Story of Stuffs

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

Garbage disposal unit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2012, May 21). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved May 24, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit

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

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