Task 1c: The story of stuff

The story of stuff is a short video narrated and written by Annie Leonard. This video is simply about effects of human consumption and it makes us to think how we can make a change for the future of the Earth and next generations by making different ways of design. In this particular film leonard presents how extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal has been effected our environment.

From Extraction of resources, to Production, to Distribution, to Consumption and lastly to Disposal. In this system society is focused by consumerism and consumption. This was the result pioneered after WW2 where consumption & consumer goods was the key focus of US governments. And it has transcended to this day and age.

This cycle has been rooted into our daily life by corporations and industrial designers of the past throughout marketing techniques such as "Planned Obsolescence" and "Perceived Obsolescence". Planned obsolescence is the process where things are designed to be put back and removed in a short period of time, to encourage repeat purchase and thus more consumption due to an outdated and obsolete product. Perceived obsolescence works even faster and more subconsciously, as it convinces the consumer to discard their perfectly good products and upgrade to a newer "better" design, mainly through aesthetic changes. So as a society obsessed with keeping up the newest trends or what is in vogue, our vicious cycle of consumption get bigger and bigger.

As Leonard in the video says “we are running out of resources”, one third of our natural resources are gone and only 20% of the planet original forests left which is the result of many thrown out -products that is not good enough to satisfy consumers anymore. Also, some overwhelming facts from the video are that the US comprises of 5% of the world’s population, yet consumes 30% of the world’s resources. We would necessarily need 3 to 5 Earth’s to sustain that rate of consumption if the rest of the world were to consume at that rate.

Hence, to reduce the wasted products we should consider a much better way to design so that they could be updated, instead of thrown out, and dissemble instead of just sent to the landfill. Also, from start to finish of a products lifecycle we must help improve the sustainability in what we produce and consume for future generations of this Earth