“The average US citizen consumes 600 percent of the resources of the average human on earth. The US also uses roughly 25 percent of the world’s energy despite having 5 percent of its population.”
This book definitely raises some awareness with very interesting data, and facts, from stuff’s extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal.
It’s a bombshell that will inevitably make you savvier. We learn about the story of water, the trees, minerals, petroleum; how a t-shirt is made and the number of resources all that stupid stuff needs.
Written with curiosity, compassion, and humor; it is inspiring because it also comes packed with hope as well as potential solutions for individuals, corporations, and governments.
Annie Leonard has worked for international organizations such as Greenpeace or GAIA, which allows her to get actively involved in the actual “story of stuff”. She shares eye-opening stories: from sneaking into factories and dumps around the world, to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, or the step-by-step of disposal of our stuff.
The Story of Stuff will eventually get you to realize how much we need a systemic change in producing, distributing, and disposing of goods. But she also calls for profound mental changes in how we look at the materials in our ecosystem, the threat of overconsumption on the environment, economy, and our health.
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