Hey everyone! In this weeks lessons we talked a lot about waste and what happens to all that waste when we are finished playing with out gadgets and wearing certain clothes. I've never really thought about where all my large waste items do go, but it was interesting to find out. Jenny talked about waste and what it actually is and it is simply the things that people throw out which will most likely end going contributing to our landfill problem. However what I gained from Jenny talking about waste was that waste may not always be what we think it is. Waste can be used in other life forms, which is pretty cool! It doesn't have to be something we simply throw out, it can be reused for other matters.
We were given a video to watch about many environmental issues going on behind the scenes, and social issues linked in with these. I remember watching this video in my high school humanities class and once the video started, I began remembering quite a bit of it. The video is called 'The Story of Stuff' and is presented by Annie Leonard. She explains the underside of our production and consumption patterns and I realised from this video that we are such materialistic people! I admit myself that I like to buy new clothes and shoes a lot and I think that will be something I need to make a change to. 'The Story of Stuff' revolves around the materials economy, this involves 5 stages. These are;
1. Extraction (Getting rid of forests and animals homes to extract materials for the products to be made)
2. Production (Workers creating products in chemical filled factories, that we are going to buy.)
3. Distribution (Sending these products out to shops for us to buy. Distributors are skimping on health insurance to keep prices low and not paying workers well!!)
4. Consumption (Us as consumers, buying these products without thinking twice about the chemicals or low prices)
5. Disposal (Simply throwing away the product after it has broken or we are sick of it hanging out)
Here is the video below if you want to watch the whole thing :)
We were given a video to watch about many environmental issues going on behind the scenes, and social issues linked in with these. I remember watching this video in my high school humanities class and once the video started, I began remembering quite a bit of it. The video is called 'The Story of Stuff' and is presented by Annie Leonard. She explains the underside of our production and consumption patterns and I realised from this video that we are such materialistic people! I admit myself that I like to buy new clothes and shoes a lot and I think that will be something I need to make a change to. 'The Story of Stuff' revolves around the materials economy, this involves 5 stages. These are;
1. Extraction (Getting rid of forests and animals homes to extract materials for the products to be made)
2. Production (Workers creating products in chemical filled factories, that we are going to buy.)
3. Distribution (Sending these products out to shops for us to buy. Distributors are skimping on health insurance to keep prices low and not paying workers well!!)
4. Consumption (Us as consumers, buying these products without thinking twice about the chemicals or low prices)
5. Disposal (Simply throwing away the product after it has broken or we are sick of it hanging out)
Here is the video below if you want to watch the whole thing :)
The toxics in, toxics out was a really powerful concept to me. We need to be s careful with what we are consuming to make sure they are not only safe for our environment, but safe for ourselves!
Credits
The Story of Stuff was written by Annie Leonard, Louis Fox, and Jonah Sachs, directed by Louis Fox and produced by Free Range Studios. Executive Producers included Tides Foundation and the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption. It was released in December 2007.
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