by Umbra Fisk
Do you ever think about all the resources, the man hours,
the stuff that went into making your
iPod? Your cell phone? Your computer? The clothes you’re wearing? Annie Leonard
did. And then she started talking to other people about it.
You may have seen her animated 20-minute viral video,
released in 2007, The Story of Stuff—it’s been viewed more than 10 million times—about America’s take-make-waste
cycle of excessive consumerism. Following the video’s success, Annie had more
questions to answer, more information than could be packed into a short film.
Enough, as it turned out, for a book “The Story of Stuff:
How our obsession with stuff is trashing the planet, our communities, and our
health—and a vision for change,” is out today. Admittedly, the book itself is
stuff, but it was produced using
electronic copyediting, 100% post-consumer recycled paper, soy-based ink, and
nontoxic binding and jacketing materials—so props for that.
Annie took a moment out of her trash- and toxics-reduction
crusade to chat about The Story of Stuff Project, the video, and her new book.
Q. The Story of Stuff video gained a lot of attention
without you doing any real promotion for it. What do you attribute that to?
A. I think it was the right message at the right time. The
economy was collapsing, so it forced people to think more strategically and
critically about where they put their dollars. I feel like, in a way, releasing
the film was sort of like taking the temperature of the public. Because it was
so accessible and simple without dumbing down, it offered people the narrative
framework to talk about the issues. My goal in making the film was to turn the
volume up on thinking and talking about the problems with how we currently
make, use, and throw away stuff.
Q. Is there anything that you would change about the video
now?
A. There are two lines I think are misunderstood. When I talk about the 1 percent
of stuff is still in use. [From the video: “Guess what percentage of total material flow through
this system is still in product or use six months after their sale in North
America—1 percent. In other words, 99 percent of the stuff we run through
this system is trashed within six months.”] Because of where it is in the film,
people often misinterpret that as 1 percent of what we buy. The other line that
I’m ambivalent about is the part where I say it’s the government’s job to take
care of us. Some people misinterpret that to think I mean that they should
remind us to floss our teeth and tuck us into bed at night. Maybe I should have
said is it is the government’s job to make sure things are fair and good and
safe. I think “take care of us” was shorthand that triggers different things in
people’s minds.
Q. The video is being used as a teaching tool for students
in classrooms across the country. Were you expecting that?
A. In no way was I even remotely thinking I was making this
film for kids. It’s very inspiring that people like it. My real goal was to
talk to my peers in the progressive movement. I wanted people like recycling
activists and forest activists and gender rights activists and economic rights
activists. I wanted to encourage all of us to think about the broader context
of the issue that we’re working on, to sort of deepen our analysis.
Q. The film got a lot of attention from detractors as well.
And I know you’ve addressed Glenn Beck’s comments specifically on your blog and in other interviews, but have you seen
the corresponding videos that Lee Doren made?
A. I did watch part of them. The part where I lost my
interest was when he was attacking me for saying we’re using up our resources.
He had a cross section of the earth and said the earth is 4,000 miles deep, and
we’re nowhere near using up our resources. I’ve lived in India, in Bangladesh,
in Haiti, and I imagined going to those villages and handing them a shovel and
saying, “Dig deeper.” It was nuts. It became clear to me that it wasn’t an
attempt at fact-based, rational discussion. But still, I’m glad he did it. I’d
rather we be arguing about this stuff than ignoring it.
Q. So it’s just a loud minority that disapproves of The
Story of Stuff?
A. I should say less than 1 percent are angry. And the
majority of those are just following the exact lines they’re getting from Glenn
Beck. It’s not even rigorous critical thinking. There have been other
critiques. I really appreciate the people who give honest critiques, and the
number one critique we get is that I left something out. In which case I say, “Duh,
it’s a 20- minute cartoon.” Of course I left something out. But it’s
interesting to see what’s on people’s minds, and by far the number one thing
people say I left out is population. And second is industrial food systems and
how whacked they are.
Q. You said that with the video, you were initially hoping
to reach out to your peers. But with the book, who were you hoping to reach?
A. Well I got tens of thousands of emails from people asking
for more information. One woman wrote and said, “I’m an SUV-driving, republican
housewife from Texas, and I would never have watched your film if I knew what
it was about.” She said that she had never thought about any of these issues
before, and it’s made her rethink everything. I feel like people’s interest was
piqued. There are a lot of incredible environmental books out there obviously,
but I think a lot of them are a little intimidating to people who are new to
the issue. So my book is not meant for diehard environmentalists. It’s meant
for the people who are new to the issue who want a slightly easier entrée to
learn about some of these issues.
Q. What would you encourage people to do on an individual
level?
A. People ask me that a lot, and I like to see where they
are so I ask them, “What can you think of to do?” They say, “I can recycle. I
can ride my bike more. I can buy organic. I can buy this instead of this.”
Really individual actions as opposed to, “I can work with my neighbors to shut
down this toxic factory.” We have a consumer part of ourselves and a citizen
part of ourselves. And throughout this country’s history, the citizen parts of
ourselves have accomplished enormously wonderful things to make this country a
better place. But in recent decades, I feel like the consumer part of ourselves
is spoken to and validated and nurtured so much that we’ve over-identified with
it and the citizen part of ourself has atrophied. We just need to start reinvigorating
that citizen muscle. So the number one thing to do is to hook up with others
who share your values and start making some real change.
Q. What signs of hope for positive change have you witnessed
since you started the project?
A. When I was making The Story of Stuff film, I went back
and looked at all the latest information and all these facts so I could make
sure I had the most up-to-date credible information, and it was such a
disheartening process because on every issue, there’s some species lost to
deforestation, to economic inequality. And all the web pages said things like,
“Consensus of scientists warns of imminent collapse.” It was really bad. But
the antidote to that was how, all over the world, people are doing things to
reject this system and help transform our economy to be more sustainable and
fair. It is incredible how everywhere you look, on every corner of the planet,
there are people that are charting a new path. The other thing that helps me
maintain hope is that I know that change is inevitable. We can’t keep using one
and a half planet’s worth of resources indefinitely. But the question is, are we
going to change by design or by default? Either way it’s going to be a lot of
hard work. But if we change by design, we can be so much more intelligent and strategic
and compassionate about it. If we change by default, if we dig our heels in and
say we’re not changing the American way of life, we’re still going to change
because we’re butting up against ecological limits. But it’s going to be a lot
uglier and a lot more violent. But I have enormous faith in the goodness of
humans, so I think we can pull it off.
Q. Has there been any stuff that’s been difficult for you to
give up or part with or not consume?
A. Not really, partly because I just don’t really focus on
the individual piece so much. I really don’t fall into that camp where it’s
your fault because you left the water running when you brushed your teeth. So I
just don’t spend a lot of time around the guilt and the individual action
stuff. That said, I lead, by U.S. standards, a pretty low impact life. Way
before The Story of Stuff, I did not bring into my house PVC plastic and brominated
flame retardants and Teflon pans and that kind of stuff. The main thing I do
that reduces my consumption is I live in a community in which my neighbors and
I are really good friends. We have six houses together on the block, and we’ve
taken down the fences so we have a shared backyard; and we share a lot of
things. So among our six families, we have one pickup truck that we share and
one ladder that we share and one barbeque and one hot tub and one gardening
pruner; and because we share things, we have to buy so much less. Less stuff
but more friends.
Related Links:
Colbert interviews Annie Leonard
Garden Girl TV: Raised beds in the city
Ask Umbra visits the Fixers’ Collective [VIDEO]
