The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change »

Annie Leonard is an expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues, with more than 20 years of experience investigating factories and dumps around the world. She's taking time off from her other work to write the book, but until recently she was coordinator of the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, communicating worldwide about the impact of consumerism and materialism on global economies and international health.

For the first time, Leonard brings our many environmental and social issues under one umbrella—our problem with consumption. Brilliantly combining information about the economy, cultures, and the environment, Leonard describes the five stages of the materials economy—extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal—and vividly illuminates how this "growth at all costs" system operates. Visiting dumps and factories around the world, she reveals the real story behind our possessions—why it's cheaper to replace than to fix a broken flat screen TV; how the economic theory of "perceived obsolescence" encourages companies to bring out new computers and cell phones ever more rapidly, making us feel that we need the updated version. Leonard uncovers and communicates a new idea—that there is a deliberate system based on specific economic theories behind our patterns of consumption and disposal.

Expansive, galvanizing, and entertaining, The Story of Stuff transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet, and offers hope that change is within reach.

Publishers Weekly

Leonard expands on her eponymous Internet movie hit to further examine the costs of Americans’ addiction to purchasing and discarding consumer goods. The book records her evolution from a toxic waste–trafficking expert to a crusader for more durable and adaptable consumer goods and is divided into an exploration into the hidden and enormous costs of extraction of natural resources (it takes 98 tons of materials to produce a ton of paper), production (to grow and process cotton for one T-shirt requires over 256 gallons of water and generates five pounds of CO2), distribution (mammoth container ships transport cheaply produced goods from one end of the world to another, polluting the seas and generating toxic waste), overconsumption (Americans spend two-thirds of the $11 trillion economy on consumer goods), and disposal (most of these items end up at the dump). All this makes for depressing reading, and some humor and less priggishness would have helped. But Leonard conveys her message with clarity, urgency, and sincerity—and her suggestions for making stuff more durable, repairable, recyclable, and adaptable is undeniably important. (Mar.)

A Word About Words

Key to Recurring Graphics

Ch. 1 Extraction 1

Ch. 2 Production 44

Ch. 3 Distribution 106

Ch. 4 Consumption 144

Ch. 5 Disposal 182

Epilogue: Writing the New Story 237

Appendix 1 Examples of Promising Policies, Reforms, and Laws 253

Appendix 2 Recommended Individual Actions 260

Appendix 3 Sample Letter to PVC Retailers, Manufacturers, and Lobbyists 265

Endnotes 269

Acknowledgments 303

How We Made This Book 307

Index 308

About the Authors 318