''The Story of Stuff'' is a short
animated documentary
The animated documentary (also known as anidoc) is a moving image form that combines animation and documentary. This form should not be confused with documentaries about movie and TV animation history that feature excerpts.
History
The fi ...
about the
lifecycle
Life cycle, life-cycle, or lifecycle may refer to:
Science and academia
* Biological life cycle, the sequence of life stages that an organism undergoes from birth to reproduction ending with the production of the offspring
*Life-cycle hypothesis ...
of
material goods. The documentary is critical of excessive
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...
and promotes
sustainability
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
.
Filmmaker
Annie Leonard
Annie Marie Leonard (born 1964) is an American proponent of sustainability and a critic of consumerism. She created the animated film '' The Story of Stuff'' (2007), which describes the life cycle of material goods. In 2014, she became the Execut ...
wrote and narrated the film, which was funded by
Tides Foundation
Tides Foundation is an American public charity and fiscal sponsor working to advance progressive causes and policy initiatives in areas such as the environment, health care, labor issues, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and human ...
, Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, Free Range Studios and other foundations.
Free Range Studios also produced the documentary, which was first launched online on December 4, 2007.
The documentary is used in elementary schools, arts programs, and economics classes as well as places of worship and corporate sustainability trainings.
By February 2009, it had been seen in 228 countries and territories. According to the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' , the film had been translated into 15 languages and had been viewed by over 12 million people.
Contents
The 22-minute video presents a critical vision of
consumerist
''Consumerist'' (also known as ''The Consumerist'') was a non-profit consumer affairs website owned by Consumer Media LLC, a subsidiary of ''Consumer Reports'', with content created by a team of full-time reporters and editors. The site's focu ...
society, primarily American, under the conditions of globalization. It purports to expose "the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create an increasingly sustainable and just world." The video is made up of seven chapters: ''Introduction'', ''Extraction'', ''Production'', ''Distribution'', ''Consumption'', ''Disposal'', and ''Another Way''.
Annie Leonard narrates her personal 10-year journey to understanding the ''materials economy''. She explains it as a linear system composed of
extraction Extraction may refer to:
Science and technology
Biology and medicine
* Comedo extraction, a method of acne treatment
* Dental extraction, the surgical removal of a tooth from the mouth
Computing and information science
* Data extraction, the pro ...
,
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stati ...
,
distribution Distribution may refer to:
Mathematics
*Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations
* Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...
,
consumption
Consumption may refer to:
*Resource consumption
*Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically
* Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms
* Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...
, and
disposal. She critiques this economy, pointing out that it entails hidden costs in human suffering, hidden influences on the government, and immense power accruing to large
corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
s. She focuses particularly on our accelerating consumption of resources and production of waste, because of a deliberate choice to encourage consumption through planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. She highlights the twin consequences of pollution and waste.
Leonard's thesis, "you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely" is supported throughout the video by
statistical data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...
. Although the video itself doesn't give attribution to her information, the producers provide an annotated script that includes footnotes with explanations and sources for some of her assertions:
*"... more than 50% of
our
Our or OUR may refer to:
* The possessive form of "we"
* Our (river), in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany
* Our, Belgium, a village in Belgium
* Our, Jura, a commune in France
* Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), a Politics of Jamaica#Regulator ...
federal tax money is now going to the
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
..." She cites the
War Resisters League
The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States.
History
Founded in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I, it is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International. It continues ...
website, which differs from government reports that put the figure at around 20-25%; WRL explains the difference in that it doesn't count trust funds like
Social Security
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
(since this revenue is not obtained directly from income taxes), considers veterans benefits as part of "past military" spending, and includes 80% of the debt interest payments under the rationale that most debt would have been avoidable with reduced military spending.
*"Of the 100 largest economies on Earth now, 51 are corporations." She cites , which bases this claim on the 1999 figures of GDP and corporate sales as reported by
''Fortune'' and the ''World Development Report 2000''.
*"We
he U.S.
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' i ...
have 5% of the world's population but we're consuming 30% of the world's resources and creating 30% of the world's waste." She cites , who says, "...in 1990 the United States, with about 5 percent of the world's population, was using about one-quarter of the energy being used by all nations." and a chapter in ''Global Environmental Issues'' that puts the US production of waste at around 10 billion tons per year before the turn of the millennium.
*"80% of the planet's original forests are gone." She cites the Natural Resources Defense Council website, which says that only about 20% of the world's original wilderness forests remain. and the website for the
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, United States. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, and first gained national prominence with a gras ...
.
*"Forty percent of waterways in the US have become undrinkable." She cites a source which she quotes in a footnote as actually having said, "Today, 40 percent of our nation's rivers are unfishable, unswimmable, or undrinkable".
*"In the
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
alone, we're losing 2000 trees a minute." She cites , which puts the Amazon deforestation rate in 1995 at a year.
*"Each of us in the U.S. is targeted with more than 3,000
advertisement
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
s a day." This particular figure comes from the American Academy of Pediatrics which itself cites a 1999 ''
Albuquerque Journal
The ''Albuquerque Journal'' is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of New Mexico.
History
The ''Golden Gate'' newspaper was founded in June 1880. In the fall of 1880, the owner of the ''Golden Gate'' died and Journal Publishing Company was c ...
'' article by columnist
Ellen Goodman
Ellen Goodman (née Holtz; born April 11, 1941) is an American journalist and syndicated columnist. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980. She is also a speaker and commentator.
Career
Goodman's career began as a researcher and reporter for ''Newsweek ...
on a figure of 3,000 ads viewed by young Americans on television, the internet, billboards, and magazines. Despite the specific wording of this article ("The average young person views more than 3000 ads per day..."), Annie Leonard specifies that she is referring to ads ''targeted'', not necessarily viewed.
*"Each of us in the United States makes 4 pounds (2.04
kg) of garbage a day." She cites the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website, which states that 245.7 million tons of
municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, ...
was produced in 2005. reiterates this figure.
*"
Dioxin
Dioxin may refer to:
* 1,2-Dioxin or 1,4-Dioxin, two unsaturated heterocyclic 6-membered rings where two carbon atoms have been replaced by oxygen atoms, giving the molecular formula C4H4O2
*Dibenzo-1,4-dioxin, the parent compound also known as ...
is the most toxic man made substance known to science. And incinerators are the number one source of dioxin." She cites Mocarelli et al.
Leonard also quotes what
Victor Lebow
The name Victor or Viktor may refer to:
* Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname
Arts and entertainment
Film
* ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film
* ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
said in 1955 regarding economic growth:
:Our enormously productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption... we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.
Reaction
''The Story of Stuff'' has been subject to public discussion, especially after ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published a front-page article about the video on May 10, 2009. Even before ''The New York Times'' article, ''The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook'' pointed to ''The Story of Stuff'' as a successful portrayal of the problems with the consumption cycle, and says it is an engaging attempt to communicate circular economics.
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.
The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...
called the film "a model of clarity and motivation." John Passacantando, The Executive Director of
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
called it a "mega-hit on three levels".
It also attracted the attention of conservative commentators such as
Glenn Beck
Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and rad ...
, who characterized the video as an "anti-capitalist tale that unfortunately has virtually no facts correct." Influenced by such commentary, the
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
school board
A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution.
The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...
opposed the screening of the film in a biology classroom in a 4–3 vote. The subsequent public outcry against this decision led to a rewrite of the school board's policy and an award for the teacher who screened the film.
See also
*''
The Age of Stupid
''The Age of Stupid'' is a 2009 British documentary film directed by Franny Armstrong, with first-time producer Lizzie Gillett. The executive producer is John Battsek. The film is a drama- documentary- animation hybrid, which stars Pete Postleth ...
''
*
Brominated flame retardant Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are organobromine compounds that have an inhibitory effect on combustion chemistry and tend to reduce the flammability of products containing them. The brominated variety of commercialized chemical flame retardants ...
*
Buy Nothing Project
The Buy Nothing Project is a global conglomeration of community-based groups, founded in Bainbridge Island, Washington, in 2013, that encourages giving (or recycling) of consumer goods and services (called "gifts of self") in preference to conve ...
*
Cost externalizing
In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either co ...
*
Dioxins
Dioxin may refer to:
* 1,2-Dioxin or 1,4-Dioxin, two unsaturated heterocyclic 6-membered rings where two carbon atoms have been replaced by oxygen atoms, giving the molecular formula C4H4O2
*Dibenzo-1,4-dioxin, the parent compound also known as ...
*
Incineration
Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of substances contained in waste materials. Industrial plants for waste incineration are commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Incineration and other high ...
*
Planned obsolescence
In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that ...
*
Pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
*
Recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
*''
The Meatrix''
*
Transition Towns
The terms transition town, transition initiative and transition model refer to grassroot community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instabilitythrough re ...
References
Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Story Of Stuff, The
2007 in the environment
Documentary films about consumerism
Documentary films about environmental issues
Direct-to-video animated films
2000s English-language films