Film: Consumerism, Global Sustainability and Social Issues

The Story of Stuff has gained huge popularity in the west with more than 4 million viewers, but it still needs to gain momentum in developing countries about which it is most concerned. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute film, produced in a “fast-paced, fact-filled look” throwing light upon consumerism in today’s world and its impact on developing countries. It begins with a simple introduction of how an electronic gadget such an iPod, is bought, used and thrown and tries to connect it to the whole story of extracting, manufacturing, selling, consuming and disposing consumable items and how this whole process is connected to the social and environmental issues, which are leading to a more unsustainable world. While people play a role in this unsustainable process, there are also some key players who have a dominant power in it. These include the government and the corporate world and the latter has increasingly grown more powerful than the former leading more consumerism like for example the United States just accommodating only 5% of the world’s population, but actually consuming 30% of the world’s resources and producing 30% of world’s wastes. And the resources are extracted from the environments of the third world countries.

The Story of Stuff has become quite popular among people because of the simple way it has highlighted the burning issues of the day. The film is being translated into many other languages as well. At this point of time, the film is available in Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Taiwanese Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai. The film can be viewed below or even on The Story of Stuff website. Viewers can contribute to The Story of Stuff Blog. One can even order a DVD, but there is a cost involved in it.