The Story of stuff

At the start of the video, we were introduced to how ‘stuff’ moves through linear system: Extraction to Production to Distribution to Consumption to Disposal. This system is doing a lot of damage to our earth.

From the start of this system is extraction, extraction meaning taking out resources from forest, mountains, rivers etc. As there are more and more trees chopped down, a lot of water used up in part of the word, animals wiped out, and resources on earth is decreasing very quickly. As some countries are running out of resources, they decide to take resources out from another part of the world as we call them the third world, a country that is not really developed. Which after some time, the third world is also trashed.

The second part of the system is the production, using the materials that were gathered together with a lot of toxic chemicals manufacturing toxic contaminated products in factories, these toxic products will affect us when we use it, after the watching the video I realize how scary it is to buy stuff that looks perfectly fine now, like the pillow example, it has toxic chemical added into it and we put our heads on it, this might cause cancers or problems towards our brain. The other example was the how the breast milk is contaminated, things that are so basic like the breast milk has already been affected, which means the babies are going to have contaminated stuff put into their body already. Third world people were forced to work in toxic factories even though they know it’s really bad for their health. As there are a lot of pollution produced from factories, countries like US decides to move the factories to the third world, but due to the wind current, it is blowing right back to US.

Distribution, trying to sell the toxic contaminated junk asap, selling them cheap so that people will keep buying and the shelves will always have new products. A lot of products can be sold so cheaply is because a lot of people from each part of the progress have sacrificed some part of their goods in order to make it so cheap.

Consumption, known as the golden arrow which makes the whole system work, I am surprised when I knew only 1% of the consumed products are still in use after 6 months, others were all thrown away. There are two kinds of way that gets us buying all the time, one is called the planned obsolescence which means products that are designed to be throw in the trash as soon as possible so that consumer will get a new one. The other one is perceived obsolescence, persuade us to throw away products that are perfectly new by changing the looks.

The last step of the system is disposal, disposing trash into land fills or burn in incinerators and then dumped into the landfill which releases the toxic chemical that was used in the factory into the air. One of the most powerful toxic was released during this step too.

In order to make the world better, like how the video showed, we should have more people changing each step of the system in order to make it better; turning this system from a linear to a cycle system. I think one of the steps that can really help out the whole system is by designing better and non-toxic, eco friendly products.