Annie Leonard: Story of Stuff

The reality is, our current “linear” cradle to grave system of production is highly ambiguous as it leads us to believe that we have a flawless method, however as Annie Leonard reviled, it is far from this. The system doesn’t take in to account the Earth’s natural limits and variables such as people and their culture. This has resulted in things like harmful wastes, illnesses and climate change.

Immediately after watching her video I was confronted with thoughts of how my own life was indeed consumer driven; I love shopping, I work in retail and I am studying to design products. Being a visual learner, I was able to clearly see the horrible impacts of this system and the commercial world through the quirky animations above Leonard as she spoke. She explained how our society has become so concerned with consumerism that our quality of life in terms of our happiness has dramatically dropped since the 1950’s when this theory to spend was initially put into practice. Today, people are working more frequently and harder so they are able to spend more on material “stuff” which will end up breaking in 6 months time thanks to the disgraceful scheme of obsolescence.

After watching this video I looked around my room and saw dozens of obsolete products, the ikea side table made from cheap MDF and sawdust, my old ipod sitting on top of it and even the laptop on my lap (only 3 years old and already 2 program updates behind). I was instantly woken to the reality of my participation in this horrible system. The example of the radio was confronting for me, being a bargain hunter it made me see how all of these people paid for to make it so cheap, right from the place of natural resource.

As industrial designers we need to start making changes in our designs now, for the sake of future and our earth. We’ve seen an increase of sustainable designs in the last few years however, this is not enough, we need to start thinking bigger in order to make an impact with our designs.