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

Yes, it seems this economic downturn has hit my hometown of Glendale, CA… and just in time too.

Last week, LA Times reported that General Growth, owners of the Glendale Galleria along with 200 other mega-malls, just filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. my peers and i grew up spending a good portion of our early teenage saturdays in this mall. When the first Apple store in the world opened, it came to the Glendale Galleria and me and my Apple-fan buddies stood in line for hours just to get in.  What are today’s teenagers going to be spending their time doing in Glendale, now that the Mall may be on its way out?  Thanks to the efforts of some local activists, Glendale just opened up its first ever community garden, just a few blocks from the mall. I hope this is an indication of the coming trend… more fun, less stuff!

-Babken DerGrigorian
Lead Organizer

MISSOULA SCHOOL BOARD BANS STORY OF STUFF!

We need your help! Please send an email!

A teacher in Missoula, Montana, U.S., recently showed the film The Story of Stuff to her high school biology class. An irate parent complained to the school board, which late last month voted that showing the video violated district policy—in effect banning the film.

Fortuantely students, parents, and teachers in Missoula and elsewhere are voicing their concern to the school board. Please join them!

You can read about this growing controversy in these two recent news articles from Missoula: http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/02/11/news/local/news03.txt and http://missoulian.com/articles/2009/02/08/news/local/news02.txt. And we will post updates to this blog as things develop.

At a time when every reputable scientist and organization agrees that the future of the planet is at risk, educators need to help students to think critically about the causes and consequences of environmental degradation, especially climate change. Our nation’s textbooks and mainstream media have failed to adequately address the environmental crises we face, and teachers like Kathleen Kennedy should be commended for seeking out alternative materials like The Story of Stuff to encourage critical thinking and action for sustainability.
 
Please take a minute to send an email to the Missoula school board to ask that they reconsider their vote. I’ve pasted a sample letter below or you can write your own comment.

Email the school board at publiccomment@mcps.k12.mt.us and send a copy to the local newspaper, the Missoulian, at newsdesk@missoulian.com.

Stay tuned and thank you for helping!

Sincerely,

Annie Leonard
The Story of Stuff
Here’s a suggested note to the school board or, better yet,  you can write and send your own note.

Dear Trustees,

I am writing to urge you to reconsider your January 29th decision that found Kathleen Kennedy, a teacher at Big Sky High School, had violated district policy by airing The Story of Stuff for a biology class. I am deeply concerned that your decision violates Ms. Kennedy’s academic freedom and will have a negative affect on the ability of teachers in your district and around the country to prepare students for the complex and rapidly changing world of which we are all are a part.
 
It is clear from the public statements of both the teacher and students in the class that the film was intended to spark conversation, something it has done in hundreds of classrooms in the United States over the past year. I believe that The Story of Stuff is a valuable resource for teachers in a variety of subjects, biology included, because it covers exactly the kind of ecological and economic issues that students need to be critically examining, and does it in a straightforward and accessible way.
 
Please support a motion to reconsider your earlier vote and overturn that vote in favor of academic freedom, critical thinking and dialogue.

Thank you for your attention and interest.

Sincerely,

(Your Signature)
 

Dear Story of Stuff Supporters, Partners, Friends –

Happy Anniversary.

It has been a full year since we released the Story of Stuff on line. And what a year at that!

We’re celebrating the anniversary by launching our international page today. Please visit www.storyofstuff.com/international.

One of the many surprises in the response to the film was the flood of offers and requests we received fortranslated versions. We have received well over 1,000 requests from all over the world. We are starting with an initial 10 languages in subtitled format and will add additional subtitles and dubbed versions in the coming year. Another dozen languages are already in the works and will be added shortly.

We worked closely with allied organizations in other countries to complete the translations. Each group that contributed a translation has agreed to serve as a regional contact for viewers interested in sustainability, consumption, waste and related issues in their area. This way, we hope that that the translated versions not only spread the message, but strengthen connections among people who want to work for change around the world.

We are now at 4.8 million on line views, with a steady average of 6,000 – 11,000 new ones a day. The list of the op 25 countries, in terms of viewership, is below. We will be tracking this to see how it changes with the addition of subtitled versions. If you write for a blog or newsletter in another language, please tell people about www.storyofstuff.com/international

Thank again to everyone who asked us about translations. Special thanks to our friends around the world who volunteered their translating services (they are listed on the credits section of the international webpage) and Nathan Embretson, who works with the Story of Stuff project and is coordinating the translations project.

As always, if you have any ideas, feedback, we would love to hear them!

Very Sincerely,
Annie Leonard
The Story of Stuff Project

For those of you interested in the international reach of the film, below are the 25 countries with the highest numbers of online viewers, with the current number of views recorded in each.

1.United States (2,627,202)
2.Canada (600,312)     
3.United Kingdom (135,477)     
4.Australia (100,454)     
5.Mexico (98,384)     
6.Germany (95,794)     
7.Israel (84,897)     
8.Brazil (83,037)     
9.India (66,330)     
10.Spain (60,624)     
11.Portugal (46,427)     
12.France (45,422)     
13.Netherlands (43,971)     
14.Romania (43,891)     
15.Argentina (33,352)     
16.Sweden (32,500)     
17.Italy (31,648)     
18.Singapore (27,105)     
19.Turkey (24,746)     
20.New Zealand (23,045)     
21.Colombia (22,147)     
22.Switzerland (21,673)     
23.Belgium (19,927)     
24.Austria (19,147)     
25.Greece (17,086)     

As those of us in the U.S. know, this past Friday was Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, the official start of the consumption-crazed holiday shopping season.

For the 2 weeks prior to Black Friday, my mail box, my local newspaper and my computer spam filter were loaded with ads heralding rock bottom prices for all sorts of consumer goods. I got ads offering new clothes, new electronics, new furniture which didn’t require any payment at all for up to 24 months! Retailers were clearly worried: would people come shopping in the face of growing economic insecurity, rising gas prices, mounting consumer debt, collapsing mortgages, and increasing unemployment? If there was ever a year to skip shopping on Black Friday – as well as more broadly – this is it.

But people did shop. Across the country, people left the Thanksgiving dinners early on Thursday night to sleep in their cars and line up in store parking lots hours before scheduled store openings, which were moved forward to 5:00 am in many places. Putting aside for now the bogus manufactured myth of the origins of this uniquely U.S. holiday, it is nonetheless a time for families and loved ones to stop working, to gather and give thanks. It is one of the few national holidays that don’t dictate buying stuff to show one’s affection for another. While there is a budding Thanksgiving paraphernalia industry (little plastic turkeys for the front yard, rosy cheeked pilgrim placemats), for my generation of people in the U.S., the day remains primarily about gratitude, not consumption.  It requires spending the day cooking, baking, and chopping. It requires hours of playing board games and exchanging stories with family members perhaps only seen once or twice a year.

I spent my Thanksgiving with 20 close friends in a rural area, with no TV and spotty cell phone coverage. Only an occasional text message came through, including one from a friend, Ariane, telling me that a worker at a Wal-Mart had been trampled to death by out of control shoppers.

When I got home last night, I learned more. Shoppers began gathering in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart on Long Island, New York, at 9:00 pm Thanksgiving evening. At 5:00 am, when the store was scheduled to open, the crowd of more than 2,000 people stormed the door. A temporary worker, 34 year old Jdimytai Damour, was overwhelmed by the crowd surging to get inside. Witnesses said people walked over Damour to get to the bargains promised inside.  Emergency medical officers who arrived to help were also jostled and stepped on by the shoppers. Damour was pronounced dead just after 6:00 am. He died of asphyxiation; he was trampled to death.
Wal-Mart didn’t adequately prepare for the crowds, even though a high turnout was expected and this same store had problems last year, even though police had met Wal-Mart before Black Friday to suggest enhanced security measures. Wal-Mart had not bothered to erect barricades, develop systems to moderate and control the number of people who entered at a time or set up any number of measures that could have held back the surging crowd, as other stores did in preparation for the biggest, most manic shopping day of the year. For all these reasons, I believe this as not an accident; it was inevitability. The local Police Commissioner, Lawrence Mulvey, called the situation a “recipe for disaster.”
Sadly, the disaster extends far beyond this one senseless death.

Our consumption driven economy depends on a pattern of constant exploitation and violence towards both people and the planet. This violence is largely hidden from view for us shoppers in wealthy countries, but communities around the world know the reality, even if it isn’t shown on TV or in shiny advertisements. Violence happens at the point of extraction, when communities are displaced and water supplies are poisoned with toxic chemicals from mining operations. Violence happens at the production stage, when workers are exposed to chemicals linked to cancer, neurological disorders, and birth defects. Violence happens at the disposal end, when unwanted electronics – laced with toxic heavy metals and flame retardants – are shipped to China and India because wealthy consumers don’t want them in our own communities anymore.
Yes, Wal-Mart should have taken more precautionary action and it should be held accountable for its lack of responsibility. But  the problem goes far beyond Wal-Mart. As Nassau County police Detective Lt. Michael Fleming said: “Today, it happened to be Wal-Mart. It could have been any other store where hundreds and hundreds of people gather.”

Our current economy depends on excessive levels of personal consumption, even when this consumer spending is resulting in personal and ecological debt beyond a sustainable level. As a result, both the economic and the ecological systems are in crisis. Both need immediate attention and drastic interventions.

It’s the perfect time to go beyond a band aid approach to the connected economic-ecological problems. This is a perfect moment for raising the hard questions, for challenging and replacing the underlying system that is trashing both the planet and its people.  Right now U.S. government is figuring out how to rescue the sinking U.S. economy. Right now, world leaders are meeting in Poznan, Poland to figure out how to prevent even more climate disruption. Right now, a family in New York is mourning the death of Jdimytai Damour. 

Let’s turn it around. Let’s disengage from the consumer frenzy this holiday season. For many of us, it would be a relief to both give and receive less stuff this year. Spend less time at stores like Wal-Mart and more time with our friends and families. Donate to those in need, in lieu of ever more superfluous gift giving. Let’s make our displays of love be a net plus, rather than a drain, on our budgets, our communities and our planet.

Let’s honor Jdimytai Damour by promising “never again.” Let’s celebrate the holiday season in ways that build something new.

This past September, news of the economic crisis dominated the headlines. At the exact same time another debt crisis was intensifying, yet was barely noticed.

Earth Overshoot Day, also known as Ecological Debt Day, was September 23.This is the day in 2008 by which humanity had used all the resources that the planet will generate this year. As viewers of The Story of Stuff already know, we currently consume 1.4 planets’ worth of global resources each year. From September 23rd on, we’re eating into the natural capital, undermining its ability to produce for the future. We’re consuming on credit and accumulating ecological debt that we have no way to repay.

Ecology and economics share a common root: the Greek word oikos, meaning “home.” Economics and ecology both are about managing our home. In our current situation, we have messed up both.  Continue reading here.

We’re obsessive over economic indicators. We track indicators hourly, panic at the slightest decline, invest billions when it is shaky. Yet, we have a  huge collective blind spot to the other ecological management, even though it’s a bigger problem, both in terms of survival and even in terms of finances. There is a growing call coming from all over the world, to integrate our understanding of the economic and ecological crises and to ensure that a solution to one is a solution to both.

Crisis and opportunity are often referred to as two sides of the same coin. That is definitely true here. The current economic crisis provides us a much needed opportunity to re-evaluate the priorities of our economy, to develop new metrics for measuring real progress, for reducing superfluous consumption while increasing economic equity and ensuring the integrity of the ecological systems on which life depends.

My friend Rita always says “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.” Clearly, what we’re doing isn’t working. As David Korten, author of The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth, suggests, it’s time to try something new.