story of stuff

The Story of stuff is about the cycle of “stuff”. The cycle of “stuff” consists of extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. This is my analysis of the story of stuff. One major theme of this video is to explain how the U.S. is using up all of our natural resources. The first way that we use up our resources is deforestation. This is when we cut down a large number of trees in order to make it into products to sell. The next major theme is production. This is the stage where after the extraction has taken place, the material is sent to a factory to be made into a product. A problem we run into during this stage is that we use energy to create products out of these materials and this releases toxins into the products. This is a problem because these toxins could be extremely harmful to us, and the environment around us. The next stage is distribution. This is where companies sell their products to stores, where they will be sold to consumers. A major theme of Consumption is that when we buy products, we don’t realize how much that product has gone through just to get onto that shelf. For instance when you see a car in a lot, that car has gone from being mined out of the ground for metal, to being built in a factory, and last being taken to the lot to be sold. That is a long process for as much money as you will pay for the car. This means that if you are not paying the full price for the car than who is? The people who pay the price are the workers who work for little pay to make the metal and construct the car. The major themes for this section are Planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is how companies make products that are designed to be thrown away. One example is a plastic fork. The main purpose is so that you don’t have to worry about washing it to use it again. You can just put it into the trash. Perceived obsolescence is how we are persuaded to throw away things that are perfectly useful.