The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [106]
In the average middle-to upper-middle-class American’s 2,000-some-square-foot home,12 you’ll find: several couches and beds, numerous chairs, tables, and rugs, at least two TVs, at least one computer, printer, and stereo, and countless books, magazines, photos, and CDs (although these last, like vinyl and tapes before them, are a dying species now, destined for the dump); in the kitchen there will be an oven, a stove, a refrigerator, a freezer, a microwave, a coffeemaker, a blender, a toaster, a food processor, and endless utensils, dishes, storage containers, glassware, and linens (or at least paper napkins); in the bathroom, a hairdryer, a razor, combs and brushes, a scale, towels, medicines and ointments, and bottles and tubes of personal care products galore; in the closets, dresses, sweaters, T-shirts, suits, pants, coats, hats, boots, and shoes and everything in between. (In 2002, the average American acquired fifty-two additional pieces of clothing, while the average household was throwing away 1.3 pounds of textiles every week.13) The average house also contains a washer and dryer, bicycles, skis, other sporting equipment, luggage, garden tools, jewelry, knickknacks, and drawer upon drawer of crap both relatively useful (like staplers, Scotch tape, aluminum foil, candles, and pens) and entirely pointless (like novelty key chains, gift wrap, expired gift cards, and retired cell phones). We’ve got so much Stuff that, according to builders, families often buy a home with a three-car garage so that one-third of that space can be dedicated to storage.14
Even so, our homes are overflowing, inspiring a massive increase in personal self-storage facilities. Between 1985 and 2008, the self-storage industry in the United States grew three times faster than the population, with per-capita square feet of storage space increasing 633 percent.15 And somehow despite this amazing abundance, we find ourselves drawn into stores like moths to flames, on the quest for yet more.
The Sanctity of Shopping
Shopping is a nearly sacred rite in the United States—in fact, in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, President George W. Bush included shopping in the daily activities that he said were the “ultimate repudiation of terrorism.”16 When our country was in shock and no one was quite sure what would happen next, Bush told us to hang our “America is open for business” signs in the windows and keep shopping.
Not to buy means to fail our workers and stifle the economy, say most economists and politicians; shopping is our duty. Those who dare challenge the ethic of consumerism have been declared unpatriotic or just plain loony. After The Story of Stuff film was highlighted in the New York Times in early 2009 for how many teachers were using it in classrooms to spark discussion about consumerism and environmental issues, conservative commentators accused me of threatening the American way of life, terrorizing children, and called me “Marx in a ponytail.” When Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, got press for the year-long project in which he reduced his New York City family’s consumption to a bare minimum, he received hate mail, including an anonymous death threat! Henry David Thoreau, who in the mid-1800s wrote of living simply and in harmony with nature in Walden, was variously described by critics as “unmanly,”17 “very wicked and