English

I have watched the educational film The story of Stuff with Annie Leonard and even though it has a very serious message to deliver, I still can't help but to smile. Annie addresses the matter in a very entertaining way and you'll enjoy all the small figures and cartoons that'll fill your screen.

Annie and her cartoon figures show us how the production system and the materials economy works, from extraction of materials through production, distribution and consumption to the final disposal of the remaining trash. And we're talking about a whole lot of trash. In the US they've looked into it and they discovered that within six months from the day of consumption 99% of all the bought stuff have ended up in the trash, which leaves the inexpressible small amount of 1% remaining in the household.

 

I don’t think that we throw away the same amount here in Sweden, at least not in that short period of time, because I just can’t think of that many products that you discard so easily and so fast. Ok; food, plastic bags, paper and all those kind of consumer goods, but what about clothes, furniture, electronics, paintings, carpets, cars and all that kind of stuff, that you’ll keep for a while right? At least more than six months? But then, for example when it comes to the electronics you might be caught in the perceived obsolescence, which simply means that you want to buy new products even though your old ones are still functional. I can easily observe this when I look at my little sister. Last time I was home she had a new mobile phone and this makes it her fifth one. I’m still on my second and I’m eight years older than her and have had mine way longer. Whilst she wants to be popular and therefore "have to have" the latest phone, I’m pretty satisfied with the one I bought two years ago. I can also observe this in my boyfriend whose biggest desire at the moment is a larger TV, preferably with HD and all those other new functions that you just must have, even though we already have nice flat screen that works just fine. But at least he realizes that he have to wait with that new one until he’s got a job.

What disturbs me the most in the film is still the planned obsolescence that exist, the fact that companies design their products so that they’ll break after a certain period of time. I’m studying to become an Innovation and Design engineer, and this way of thinking troubles me since I want to design things that’ll pretty much last forever. I don’t want my products and designs to have any flaws, and certainly not designed flaws at that. I think that the idea of planned obsolescence is wrong, and that it’s the same as fraud. You’re making the consumers buy products with poor quality even though you say that it is the best in the market, which is just wrong no matter how you look at it.

And concerning the environmental message in the film... I have never really cared about the environment, probably because I just couldn't see how the fact that I threw my garbage in the right can could possibly make a difference in the world. And I think that the big problem here is that most people think just like that, what they do just doesn't matter. And not to forget, we also have the problem with stubbornness, the "if he won't then I won't"-idea. But that won’t work; we all have to lend a helping hand if we want to change how things are going. I won’t tell you to stop using your car ‘cause let’s face it, you won’t, but maybe you could try to buy near-produced food to avoid unnecessary food transports, throw your bottle in the recycle bin so that it can be used again and keep that mobile phone of yours six months longer than planned. Then, if everyone actually joined in, maybe we could see a change.