1. The Story of Stuff

2. Have you ever wondered where all this stuff we buy comes from and where it goes when we throw it out?

3. Materials Economy
What the textbook says is that stuff moves through a system from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal—all together it is called the “materials economy.”
What is missing from the “material economy” is people—bumping up against limits.

4. The Crisis
The crisis—it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet. You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely.

5. Extraction A fancy word for natural resource exploitation
Which is a fancy word for trashing the planet
The first limit—we are running out of resources
If the rest of the world consumed at U.S. rates we would need three to five planets

6. Production
We use energy to mix toxic chemicals to mix with natural resources to make toxic contaminated products
There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals used in production today—only a handful have ever been tested for health impacts
And none have been tested for the interaction with other chemicals
We do know –toxics in toxics out

7. Distribution This means selling as quickly as possible
The goal is to keep the prices down, keep the people buying, keep the inventory moving
How to keep prices down? -low pay -skimp on health insurance -externalizing cost—the price does not capture real cost

8. Golden Arrow of Consumption
The heart of the system
The U.S. has become a nation of consumers—our identity has become that of consumers
What percentage of products in this system are still in use 6 months later? 1%
99 percent is trashed in 6 months

9. Consumption is a way of life
Planned Obsolescence—“designed for the dump”
Perceived obsolescence—“convinces us to throw away things that are still useful”

10. The only part of the material economy we see is the shopping!
We have more tuff—but less time for the things that make us happy!
We are on this work, watch, spend treadmill

11. Disposal
Each of us makes 4.5 pounds of garbage a day Does recycling help? yes—but it is never enough For every garbage can you put on the curb there were 70 garbage cans from earlier stages in the material economy