Video Reflection: The Story of Stuff

The text book saids that the production system have 4 major steps, products move from extraction to production, then to distribution then to consumption and finally to be disposed. But in fact, there is a lot missing from this explanation. Annie Leonard’s video is showing a reality of process in production and to inform people that we should find a new way of production to save our environment.
People play a very important role in the whole production system. People from government and corporations have a lot of effect on the system, government has the right to control the whole system, this is usually done in the in the interest of public good, but as corporation grown, it’s become bigger than government, so it become more effect on the whole market and this in turn affect the opinion of the government.

Through this video, I realize that, the production process, not only brings benefits to the consumers, but also can also do negative things to the environment and our health. Extraction is the first step, factory taking the nature resource form forest, rivers. This brings us to our first problem, we are using too much resources, and we are running out of resources. In fact 1/3 of natural resources have been consumed. In US, only less than 4%of original forest left, so people decide to take resource from third world countries, but after a while the third world will also become trashed, however to the corporations the people who lived there have less ability to buying stuff, they don’t have much value.
The synthetic chemicals used during the operations another problem of concern. As all we knew “toxic in, toxic out”. Those chemicals are added into products and directly exposed to people’s body, it could also effects people’s next generation. The chemical waste is a tragedy to our live. It makes 40% of the worlds water way to become undrinkable. Government should protect people from been contact with those chemicals, but they encourages people to buy, market keep the prices down, keep people buying and keep inventory moving. An important process to the distribution, people are paying for the stuff they buy, this is called externalized costs.
Consumption is the golden arrow, it makes the production system work. In the fact, only 1% of product can be still in use after a longtime, 99% of products are designed for through away, this means that we are continue to buying stuff and repeat it over and over again. Another way to increase the consumption is to change the looks of the product.
Disposing those wastes is also a way to produce toxic chemicals. People disposing Trash by burning them in incinerators and dumped them into landfill. During this process, powerful toxic chemicals are released into the air, which is harmful to environment and people.

I thought it is the time to find a way to protect our environment. This video has deeply influenced me to be cautious about the stuff I buy.