The Amazing (And Somewhat Scary) Story Of Stuff.
Watch this short video – and it will jolt you into reality!
Where do you think all your stuff comes from? What happens when you get that new phone? How can we get our stuff so cheap? What is the real cost of our spending?
All these are answered in this lively, well animated and well written short video by a well traveled, very experienced environmental investigator specialising in health and justice issues across the globe.
It is filled with some scary facts about what we are doing to our planet – or in reality what we are not doing to help our planet.
It highlights – with a fact-packed dialogue – what we are allowing to happen or are being coerced into thinking is ‘OK’.
Annie quotes that the US represents just “5% of the world’s population but uses 30% of the resources and makes 30% of the waste” Is that right? Or is that just how it ended up because no-one has really ever thought it was wrong?
Think about it!
She certainly makes you think about everything you are going to buy – or anything you have recently brought. And it should certainly make you think about anything you are planning to throw away!
The cost of something shouldn’t be the value that the store attributes to it. For example the $4.99 radio she talks about in her video could not possibly have only cost $4.99 to make.
Firstly, the store has to make a profit and it needs to be packaged up and shipped across the world from where ever it was made. So none of that is what it actually cost to make either – so we are down to about maybe $3.00 or less to make?
And how long would you think 1 single radio takes to make from it’s basic parts? About 30 minutes? No, that would be stupid, right? But would you work for less than $6.00 an hour? I don’t think so.
So, how much money do the people that build these get paid? And we haven’t even started on the people it took to mine the raw materials and the time it took to shape them into the component parts. And what about driving and shipping costs?
And we haven’t even started on the cost to the environment……
Yet to some people, throwing out an un-needed $5 radio is not a worry to them – it’s only $5. They don’t even think about what was destroyed or who was exploited to make it in the first place.
And you can be sure that many people do not think about what happens to it after they throw it out!
Well, Annie explains all in her hard-hitting fact-filled docu-video - but keeps it fun and a bit funny even.
And you can help out by showing people, schools, social clubs or anyone else this video to help change that! Check out the resources on the site for more information.