The Story of Stuff

Story of Electronics

This video explains the life cycle analysis of electronic goods and how these goods all have a devastating impact on the environment whether they are recycled or not. Built in obsolescence and design for the dump are two ways in which products are designed so that they force the consumer to upgrade or buy a newer version of their product when the old one has become unusable. Big companies make it nearly impossible to fix their products after they break, e.g. through stopping production of old parts, and make it cheaper for the consumer to just buy a new product. This is bad for the environment as the amount of e-waste produced every year numbers in the millions.

People believe that once they throw out a product, that is the end of its lifecycle, however, the products usage by the consumer is only a blip in its whole journey. With the amount of toxins in the product, they need to come out sometime and somewhere. Whether the product is being sent to landfill dumps or overseas recycling plants, poor families, sometimes even children, are risking their health breaking apart the e-waste and releasing toxic materials to find the valuable metals that is used to create electronic consumer items.

So is it the designer’s fault that their designs go to the dump? No, companies keep the human and environmental costs out of sight and away from the designers in order to externalize the true cost of production.  This allows companies to keep designing for the dump and while they get the profit, we have to pay with our health and our lives.  That is why most companies these days are being forced to look after their own e-waste. This is called extended producer responsibility or product take-back, and would force the company to design products that last longer and are less toxic as it would be the cheapest way out.

Story of Bottled Water

Despite what companies think, bottled water is not in demand as most bottled water, when compared to normal tap water is less popular. Companies say that they are just satisfying consumer demands, but who would demand a less tasty, less sustainable and way more expensive product when you could get tap water for free in your kitchen.  Bottled water costs almost 2000x more than normal water, however because of manufactured demand, companies are scaring us and seducing us into buying bottled water, which sometimes is just normal filtered tap water.

As water has sometimes been described as ‘the most environmentally responsible consumer product of the world’, this video shows us how companies will lie about anything in order to make a profit. Each year the oil that is used to make bottled water in the US is enough energy to fuel a million cars and after it is shipped around the world to be sold after its use, it is thrown right back into the garbage to be either sent to landfill dumps or recycling plants.

If companies did not need to ship the large amounts of waste that comes from so called ‘recycled’ bottled water, the money that would be saved could be used to invest in public water infrastructure, but then where would these companies get their profit. Manufactured demand is all about how companies scare us, seduce us and mislead us into buying their products in order to get rich and we are the ones who support them.

Story of Cosmetics

Consumers have no idea what kind of toxic chemicals goes into their products, especially cosmetic products. To find out, we have to go back to one of the key features of our materials economy, ‘Toxics in, Toxics out.’  Less than %20 of chemicals in cosmetics have been assessed for safety and we have no idea what is in the other %80.  The problem does not lie with the consumer choosing the wrong product, but rather with the companies that choose what products to put on the shelves for us to buy. Companies still believe that people really don’t care what goes into the products just as long as it makes them look better and so many cosmetic designers are ignoring the human health cost that toxic chemicals are affecting.

What is even worse then toxic chemicals in out cosmetic products is the way the cosmetic companies have set up their own health and safety committee to self-police their own products as the FDA have left a big hole, and compliance with their recommendations is voluntary.  So, all in all, it is left up to the cosmetic companies to make sure that the products we use are safe, however, it is quite scary that the cosmetic company has the power to make new rules and decide whether or not to follow them.