Thanks to the efforts of one amazing Annie Leonard, and the Tides Foundation & Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, "The Story of Stuff" was born. If you want a snapshot of how our production and consumption habits stress out our planet, take 20 minutes out of your hectic day and launch the movie. It all starts here folks.
If you're pressed for time, here are some highlights from the fact sheet. Make sure you visit Annie's website. Food for thought, really. If we want to see a difference in this world, let's start by taking a close look at our habits at home and at work. Let's be the change we want to see in this world, and let's green our routine. Advocate this change by first becoming the poster-child for it!
- In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed.
- In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left
- Forty percent of waterways in the US have become undrinkable.
- The U.S.has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% ofthe world’s resources and creates 30% of the world’s waste.
- If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets.
- There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in commerce today.
- Only a handful of synthetic chemicals have even been tested for human health impacts and NONE have been tested for synergistic health impacts.
- In the U.S., industry admits to releasing over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year.
- The average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago.
- We each see more advertisements in one year than a people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime.
- In the U.S. our national happiness peaked sometime in the 1950s.
- In the U.S., we spend 3–4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do.
- Average U.S. house size has doubled since the 1970s.
- Each person in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day. That is twice what we each made thirty years ago.
- For every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb.
- “Of the more than 80,000 chemicals in commerce, only a small percentage of them have ever been screened for even one potential health effect, such as cancer, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, or impacts on the immune system. Among the approximately 15,000 tested, few have been studied enough to correctly estimate potential risks from exposure. Even when testing is done, each chemical is tested individually rather than in the combinations that one is exposed to in the real world. In reality, no one is ever exposed to a single chemical, but to a chemical soup, the ingredients of which may interact to cause unpredictable health effects.” From Coming Clean Campaign’s Body Burden information, retrieved 11/8/07 from http://www.chemicalbodyburden.org/
For more tips and helpful insights, and for information on how to launch an awareness event or party, visit Annie's website at: http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
Posts
