Introduction,
In the ‘Story of Stuff’ video, Annie L. talks about the
materials economy process, The materials economy starts with extraction and
ends with disposal, extraction as people take materials from nature and make
stuff from it, The materials come from extraction goes to production, the word
comes from product as they make stuff from the materials that comes from
extraction, while making the stuff some of it comes with toxic, the stuff that
come from production goes to distribution, distribution is the place that sells
the stuff as supermarket or malls, Some stuff is created to break fast so you
go and buy a new one, for consumption the stuff we save around 1% of the items
and the rest goes to disposal to burn and throw out in land fill, In my
opinion, The people in the UAE are consumers too, as if there is a new car or
new phones, they directly throw the old one and buy a new one, As for recycling
we have Masdar for creating a garbage that works on sun power and recycling.
This will help our planet in the long term.
Extraction
Extraction is the first step of the materials
economy, Extraction is the way that people take stuff from the earth and goes
through the economy, for around 30 years one third of the earth natural
resources have been used, People are taking stuff more than the earth can
renew, for the workers who work on extraction around 11,000 people die per
year, about 30 each day, they die of toxic, water degradation and increased asthma,
It’s a high risk to take all that material from earth, 80% of the forest are
gone and the Amazon is losing 2,000 trees every min, people who were living on
there don’t own their places even if they were living there for generation.
This is a problem that can be solved by leaving the places that people live in.
“Extraction means taking the planet’s resources- wood, minerals, coal, fossil
fuel, water, plants, animals, and soil out of the earth and starting their
journey through the materials economy” (Story of Stuff,2007)
Production
Production is the second thing in the economy, production is the part
where they make stuff from the materials that comes from extraction, This
industry relies on toxic chemical for their product, even they admit they
release around 4 million pounds of toxins per year. The people who work there
many are females of reproductive age, they work there because they don’t have
any other option after creating the product it moves to distribution. “many of which
contain toxics known to be harmful to human health and the environment” (Story
of Stuff, 2007)
Distribution
Distribution comes after production in the
economy, Distribution means selling, they sell the items that were created in
production by the lowest price so they can sell all the product as soon as
possible cause the items they create is meant to break fast so people go and
buy new one, they don’t pay workers much and they skip on health insurance as
they can, The product we buy have no externalized costs, that means is the real cost of making the
stuffs aren’t the real price of the items, We aren’t paying for the stuff we
buy, the worker almost paid for the stuff as he spent his life creating and
doing the products. “A key strategy businesses use to keep prices down is to
externalize costs. That means that the price tags on consumer products don’t
capture the true costs of producing and distributing all this stuff” (Story of
Stuff,2007)
Consumption
Consumption is the part that comes after distribution, it’s
where all the people buy products and keep it in home, Without consumption the
system doesn’t work, they make a lot of commercials to make people buy new
products ever if it’s the same they got of home. Commercials make you throw out
your items even if it’s perfectly good by producing new product of the same parts
but a new look to convince you it’s different from the old one, There is around
3000 commercials per day telling you all your products and the clothes you’re
wearing is wrong just to make you go and buy new one, They proved that 1% of
the items been kept at home and for the rest it goes to disposal.
Disposal
Disposal is the last part of the system, every person make
around 4.5 pounds of garbage per day of that’s almost twice what we made before
30 years, For the garbage either they get burned then they throw it in the
landfill, or it’s directly thrown there without getting burned, but that way it
pollutes everything, when the garbage get burns it releases the toxins it even
creates a new type of toxins called dioxin, We can prevent the most dangerous
toxin just by stop burning the garbage in the incinerators.
Consumption in UAE
Consumption in UAE, is mostly same for the other countries,
as if people saw a new product released on the market, they directly go and buy
it even if it’s the same product they have, and mostly of the people if they
see their friends having a new phone or new car, They go and buy the same, A
lot of people consume food here in the UAE, As they buy a lot of food and
almost half of it won’t be used or eaten, We got Masdar the new source for
saving power, As they released new recycling garbage on the streets, It works
on sun power and it have 3 garbage for recycling,
Conclusion
In conclusion I have learned about the story of stuffs video,
That materials goes to several operations starting by extraction, production,
distribution, consumption, disposal, All these operations make the system,
people who works there are the people who was living in the places that have a
lot of source
Words: 914
Name: Ahmad Humaid Class: ICQ
References
Dave, Y. (2009,
June 1). Distribution. Proquest. Retrieved May 24, 2012, from
0-search.proquest.com.library.hct.ac.ae/docview/207694064
Leonard, A.
(2007, December 4). The Story of Stuff
Project. The Story of Stuff Project.
Retrieved May 24, 2012, from http://www.storyofstuff.org/
The Story of
Stuff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2012, May 8). Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia. Retrieved May 24, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Stuff
APA formatting
by BibMe.org.
