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.
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June 24th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
have you heard about portland (OR) and the composting issue? it truely is telling of our values how we deal with whats left over
June 26th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I honor my local “dump.” It is actually referred to as the “recycling center.” When I need something (short of shoes or intimate-wear), it’s the first place I look. I am proud that I visit there rarely, for I shop with awareness and produce very little waste. Most of my shopping is of the grocery variety and ends up compost for my gardens, but I digress …
The phrase, “It is a great way to get insight into what is going on in a place, what the community values, how the people live,” reflects nicely to and on my own community … yet there is still work to be done!
June 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Thanks for sharing the great info on “stuff” and landfills.
Thanks also for mentioning WiserEarth, a global online community connecting people and organizations working for a just and sustainable world.
You can connect with the Story of Stuff on WiseEarth at:
http://www.wiserearth.org/group/storyofstuff
A quick search on the WiserEarth site for recycling or waste will connect you to thousands of organizations and resources involved in reducing the impacts of stuff.
With thanks for the work you do.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
The amount of organics (food scraps, yard waste, etc) going to the dump and into landfills that could be composted is usually abut 30 percent. We need to stop thinking of these materials as garbage / trash / waste and start thinking of them as nutrients, which when composted will support soil health and plant growth.
June 30th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Wondering what Ariel was talking about, I found a link. Here it is: http://blog.oregonlive.com/pdxgreen/2008/01/scott_learnthe_oregoniana_pile.html
June 30th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Zzzzzz. Boring. If the world were in such dire straights, we would know without this politically motivated biased report. You know, nevermind all the good that comes from the ’stuff’ we use. This chick needs to take a long walk off a short bridge and preach somewhere else. She’s exploiting and looking to brainwash the children of our scoiety. Another treehugger. I’m gonna continue to buy ’stuff’. Maybe she’ll be in the nude next time, you know, since everything she wears is made from ’stuff’. Thanks for the laugh!
June 30th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Do you actually beleive this retarded proganda?
July 1st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
This video is the biggest CON job i have seen!! Why don’t you guys try the truth??? Oh thats right it don’t fit your agenda…. So you have to LIE to the kids.
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 am
I watched the clip “The Story of Stuff”. Why don’t you just state the facts and leave behing the political crap? You diminish the impact of the story by weaving into it the blatant, and ignorant, left-wing socialistic BS.
Stuff it.
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I just saw the video (amazing, btw) and there is some information I think you’d like to know. In Brazil there is technology to recycle those juice/milk containers the video says are impossible. Check it out!
July 7th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
It is interesting to be living in Toronto, Canada at the moment. City of 2.5 million, with a municipal garbage strike on. Apartments keep getting collection (and there are ALLOT of apartments here), but individual houses are not getting collection. So the city is making stockpile location in various parking lots and parks. Quite a sight to actually have to see and smell our waste, instead of imagining it disappear on a truck to Michigan…
Here are a couple photos, one an individual shot, the other a flickr search:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35458915@N08/3693067868/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=toronto%20garbage%20strike&w=all
July 17th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
You want to know how you can help? Start a website called “I will buy your trash”, and then pay people for it. Then YOU can find a good use for it. It the meantime, please feel free to STFU and stop telling other people what to do with their lives.
July 19th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Your video is a bigger pile of garbage than any dump I have ever been too.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Not a lot is known about the Co2 footprint of medical waste in general and specifically that due to tremendous overuse of healthcare interventions in our country. Any thoughts on where I can find some numbers? The CDC has not been helpful on this.
See this post on the issue: http://bit.ly/kUhqD
Thanks.
July 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Have you seen the fantastic BBC Documentary – THE CENTURY OF THE SELF?
Read about it here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self_episode_1.shtml
and watch here:
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=140
Have you heard about memes too? Basically how stuff spreads
more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine
Just a short note in case you fancy watching some documentaries this week
Thanks for the wonderful Story of Stuff. I showed it at my Transition Group and now we are trying to get it into the local schools.
It really is wonderful.
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I agree with Purvi even though our background is different. Many companies like Alaska Halibut Fishing are doing their part.
In Alaska the people in general are conscientious of a green economy that is sustainable over the long run.
August 4th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
that’s great!
thank u for this video, it help me a lot!
August 13th, 2009 at 2:53 am
“If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets. And you know what? We’ve only got one.”
If everybody flew around the world at the rate of Annie Leonard, we would need 10 planets worth of oil. And you know what? We’ve only got one.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Warning. This site consists of communist propaganda.
If you listen to the propaganda and live by it, people will lose their jobs, prosperity is threatened and we are dragged into poverty.
The only ones benefiting from this are the politicians who try to exploit us for their own purposes.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I accidentally wandered onto a dump site once as a college student, and ever since, I have thought that EVERY SCHOOL CHILD SHOULD HAVE A REQUIRED FIELD TRIP TO THE DUMP. It changed the way I look at my own trash.
September 1st, 2009 at 7:51 am
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September 3rd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The Alliston Aquifer is one of purest water sources on Earth. The Ontario provincial government is pushing to build landfill directly over this pristine water source. Please help in the fight to protect our dwindling precious resource by visiting http://stopdumpsite41.ca/?p=904 for more information!
September 9th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I really liked this blog. One thing that really sticks out to me is all the packaging that goes into things. It takes for ever just to get to the product that we buy. Then we turn around and throw all the packaging away. Most of the time that stuff can be recycled. The video talks about that too by the way. Watch the video if you haven’t. One last thing, 4.3 pounds of trash per person? Come on people relly?
September 10th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
A visit to the waste transfer facility here in San Francisco – a city nearing its goal of 75% diversion from landfill by 2010 and aiming for zero waste by 2020 – was one of the most eye-opening and memorable experiences in my personal and professional life.
Here are some views and reflections: http://debrabaida.com/organizing_wastetransfer
September 11th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I just watched the clip “The Story of Stuff” I really enjoyed watching it. I truely opened my eyes to how “stuff” is made and what happens to it after i throw it away. Thank you.
September 13th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Wow, this is an eye opener…and I do so aggree that so much that could be re-used is thrown away…mostly because the people who are doing the throwing away lack either the knowledge or the time to figure out what to do with it.
I am in the estate sales business and over the years I have developed lots of strategies for getting “Stuff” from one person to another, and there by saving tons of it from landfills…
Thanks
Martin
September 14th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Thank you for the video and keep up the good work!
September 18th, 2009 at 8:40 am
I need to tell you what I feel, what I think, what I FEAR for our own future, for the future of our little ones. It´s not enough to change “some” things in this “necrotic” system… We have to change most EVERYTHING if we wish a better future for our own children… please…!!! In the U.S.A. as in Canada, Europe, Japan, China and all the developed countries, the present culture of ilimited consuming habits has to be radically changed to the opposite culture of total AUSTERITY.
I think it’s time for all humankind to be conscious about reality. It’s not possible to go on with this irrational level of industrialization.
Humankind MUST STOP making so many frivolous and unnecessary luxurious products, all dispensable in this necrotic system of ilimited consumption. Our very toxic and contaminating garbage is growing in exponential degree, as well as human population does. Neverending contamination…!!!
Natural resources will soon be exhausted, so the logical reaction SHOULD BE to walk back the same way that brought us all up to this irrational point of neverending consumption.
DECREASE IS one of the two alternatives we have, but the ONLY LOGICAL ALTERNATIVE that IS LEFT in this PATHETIC REALITY that INVOLVES US ALL. The another one is to go on in the same very dramatically wrong way we are since ever.
Industrialization has to DIMINISH to the minimun necessary and vital level.
It’s needed a radical change in all steps of Education to provide the technical, mechanical, manual knowledge to go back to our grandparents’ times or to the style of the Amish people, in order to prepare our children to be able to get their own daily sustenance from mother earth, taking care of it naturally and without agrotoxical and chemical industrialized products. Familiar or community farms, with agricultural cooperatives in small communities should be encouraged to be done elsewhere for the self-sufficiency of goods and supplies. Recycling, restoration, recovering, reparing activities with manual and handicraft labours should be the alternative jobs in the near future for our children, activities of minimum fossil fuels requiry.
Please, do all what is possible for you to encourage the whole World to STOP PRODUCING cars, electronical supplies incompatible with new ones that forces people all around the world to buy new elements instead, luxurious materials, most everything no biodegradable and with very toxic components, etc.etc.etc. Industrialization should be diminished to its minimun necessary level!!!!!
Instead, it has to be produced all types of spare parts to recycle, restore, repare, recover all types of things that we have; all types of manual and mechanical elements must be produced for all types of jobs and labours of minimum fossil fuels requiry.
WE HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THE LITTLE NATURAL RESOURCES THAT ARE STILL LEFT…
NO other alternative energy will be able to sustaine this irrational level of neverending consumption. It’s not enough to go on studying other alternative energies in this irrational and neverending necrotic system of insatiable industrialization.
We are all destroying our unique Planet, we are destroying LIFE elsewhere, contaminating water, air, soil, and intoxicating PEOPLE with MINING and AGRIBUSINESS activities.
Latinamerican people, the poor people of the Latinamerican Developing Countries, as well as the poor people in so many developing countries, are suffering since EVER in many ways because of long-term unemployment, intoxication, contamination, physical attacks to push them out of their ancestral lands and to be left excluded in poorer areas. All of our communities in Argentina are suffering the consequences of contamination of our soil, air, water natural resources with mining and agribusiness activities of multinational monopolies. Our yet fertile soils will become deserts in not so long term… What goes on in this world that is driven by selfish madness and ilimited greed…??? The Economic Power of the First World is taking out all our natural resources and destroying our ecosystems, killing LIFE in the vulnerable biodiversity, contaminating our water natural resources, our soil, intoxicating our people, etc.etc.etc.
GREED, SELFISHNESS, LIES, HYPOCRISY, are the values and principles that push people of economic power in the First World since ever.
This is the only truth that explains everything pretty much.
Whoever doesn’t want to see or understand this… it’s simply because he or she feels the same and shares with them the same purposes: to earn more and more BLOODSTAINED MONEY, to hoard PROPERTIES insatiably, etc.etc.etc.
We need to multiplicate our voices exponentially. We have to awaken more and more people all around the world from the basis of this feudal social pyramid. We need to be more and more people all around the World to take notice of this dramatic situation, that makes us feel this same anguish and distress in order to try to change this suicidal way straight to an abyss without return…
Please, you have to visit these other web sites for more information given by suitable professionals of all around the world.
http://www.crisisenergetica.org/
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/
http://oilsmokeandmirrors.com/
WE HAVE TO , WE NEED TO CHANGE THIS SUICIDAL WAY STRAIGHT TO AN ABYSS WITHOUT RETURN…!!!
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
What a heinous piece of crap! To pawn this off as educational is a joke! Objectiveness goes out the door from the onset of the video and gives way to obvious political and personal agenda. Any school system that would show this to students need to be closely scrutinized. Where oh where have the honest and responsible people gone?? Benjamin Franklin knew this was coming, yet the bold and the violent continue to make progress in their selfish pursuits!
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
You will never show this video in my school… I will see to that.. This has so much political stuff in your story. Why don’t you call the author SEIU??? The Story of SEIU and TIDES..
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
your facts are misguided. how can you spew this ideology and sleep at night? complete and utter nonsense
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Oh my god what a bunch of garbage. I can’t believe they are showing these lies to our children.And by the way this crap was put together by tides foundation. A socialist company like acorn.
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I just watched Glen Beck’s take on your video and I must say I agree with what he has to say 100%. The fact that this is being shown in our classrooms is scary. And by the way…it is NOT the government’s responsibility to take care of us.
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Good idea on the film. Too bad your figures are misrepresented. You say 50% of tax dollars go to military, but in fact, its 20%. You conveniently removed Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security from the tax spendings. And you also said we only have 5% of our forests left, but forgot to mention that we have re-planted most of the acres that have been logged. Were these honest mistakes, or did you sucumb to political pressures and decide to promote a political agenda in what was supposed to be an informative, teaching video.
September 22nd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Left Wing!!!!!!
Fact There are more than 10.5 million acres of forest land left ,with more than 6.5 being replanted as I type.That 10.5 mil acres is over 57 %
all U.S. forests.Urban and Rural areas only make up 17% of all the U.S landmass.With farm and forest
land taking up over 52% leaving 31%for desert or whats considered as badlands or non usable lands.With 12% of that area being water areas.
So get your Facts straight Tides Foundation.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
WHAT A PIECE OF PROPAGANDA AND CRAP!!!! I’M SURE GLAD MY KIDS ARE OUT OF SCHOOL!
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
This video is a poster-child for private schools. Feeding kids such a naive view about such complex issues as global economics, production using ‘toxic chemicals’, supply chains, and the environment (breast feeding?!), and an astonishingly IDIOTIC interpretation of the role of government is itself toxic. The kicker is the application of sheer *lies* in order to convince an individual whose brain is not even fully developed… 50% of our tax dollars *do not* go to fund the military (in fact the portion of military spending compared to other government spending – currently around 20% – is at 60 year lows), we *have not* depleted 96% of forests in the U.S., and globalization (consumerism) has done more to *improve* lives around the world than any other notion in the last 400 years.
Journalism is in a sick state, and I am SO glad I was not indoctrinated into this nonsense when I was young. Please – send your kids to private schools, and do your own research… If you prescribe to this garbage (and worse, force it upon your children) you are the mindless majority, you are the thoughtless masses, you are the fuel for the destruction of individual freedom in our once great union.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Thank you for “enlightening” our children. I hear there is an exciting new market for this kind of stuff in North Korea.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I see you have been mentioned by Glenn Beck – Prepare for the onslaught of crazies to your site…. it appears a few have already made themselves known.
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:30 am
OMG – are you really serious??? The author of this article makes it sound like consumers are forced to buy these products. And if, in fact, many of these products the author has found are simply in need of simple repairs, isn’t that an indictment more of the consumer than the producer. Obviously the consumer has chosen not to repair these products – whether through shear laziness, inability or whatever. But whatever the reason that is their right. And likewise it is their right to choose what products they consume – whether they choose to buy the $10 version of a product or the better-built but more expensive $20 version of the product. Once again what we see here is another anti-capitalist wanting us to live in a government nanny-state where every aspect of our lives in controlled by some government agency or another and where we don’t need – and are completely discouraged from – to be be thinking, or having the freedom of thinking, for ourselves.
Just say no to the socialists now running/ruining our once-great country.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:32 am
Look yuor full of it!!!! You spent ten years going around? Aaaa who’s money, your info full of it and not right!!! You say for some of you people that we shouln’t hunt right? So when they stop this, you come in and slaughter all the animals your self. You a joke!!!!! I hope Glen does tare you down, Your a joke and also lie!!!!!!
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:37 am
True dat! Visiting recycling landfills and composting facilities is quite the experience. For anyone interested in environmental and social work going on in Pakistani landfills see:
Trash to treasure
http://goodfourlife.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/from-trash-to-treasure-an-interview-with-sohail-rana-of-lahore-compost/
School on a landfill
http://goodfourlife.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/good-four-life-special-edition-kachra-kundi/
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
I would agree with a lot of points in this movie, but I don’t agree with the “Club of Rome’s” Global Warming/Climate Change agenda that they wrote about and created documented in their book “The First Global Revolution.” This was created to bring in new global tax and set forth a global government.
It was created to blame the individual and not the corporations that pollute and destroy our environment.
“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
- Club of Rome
The First Global Revolution
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:27 am
EPR is Brilliant!!
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:15 pm
annie leonard… what a load of crap..
September 24th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
This polemic would be informative if it weren’t for the Marxist crapola underlying it. I hate to tell you, but many decades ago, we in Wisconsin called it “conservation.” Your common sense ideas are so old, they’re new. It’s too bad the message is ruined by mixing it with new religion based on lies. Hmm, the same idiots in the 70’s told me we would be under 300 feet of ice by now. Funny how fear is used by people who have no useful talents. They can’t get power any other way. Question everything and everyone, especially professors who couldn’t make a dime in the free market.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
you are all fucking liberal facist jackasses what the hell is wrong with you i dont give a damn bout other countries except for israel what the hell i am going to kill all of you liberal idiots
September 29th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
It IS an eye-opener to visit your local landfill and see first hand how careless and wasteful our society has become. What is sad is to see the unending cycle of waste that retail corporations have forced upon our lives. I think part of the problem is that parents mean well but are just so busy that they don’t have the time to teach their children about eco issues. This is why The Story Of Stuff and other similar programming is such a valuable contribution for young viewers.
One thing that I have noticed about the numerous pro-Glen Borg comments is that they all appear to have been written by the same hand. Anyone else notice the similar spelling errors and sentence structure that is consistent across all those posts?
October 4th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
“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.”
THIS is the problem. The market would naturally regulate itself better if waste disposal was not socialized. The problem is that consumers cannot tell what is garbage and what isn’t because they can’t do a true cost-benefit analysis between recycling something, fixing it, or throwing it away. In other words, we don’t know what’s garbage anymore!
Why don’t you talk more about this instead of all the ways that you can use government to force people into doing things your way?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Wow, that’s sad, so much trash that should not be trash!