience. Click Here to see pictures from our fieldtrip to the dump.

It was a trip to the landfill on Staten Island in New York City that first sparked my fascination with the way we make, use and throw away all the stuff in our lives.  Ever since then, I’ve visited dumps whenever I visit a new city, all over the world. It is a great way to get insight into what is going on in a place, what the community values, how the people live.

If you visit one of these facilities in the U.S., you’ll see pretty quickly that we are humungous waste makers in this country. Nationally, we generate over 250 million tons of garbage each year, and that is only the municipal waste – or garbage – which doesn’t even include the much larger amounts of waste from industries, mining, and construction. We make enough garbage each year in the U.S. to fill  a convoy of 10-ton trucks long enough to wrap around the earth six times!  That’s a huge amount and it’s still increasing. In 1980, each of us in the U.S., on average, made about 3.6 pounds  (1.6 kg) of garbage per day; by 2007, this had increased to more than 4.6 pounds (2.1 kg).  It is an amazing thing to watch these gigantic trucks, sometimes lined up by the dozens, waiting to dump or move ever more garbage. It just goes on and on.

And what’s in these mountains of waste? Good Stuff! That is really what drives me nuts. It is stuff that could have been prevented, repaired, reused, or recycled. When our Story of Stuff team was watching “the pit” where the waste was dumped, we saw one truck unload perfectly good picnic table benches and a dozen big terra cotta pots full of plants. Augh, I’d been searching Freecycle for a bench just like that for my backyard. I briefly contemplated leaping into that cement pit to grab the bench, until I saw the big garbage smushing machine come by.

There was other stuff – electronics, furniture, toys – that was not perfectly good, but was still mostly good.  You know all that stuff that stops working because just one piece broke but it’s so hard to repair or recycle that it is easier and cheaper to just throw it away and buy a new one? There were truckloads of that stuff too.

In Europe and parts of Canada and Asia, governments are starting to ask why they and the taxpayers are getting stuck with cleaning up all this poorly designed, toxic containing, difficult to recycle stuff that companies keep putting on the market, designed to be disposable. They’ve developed a system called Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, which holds companies responsible for their products at the end of their useful life. The idea is that making companies responsible for dealing with all the stuff they make will encourage them to make their products less wasteful, less toxic, more durable and easier to disassemble for recovery and repair. Using tax payer money to go around picking up and whisking away all this broken stuff is like a subsidy for companies that choose to make wasteful disposable junk. Enough already.

Want to see for yourself what is coming out the back end of our systems of production and consumption? Call your local Waste Management Agency or Department of Sanitation, or whichever company has its logo is on the trucks which pick up the stuff in your neighborhood to request a tour of the dump, transfer station or MRF.  If you take pictures  share afterwards, please post them on FLCKR with the tag ‘StoryofStuff. If you have thoughts to share, head on over to our Facebook page.

And if that trip to the dump inspires you to get involved, you’re not alone! There are loads of groups working to on waste from the policy level to the practical level, working upstream to reduce waste at source and downstream to increase recycling and composting. My personal favorite is GAIA, an international network working to stop polluting landfills and incinerators and promote solutions that are better for the planet, for communities and for workers.  GAIA has member organizations in 81 countries, so GAIA is a great place to start regardless of where you live. If you’re intrigued by the idea of using EPR to hold companies responsible for the products they make, you can learn more at the Product Policy Institute . If you’re outraged about companies in rich countries which export hazardous wastes to poorer countries, contact the Basel Action Network . There are lots more groups on The Story of Stuff website  and even more at Wiserearth.

The other day, I was making a list of all the strategies I could think of to reduce the amount of stuff that we all use day in and day out. Among the more wordy options – extended producer responsibility, internalizing externalities – was a simple concept: sharing.

I’m a parent of a fourth grader. As any parent knows, thousands of hours are spent in those early years teaching our young ones about sharing. We have songs about sharing, books about sharing, games about sharing.

Somewhere along the path to grown-up-hood, we too often lose that really important lesson.

Somehow sharing becomes an inconvenience, even an embarrassment. Sometimes we want to share, but we don’t know how or with whom. So, we have this crazy situation where each house on a block may have its own ladder, lawnmower, wagon, fax machine, bundt pan, interview suit, snow blower, second car, roof rack and countless other items which are seldom used. If we get together and share these things, we can decrease the time working to buy and maintain them, decrease the energy and materials needed to make  and distribute so many of them, decrease the stuff crammed into our garages, and – perhaps most importantly – strengthen our community since sharing requires communication and time together.

I’m happy to report that there is a wonderful new resource for those who want to reinvigorate sharing in our life. Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow have written a book, to be released on June 2nd, called: The Sharing Solution: How to Save Money, Simplify Your Life & Build Community.

This book is like the grown up version of all those Barney songs my daughter used to sing in kindergarten. It doesn’t just extol the economic, environmental and community building benefits of sharing, it helps us do more of it. It has legal explanations, checklists of things to discuss before sharing big items, sample sharing agreements, tips for discussing the inevitable challenges.

The book’s description says:

“The ultimate beauty of sharing is that it’s a solution we create for ourselves. It’s not a government program, nor is it the “latest and greatest” product marketed to us on billboards. It’s a solution based on our own needs and lifestyles, in our own communities. It’s a way for each of us to shape our own lives in positive ways and simultaneously benefit the world as a whole. In that respect, sharing is more than a simple trend: Some might even say our society is moving toward a sharing revolution.”

The Sharing Solution is available on line from its publisher (nolo.com) or any number of online vendors including Amazon or Powell’s. Or better yet, ask your local library to get a copy or round up a bunch of friends to each pitch in a few dollars and share a copy.

Annie