THE STORY OF STUFF

by Annie Leonard

  rec.bush.transcript/).

  17. Robert Louis Stevenson, “Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions,” Cornhill Magazine, June 1880.

  18. Edward Wagenknecht, John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 112.

  19. Wynn Yarborough, “Reading of Thoreau’s ‘Resistance to Civil Government,’” Virginia Commonwealth University, 1995 (vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/

  thoreau/critonrcg.html).

  20. Eisenhower quoted by Joni Seager in Earth Follies: Coming to Feminist Terms with the Global Environmental Crisis (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 221.

  21. “Brighter” by Discover Card (youtube.com/watch?v=LKFZjg4eGMk).

  22. Bill McKibben, Deep Economy (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2007), pp. 35–36.

  23. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, p. 166. (The thirteen thousand dollars is annual per person income in 1995 dollars or “purchasing parity.”)

  24. Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (London: Penguin Press, 2005), pp. 29–35.

  25. Layard, Happiness, pp. 34–35.

  26. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

  27. Shankar Vedantam, “Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says,” The Washington Post, June 23, 2006 (washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/

  06/22/AR2006062201763.html).

  28. “Obesity and Overweight Statistics,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov/obesity/data/index.html).

  29. From the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, reported in Science Daily, September 8, 2007 (sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070907221530.htm).

  30. De Graaf, Wann, and Naylor, Affluenza, p. 77.

  31. Ibid., p. 45

  32. McKibben, Deep Economy, p. 114.

  33. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, p. 112.

  34. “Credit Card Debt Statistics,” Money-zine.com (money-zine.com/Financial-Planning/Debt-Consolidation/Credit-Card-Debt-Statistics).

  35. Tim Kasser, The High Price of Materialism (Boston: MIT Press, 2003), p. 22.

  36. Ibid., p. 59.

  37. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, p. 18.

  38. The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why good lives don’t have to cost the earth, The New Economics Foundation, 2009, p. 61.

  39. Malin Rising, “Global Arms Spending Rises Despite Economic Woes,” The Independent [UK], June 9, 2009 (independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/global-arms-spending-rises-despite-economic-woes-1700283.html).

  40. The Happy Planet Index 2.0, p. 5.

  41. “Earth Overshoot Day 2009,” Global Footprint Network (footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/

  page/earth_overshoot_day/).

  42. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, pp. 6–7.

  43. “Earth Overshoot Day 2009.”

  44. David W. Orr, “The Ecology of Giving and Consuming,” in Consuming Desires: Consumption, Culture and the Pursuit of Happiness, edited by Roger Rosenblatt (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 1999), p. 141.

  45. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, p.12.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Juliet B. Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (New York: Basic Books, 1993), p. 77.

  48. “Corporate Deals with Nazi Germany,” UE News, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (ranknfile-ue.org/uen_nastybiz.html).

  49. Elaine Ganley, “French Spend More Time Sleeping and Eating than Other Nations,” The Huffington Post, May 4, 2009 (huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04/french-spend-more-time-ea_n_195548.html).

  50. McKibben, Deep Economy, p. 114.

  51. Duane Elgin, The Voluntary Simplicity Discussion Course, p. 15.

  52. Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates, and Ken Conca, Confronting Consumption (Boston: MIT Press, 2002), p. 216.

  53. Michael Burawoy, Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 32–40.

  54. Victor Lebow in the Journal of Retailing, quoted in Vance Packard, The Waste Makers (New York: David McKay, 1960), p. 24.

  55. “Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World,” Milwaukee Art Museum (mam.org/collection/archives/brooks/index.asp).

  56. Bernard London, Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence, originally published in 1932. Text of this pamphlet is posted at adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot _blog/consumer_society_made_break.htm.

  57. Packard, The Waste Makers, p. 46.

  58. Elgin, The Voluntary Simplicity Discussion Course, p. 31.

  59. This is based on the widely cited figure of forty thousand TV commercials per year; see “Television Advertising Leads to Unhealthy Habits in Children; Says APA Task Force,” press release from the American Psychological Association, February 23, 2004 (apa.org/releases/childrenads.html). Some analysts say fifty thousand; see the excerpt from Nolo Press’s Marketing Without Advertising (nolo.com/product.cfm/objectID/5E5BFB9E-A33A-43DB-9D162A6460AA646A/

  sampleChapter/5/111/277/#summary).

  60. Barber, Consumed, p. 29.

  61. Elgin, The Voluntary Simplicity Discussion Course, p. 30.

  62. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, p. 14.

  63. Barber, Consumed, p. 11.

  64. Barber, Consumed, p. 13.

  65. “Big Three Spent $7.2 Billion on Ads in 2007,” Dollars & Sense Blog (dollarsandsense.org/blog/2008/12/big-three-spent-72-billion-on-ads-in.html).

  66. “Apple’s Advertising Budget: Revealed!” BNET Technology Blog (industry.bnet.com/technology/1000574/apples-advertising-budget-revealed/).

  67. “Sharp will change your life?” Media Mentalism (mediamentalism.com/2008/07/15/sharp-will-change-your-life/).

  68. “Advertisers go after bedroom eyes,” Sustainable Industries Journal, February 2007.

  69. Aaron Falk, “Mom sells face space for tattoo advertisement,” Deseret News, June 30, 2005 (deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,600145187,00.html).

  70. Mya Frazier, “Channel 1: New Owner, Old Issues,” Commercial Alert (commercialalert.org/issues/education/channel-one/channel-one-new-owner-old-issues).

  71. Ibid. See also obligation.org.

  72. James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 159.

  73. Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need (New York: Harper Perennial, 1999), pp. 49–50.

  74. Vedantam, “Social Isolation Growing in U.S.,” quoting Robert B. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone (washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR200606 2201763.html).

  75. “Average Home Has More TVs than People,” USA Today, September 21, 2006 (usatoday.com/.../television/.../2006–09–21-homes-tv_x.htm).

  76. Alana Semuels, “Television viewing at all-time high,” Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2009 (articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/24/business/fi-tvwatching24).

  77. Schor, The Overspent American, p. 81.

  78. Layard, Happiness, p. 89.

  79. Schor, The Overspent American, pp. 74–79.

  80. Sandra Gonzales, “Berkeley to Vote on Politically-Correct Coffee,” San Jose Mercury News, October 24, 2002 (commondreams.org/headlines02/1024–05.htm).

  81. Barber, Consumed, pp. 82–88.

  82. Ibid., p. 139.

  83. “Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test of Their History and Institutions,” Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2008 (americancivicliteracy.org/2008/summary

  _summary.html).

  84. Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes, “The Scary Consequences of Our Mindless Indifference to the History of the Constitution,” History News Network, October 8, 2007 (hnn.us/articles/43202.html). Lane and Oreskes are authors of The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country—and Why It Can Again (NY: Bl
oomsbury USA, 2007).

  85. “National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections,” Infoplease (infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html).

  86. Putnam, Bowling Alone; an excerpt published online by the League of Women Voters cites the number of people ever attending a public meeting as 13 percent in 1993 (xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/

  putnam1/putnam.htm).

  87. Layard, Happiness, pp. 8, 63.

  88. Jane E. Dematte, “Near-Fatal Heat Stroke During the 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago,” Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 129, no. 3, August 1, 1998, pp. 173–81.

  89. Personal communication with Judith Helfand, 2009.

  90. McKibben, Deep Economy, p. 117.

  91. Layard, Happiness, p. 74.

  92. Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, p. 5.

  93. Ibid., p. 6.

  94. “Overview,” Human Development Report 1998, United Nations Development Programme (hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_1998_en_overview.pdf).

  95. Ibid.

  96. “1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth of Humanity Undernourished, More than Ever Before,” Science Daily, June 20, 2009 (sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/

  090619121443.htm).

  97. Andrew Pollack, “Disease of Rich Extends Its Pain to Middle Class,” The New York Times, June 12, 2009 (nytimes.com/2009/06/13/health/13gout.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=disease%20of%20kings&st=cse).

  98. “More than Half the World Lives on Less than $2 a Day,” Population Reference Bureau (prb.org/Journalists/PressReleases/2005/

  MoreThanHalftheWorldLiveson

  LessThan2aDayAugust2005.aspx), citing data from the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000/2001.

  99. Robert Frank, “Market Failures,” Boston Review, Summer 1999 (bostonreview.net/BR24.3/frank.html) and in Luxury Fever, New York: Free Press, 1999.

  100. World Resources Institute, quoting Josette Sheera, executive director of the World Food Programme (earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/349).

  101. William Greider, “One World of Consumers,” in Consuming Desires, p. 27.

  102. Carbon Footprint of Nations website, Norwegian University of Science and Technology: carbonfootprintofnations.com.

  103. Elgin, The Voluntary Simplicity Discussion Course, p. 16.

  104. Alan Durning, How Much Is Enough? The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth (Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute, 1992), p. 150.

  Chapter 5: Disposal

  1. Jerry Seinfeld live on tour, 2008. (My friend, Andre Carothers, was in attendance and reported this to me.)

  2. The automotive information website Edmunds.com states, “A car loses roughly a quarter of its value the moment it leaves the dealer’s lot” (edmunds.com/reviews/list/top10

  /122630/article.html), but 10 percent is the figure usually referred to as “common knowledge.”

  3. “George Carlin Talks About ‘Stuff’” (youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac).

  4. Personal correspondence with Paul Connett, June 2008.

  5. “The Impact of the Economic Downturn on Solid Waste Services,” Solid Waste Association of North America (swanacal-leg.org/downloads/SWANA%20LTF%20white%20paper%20on%20letterhead.pdf).

  6. Maria Elena Baca, “One Silver Lining of the Economic Downturn,” Star Tribune, August 2, 2009 (startribune.com/local/north/52269857.html).

  7. “U.S. Waste Management Industry Overview,” Themedica, February 23, 2009 (themedica.com/articles/2009/02/us-waste-management-industry-o.html).

  8. Joel Makower, “Industrial Strength Solution,” Mother Jones, May/June 2009 (motherjones.com/environment/2009/05/industrial-strength-solution).

  9. Ray Anderson, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009), pp. 64–65.

  10. “Non-Hazardous Waste,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/).

  11. Joel Makower, “Calculating the Gross National Trash,” March 17, 2009 (readjoel.com/joel_makower/2009/03/calculating-the-gross-national-trash.html).

  12. Makower, “Industrial Strength Solution.”

  13. Ibid.

  14. “A Natural Step Network Case Study: Interface, Atlanta, Georgia,” The Natural Step (naturalstep.org/en/usa/interface-atlanta-georgia-usa).

  15. Ray Anderson, “The business logic of sustainability,” TED talk filmed February 2009, posted May 2009 (ted.com/talks/ray_anderson_on_the_business_

  logic_of_sustain ability.html).

  16. Ibid.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Charles Fishman, “Sustainable Growth—Interface, Inc.” Fast Company, December 18, 2007 (fastcompany.com/magazine/14/sustaing.html).

  19. Kate Fletcher, Sustainable Fashion and Textiles (London: Earthscan, 2008), p. 158.

  20. Personal correspondence with Ray Anderson, August 2009.

  21. Personal communication with Dan Knapp, August 2009.

  22. Municipal Solid Waste in the United States 2007 Facts and Figures, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, November 2008, p. 3 (epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw07-rpt.pdf).

  23. Ibid.

  24. Research by Renee Shade based on data from Statistics Canada (40.statcan.gc.ca), the United Nations Statistics Division (unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/wastetreatment.ht), Index Mundi (indexmundi.com/), and the U.S. Passport Service Guide figures on China’s population (us-passport-service-guide.com/china-population.html).

  25. The figure that “75% of municipal solid waste is products” is calculated by weight. This comes from a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data series going back to 1960, called Characterization of Municipal Solid Waste (epa.gov/osw//nonhaz/municipal/msw99.htm).

  26. Helen Spiegelman and Bill Sheehan, Unintended Consequences: Municipal Solid Waste Management and the Throwaway Society, Product Policy Institute, 2005, p. 8.

  27. Julie Scelfo, “Appliance Anxiety: Replace It or Fix It?” The New York Times, May 27, 2009 (nytimes.com/2009/05/28/garden/28repair.html).

  28. “Industry Statistics for 2008,” PSA Update, newsletter of the Professional Service Association newsletter, April 2009 (psaworld.com/ASN_Update_04-09.pdf).

  29. Shoe Service Institute of America website: ssia.info/about.asp.

  30. Gena Terlizzi, “Shoe Repair Shops Boom During Tough Economic Times,” KTKA, February 16, 2009 (ktka.com/news/2009/feb/16/shoe_repair_shops_

  boom_during_tough_economic_times/).

  31. Vance Packard, The Waste Makers (New York: David McKay, 1960), p. 119.

  32. John Roach, “Plastic-Bag Bans Gaining Momentum Around the World,” National Geographic News, April 4, 2008 (nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080404-plastic-bags.html).

  33. “Irish Bag Tax Hailed as Success,” BBC News, August 20, 2002 (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2205419.stm).

  34. Daniel Imhoff, Paper or Plastic (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2005), p. 139.

  35. “The Decline of Refillable Beverage Bottles in the U.S.,” Container Recycling Institute (container-recycling.org/facts/glass/decline.htm).

  36. Beverage Containers: US Industry Forecasts for 2012 and 2017, summary, Freedonia Group, November 2008 (reportbuyer.com/industry_manufacturing/

  chemicals_industry/beverage_containers.html).

  37. “Bottle Bill Resource Guide,” Container Recycling Institute (bottlebill.org/about/whatis.htm).

  38. “H.R. 2046—Bottle Recycling Climate Protection Act of 2009,” OpenCongress (opencongress.org/bill/111-h2046/show).

  39. “Bottle Bill Opponents,” Container Recycling Institute (bottlebill.org/about/opponents.htm).

  40. “Bottle Bill Toolkit,” Container Recycling Institute (toolkit.bottlebill.org/opposition/opponents.htm).

  41. “Keep America Beautiful: A History,” Container Recycling Institute (toolkit.bottle bill.org/opposition/KABhistory.htm).

  42. Chadd De Las Casas, “Playing Indian: The Iron Eyes Cody Story,” Associated Content, October 15, 2007 (associatedcontent.com/article/404817/

  playing_indian_the_iron_eyes_

  cody_story_pg2.html?cat
=38).

  43. Ted Williams, “The Metamorphosis of Keep America Beautiful,” Audubon, March 1990.

  44. “Key Vote for National Recycling Coalition,” BioCycle, vol. 50, no. 7, July 2009, p. 6.

  45. Bette K. Fishbein, Germany, Garbage and the Green Dot: Challenging a Throwaway Society (Philadelphia: Diane Publishing, 1996), p. 46.

  46. Ibid., p. 36.

  47. Extended Producer Responsibility, Clean Production Action, 2003, p. 28 (cleanproduction.org/library/EPRtoolkitFINAL.pdf).

  48. Deanne Toto, “Green with Envy: Germany’s Green Dot program continues generating good collection numbers,” Recycling Today, October 2004 (thefreelibrary.com/Green+with+envy%3a+Germany’s+Green+Dot+program+continues+generating...-a0123753975).

  49. “Summary of Germany’s packaging take-back law,” Clean Production Action, September 2003, p. 3 (cleanproduction.org/library/EPR_dvd/Duales

  SystemDeutsch _REVISEDoverview.pdf).

  50. Garth T. Hickle, “The Producer Is Responsible for Packaging in the European Union,” Package Design Magazine, 2006 (packagedesignmag.com/issues/2006.11/

  special.producer.shtml).

  51. Spiegelman and Sheehan, Unintended Consequences, p. 5.

  52. “History of Waste,” Product Policy Institute (productpolicy.org/content/history-waste).

  53. Spiegelman and Sheehan, Unintended Consequences, p. 2.

  54. “Fees,” Product Policy Institute (productpolicy.org/content/fees).

  55. Construction Materials Recycling Association website: cdrecycling.org.

  56. “Mission Statement,” Rebuilders Source (rebuilderssource.coop//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=32).

  57. Personal correspondence with Glenn McRae, May 2009.

  58. “Waste Minimization, Segregation, and Recycling in Hospitals,” Healthcare Without Harm, October 2001 (72.32.87.20/lib/downloads/waste/Waste_Min_Seg_Recyc_in _Hosp.pdf).

  59. “Waste Management,” Healthcare Without Harm (72.32.87.20/us_canada/issues/waste/) and Paul Connett, “Medical Waste Incineration: A mismatch between problem and solution,” The Ecologist Asia, vol. 5, no. 2, March/April 1997 (bvsde.paho.org/bvsacd/cd48/mismatch.pdf).

  60. “Electronics,” Clean Production Action (cleanproduction.org/Producer.

  International.Europe.Electronics.php).

  61. “Problem: Electronics Become Obsolete Quickly,” Electronics TakeBack Coalition (computertakeback.com/problem/