The Story of Stuff
Last week, Kent's Bike Blog posted on Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff. From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. Check out the 20 minute video and see what you think.
2 comments:
Now I'm going to feel bad about buying a touring bike. I already have bicycles. I'll hopefully have 1 road bike less soon if anyone will buy it. I am getting the touring bike from companies that are more concerned about their waste and pollution than most, though. Chris King and an American framebuilder instead of Chinese are examples. Hopefully the bike will assist me in using less resources well into the future, so that's a trade off. I'm more consumerist about anything bicycle related than other things. I'm usually pretty anti-consumerist.
The stuff about electronics is totally true. My first computer is a bit older than me. We already donated it since a large non-portable text editor just wasn't that useful anymore, but it probably will works. We bought a computer in 1996 that broke years ago and had parts breaking within 5 or 6 years of purchase. Lame. My gramma has a CD player from the 80s that is a higher quality transport than anything you can buy in the regular store today. It reads past errors and otherwise as good as/better than older Plextor computer CD drives. The only more modern transports I've seen that are equivalent (and they are better) are over $1000. But what is the person who wants to play a CD to do? You must reject the system and not listen to CDs, have $1500 to spend on the last CD player you'll buy, spend $20 on the exact 'stuff' in the video that will have to be replaced soon, or wait a while to find a quality older player.
I agree, also buying used helps, it has already had its impact. As far as CD's go you have a different delivery system now where the computer or Ipod can hold alot more music and this reduces the impact of paper and plastic, but you still have to get the Ipod or zune etc....
Strange but this seems to be the way the economy is. I am not sure people will be willing to watch the economy go into a tail spin if we stop consuming.
Some people seem to know it is not cool to shop at walmart, nike, and the likes. Getting it cheaper seems to be more important than where its made and who made it and what impact environmental and social it has.
I think it is us the consumer we fuel this and we want cheaper, faster and more.
Last I recall there are no obesity epidemics in Africa, China, and South America. In the US and Europe there are.
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