Reaction Paper

1. The Story of Stuff (Synopsis)

The story highlights the materials system that defines our economy today: extraction,
production, distribution, consumption, disposal

It will have difficulty to work because of the overconsumption of the planets resources.
Eventually, the planets resources will be depleted unless we can find a way how to sustain
natural resources without its environmental effect.
What's missing;

- people. Some have a little more say.

- corporation - bigger than the government

Extraction
- we are running out of resources - in the last decade, 1/3 of the world's resource base has been
consumed

- In this system, if you don't own or buy a lot of stuff, you don't have value

Production
- many chemicals employed, most untested
- eg. pillows, are doused in BFR (a flame-retardent), a neurotoxin
- pollution - they emit more than 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year

The erosion of local environments and economies leaves people with no other economic option...
but to work (and live) in toxic environments

Distribution

Sell as quickly as possible, keep prices down

It's all about externalizing the cost - keep wages down, skimp on health insurance

How could $4.99 possibly capture the cost of the radio?

I didn't pay for the radio - kids in the Congo paid with their future

Consumption
The heart of the system, the engine that drives is - that's why Bush said, after 911, to shop
- the primary way our value is measured and demonstrated is how much we consume
- 1 percept of material we consume is still in use 6 months after we consume them
How did this happen?

It was designed
- our enormously productive economy demands that we make buying a way of life
- under Eisenhower - the purpose of the economy became to become consumers of goods
- planned obsolescence (disposables) and perceived obscelence
- we are convinced to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful - by changing the way stuff
looks
- advertisement plays a big role in this - the point of an ad is to make us unhappy with what he
have - we are told "we are wrong"
- all we see is the shopping - the production, distribution and disposal happen outside our field of
vision
- we pay for this with our time - we work harder than ever - and in our leisure we watch TV
(commercials) and we shop - "we are on this crazy work watch spend treadmill"
(doesn't mention - but should - credit)

Disposal

- garbage - gets stuffed in a landfill - pollutes air, land and water - and changes the climate -
burring releases the toxics
- recycling helps, by reducing garbage, reducing demand
- but recycling is not enough - for every 1 can of recycling, 70 cans remain upstream
- also, much of the garbage can't be recycled

It is a system in crisis
There are many points of intervention
But all of it works when we see the big picture
We need to chuck the old school throw-away mindset - based on reduced consumption and social
equity
The people who say we can continue the old way are misled - they're dreaming
2.) Important Insights

- It turns out our stuff isn't making us any happier. And our obsessive relationship with material
things is actually jeopardizing our relationships, which are proven over and over to be the biggest
determining factor in our happiness [once our basic needs are met].

- It calls upon wider research to argue the sociological and psychological consequences of our
all-consuming epidemic.

- It identified a connection between an excessively materialistic outlook and increased levels of

anxiety and depression, and we're paying the ultimate price for our consumerist tendencies with
the loss of friendships, neighborly support and robust communities. It suggests the collapse of
social fabric across society.

Part of the problem, is our confused sense of self. We've allowed our citizen self to be dwarfed
by a relatively new reflex action – consume, consume, consume. Our consumer self is so
overdeveloped that we spend most of our time there. You see it walking around – we usually
interact with others from our consumer self and are most spoken to as our consumer self. The
problem is that we are so comfortable there that when we're faced with really big problems [like
climate change], we think about what to do as individuals and consumers: 'I should buy this
instead of this.

The so called ethical consumption, or greensumption is going to get us out of the problem
neither. The real solution is not perfecting your ability to choose the best option, it's getting that
product off the shelf.

It reflects on our leaders love affair with waste incinerators. Incinerators are such a regressive
way of dealing with waste materials. We need to promote zero waste as an alternative.

Zero waste is a term that gets thrown around a lot, a complete overhaul in our approach involves
a real cradle-to-cradle revolution; marrying intelligent design upstream and consumer
incentivized recycling and composting downstream.

This may well be one of the answers, and the book provides a few more. But Leonard doesn't
pretend to have them all, and she's reluctant to commit to a new economic paradigm, either,
because "we haven't invented it yet."

She is sure of one thing though: "Change is inevitable. You can't keep using one and a half
planet's worth of resources indefinitely."

We need to develop a cultural behaviour that whatever we do, we always think about the social
and environmental impact it cause. Mitigating or perhaps avoiding such impact is our only way
to be sustainable.