The Story of Stuff Quotes

“We depend on this planet to eat, drink, breathe, and live. Figuring out how to keep our life support system running needs to be our number-one priority. Nothing is more important than finding a way to live together - justly, respectfully, sustainably, joyfully - on the only planet we can call home.”
― Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change

“I remember when my daughter was just learning her letters. She was playing in her room and came downstairs to ask me, “Momma, what does C-H-I-N-A spell?” “China,” I told her (she knew what the word meant—she had friends from there). “So,” she asked next, “why is it written on everything?”
― Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change

“Why sit and stare at a box beaming messages indoctrinating us into consumer culture for hours a day when there are so many more enjoyable alternatives available?”
― Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change

“Meanwhile, increased unhappiness results from our deteriorating social relationships. Relationships with family, peers, colleagues, neighbors, and community members have proven over and over to be the biggest determining factor in our happiness, once our basic needs are met. Yet because we’re working more than ever before to afford and maintain all this Stuff, we’re spending more time alone and less time with family, with friends, with neighbors. We’re also spending less time on civic engagement and community building. In Bowling Alone, Harvard professor Robert Putnam chronicles the decline in participation in social and civic groups, ranging from bowling leagues to parent-teacher associations to political organizations. We end up with a situation in which we have fewer friends, fewer supportive neighbors, less robust communities, and near total apathy about our role within a democratic political system. As a result, our communities can’t provide the things they used to. One-quarter of Americans now say they have no one in their lives with whom they can discuss personal trouble; that number has doubled since 1985, when far fewer people reported being socially isolated. Alongside emotional support, logistical support has dried up too: if you need child care, help moving, a ride to the airport, food delivered to your door when you’re sick, someone to bring in the mail or walk the dog or water your plants when you travel, or a group with whom to play a game of basketball, softball, or poker, you’re likely out of luck. Increasingly we’re all too busy and/or too isolated for these things. Since we still need all these things, the market has filled the void. We can now hire someone to watch our pets, coach us through a rough breakup, or move our Stuff. We pay for child care and activities to entertain our kids. We can even buy computer games that simulate sports with live opponents. This is commodification at work: the process of turning things that were once public amenities, neighborly activities, or the role of friends into privately purchasable Stuff or services—i.e., commodities. Systems thinkers often talk about negative feedback loops—problems that cause an effect that adds to the original problem. For instance, when global temperatures rise, ice caps melt, decreasing the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight off that bright snow, so global temperatures rise further. The same thing is happening with our melting communities. We have to work harder to pay for all the services that neighbors, friends, and public agencies used to provide, so we’re even more harried and less able to contribute to the community. It’s a downward spiral.”
― Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change

“consumerism.”
― Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change

“the assumptions that "pollution is the price of progress" or that "we must choose between jobs and the environment" have long limited our creative thinking about innovative solutions that can be good for the environment, the workers, and a healthy economy.”
― Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change