The Story of Stuff Project

Excerpt of article written by Annie Leonard & Stacy Malkan for the Huffington Post

What a couple of weeks it’s been! More than 200,000 of you have watched the Story of Cosmetics since its launch July 21, and we’ve received an outpouring of support — from cancer survivors, salon workers who’ve been harmed by chemical exposures on the job, green business owners and people around the world who are thanking us for raising the debate about toxic chemicals in the shampoos, deodorants and lotions we rub on our bodies every day.

The introduction of the Safe Cosmetics Act on the same day as the film premiere provides a vehicle to organize this energy into action. There are real opportunities ahead to shift the $50 billion beauty industry in a safer, more sustainable direction‘

Surprise, surprise:  the big cosmetics companies aren’t such big fans of the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010—legislation introduced yesterday to more strictly regulate their business—or of our new movie. The Personal Care Products Council went so far as to issue a statement calling The Story of Cosmetics a “repugnant and absurd…shockumentary.” Whoa!

There’s a good reason the cosmetics industry doesn’t like all the attention it’s getting:  for years, they’ve been largely left alone to decide what’s safe to put in their products. You know, things like lead in lipstick. Neurotoxins in body spray. Carcinogens in baby wash.

Now that’s repugnant!

Yesterday, the industry front group released their own plan for “reforming” cosmetics industry regulation—basically a lame, watered-down version of the kinds of changes that would really help to make our products safer and healthier.

To learn more about the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010, click here, or check out Stacy’s blog to learn more about the industry press conference.

Now is a critical time to really turn up the volume on personal care product safety and to demand that Congress forces cosmetics companies to get the neurotoxins and carcinogens out of our personal care products.

We got a great start yesterday:  thanks to you, more than 50,000 people have watched The Story of Cosmetics over the last 24 hours and thousands more have taken action to make sure we get these nasty toxics out of our products. Yay!

In the next week, we want at least 100,000 more people to watch the film and add their voices to the call to clean up the cosmetics industry.

Will you help us get there?

Just keep doing what you’re doing—posting the video on your Facebook or Twitter, forwarding it to friends, family and colleagues, writing about it on your blog, shouting the url from the rooftops!  It also really helps when you comment on blog posts that mention the film.

And of course, make sure that you visit the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics website to sign a letter to your Member of Congress. Make your voice count!

It’s probably one of the most common questions that we get asked at the Story of Stuff Project:   “How do you all stay so positive in the face of (insert horrifying ecological or social problem here)?”

In Annie’s case, we think it might be chemical, but for the rest of the Story of Stuff crew, a huge reason we keep coming to the office everyday is the opportunity to connect with people around the world who are inventing Another Way. Let’s face it; it’s hard to be Debbie Downer when the folks around you are so inspiring.

My most recent brush with solutions has me all a flutter (in addition to confirming that I am an absolute and total geek).

This July I spent the better part of a week in Lowell, Massachusetts at the Lowell Center’s Sustainability Action Summer Institute. The training was a gathering of a special kind of nerd (myself included) who is fascinated by the toxicity of various chemical compounds in cleaning products and thinks that brominated flame retardants in cell phones makes for stimulating dinner conversation. Needless to say, I had a great time.

I think I found the week so nourishing mainly because the entire meeting was solutions oriented. Here was a room full of policy wonks, academics, scientists, foundation representatives, and sustainability advocates who really understand the disastrous consequences of our super toxic, chemical-laden culture for people and the planet.  If ever there was a group of people who could tell you how x-chemical causes cancer and y-chemical is killing off all the fish and z-chemical results in birth defects this was it.

Yet for the five days that I was in Lowell, the conversation was almost exclusively about what was being done to change the landscape and bring us closer to the kind of future we want:  debriefs on state and national policies—like the Safer Chemicals Act—to regulate the use of toxic chemicals; an orientation on the Pharos database that helps activists study up on toxic chemicals and helps green builders make safer and more sustainable materials choices; talking through frameworks for sustainable products and alternatives assessments; and exploring the groundbreaking work being done to green the electronics industry.

One real highlight was a dinner with John Warner, one of the fathers of green chemistry. Warner inspired me with the incredible possibility that creativity and innovation hold for transforming entire industries to be safer and more sustainable. Even if less geeky sectors of the population may not be as enthralled as I am by the possibility of dry chemicals reactions or a database comparing the most sustainable, least toxic resilient flooring options, I think that we can all agree that creativity and innovation are captivating.

To borrow from one of the Lowell Center’s slogans “Natural resources are finite, ideas are not.”  And that is a very good thing.

Excerpt from the New York Times:

CONCORD, Mass. — Henry David Thoreau was jailed here 164 years ago for refusing to pay taxes while living at Walden Pond. Now the town has Jean Hill to contend with.

Mrs. Hill, an octogenarian previously best known for her blueberry jam, proposed banning the sale of bottled water here at a town meeting this spring. Voters approved, with the intent of making Concord the first town in the nation to strip Aquafina, Poland Spring and the like from its stores.

In orchestrating an outright ban, Mrs. Hill, 82, has achieved something that powerful environmental groups have not even tried. The bottled water industry is not pleased; it has threatened to sue if the ban takes effect as planned on Jan. 1. Officials here have hinted that they might not strictly enforce it, but Mrs. Hill, who described herself as obsessed, said that would only deepen her resolve.

“I’m going to work until I drop on this,” she said. “If you believe in something, you have to persist and you have to have a thick skin.”

Read the full article HERE.

from giveyourstuffaway.com

free stuff all over the place

Free stuff will be available in neighborhoods all over America on May 15, 2010. It’s an event Mike Morone is hoping to establish world-wide twice annually. The event could eventually help millions, while diminishing landfills, reducing clutter, and boosting the economy.

Many of us own valuable stuff we just don’t want anymore. But instead of giving it away or selling it, we allow it to clutter our households and businesses. Billions of great items are just wasting away, taking up space.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could magically shift ownership of this stuff, in one weekend, coast to coast, with zero effort, little time, and at no cost?

Cool happens on May 15, 2010. It’s called Give Your Stuff Away Day and it will work (almost) like magic, as long as we promote the idea and follow common sense procedures.

On May 15, bring your valuable, but unwanted stuff to your curb. Some guidelines – no trash, recyclables, illegal or dangerous items. No food, drugs, chemicals, or weapons. Just safe, valuable items we would like to donate. Then watch the fun – or better yet, take a walk and find some free stuff you can use.

A few warnings: Give Your Stuff Away Day can get a bit messy, but it’s worth it. Trash hauling expenses could spike that week. But in the long run, fewer items in landfills equate to lower hauling expenses.

Local governments won’t like it – until they understand how beneficial it can be. Last month, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell became the first elected official to understand that. Read about it here, and please call Mike Morone if you would like to discuss this event. http://giveyourstuffaway.com/docs/CTProclamation.pdf

Give Your Stuff Away Day is not a government program. Let’s keep it citizen-based, and let the government solve bigger problems.

But let’s also be responsible by:
• informing our local municipalities of our intent to participate
• asking local governments for a waiver to ordinances that might prohibit this activity
• placing at our curbs only items that others could use
• retrieving items not picked up within a couple of days

Want to help?
• Forward this email to family and friends
• Write a small article or letter to the editor
• Contact your local government and let them know you want to participate
• Help sponsor Give Your Stuff Away Day

The Story of Stuff Project and GreenFaith are pleased to release Let There Be…Stuff? – a six-session curriculum that helps Christian teenagers explore the relationship between their consumption, their faith, and the health of the planet.

Over the past five years, the pace and scope of religious engagement on the environment has accelerated sharply.  Our Project experienced this phenomenon first hand when we released The Story of Stuff in late 2007. Almost immediately, faith leaders started calling and writing to ask if we had produced companion educational programs for churches or other houses of worship. Then last year, we partnered with GreenFaith, an interfaith coalition for the environment, to meet this need.

Thank you for your continued support and stay tuned for the release of our high school curriculum this summer!

If you live in the Inner Sunset in San Francisco, here’s an event you might want to check out this Saturday.

FREE Book Blast, Saturday, April 10th
NW Corner of 6th & Irving
12p – 5p

FREE books, magazines, and even books-on-tape.

From the community organizers:

All items at this first-ever Inner Sunset event will be FREE to all. You are welcome to take away any books, magazines, or books-on-tape that you want!

This is NOT a charity event. This is NOT a swap. There are NO funds raised by this. NO money will be exchanged… It is our neighborhood’s effort to recycle books.  It is simply books FROM those who donate, TO those who wish to take them. It is a completely free event, supported by volunteers with our particular Inner Sunset community spirit!

We will be offering kids’ books, encyclopedias, magazines, travel books, paperbacks, cookbooks, books-on-tape, coffee-table books, puzzle books, dictionaries, foreign-language and maps.

Books may be left in a sheltered area AT ANY TIME at 1297 6th Ave/Irving.

Leftover books will be donated to the SF Public Library for their annual fundraiser.

Barbara Oleksiw
oleksiw@sbcglobal.net