The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [170]
In mid-2009, I had to travel to England for a family gathering. While there, a friend took me on a weeklong tour of rural Wales. Though my impressions were formed in just seven days, we covered much of the small country in that time, and I was impressed by what I saw, or actually, what I didn’t see. And yes, Wales is a small and relatively homogenous country. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from its successes, in the same way we can learn from all the Latin American and Asian countries that rank higher than us on the Happy Planet Index.
There were two things in particular I was shocked not to see in Wales. First, I saw almost no advertising, and not a single billboard. We went from town to town without seeing any blaring signs telling us to buy something. I felt like I’d gone back in time one hundred years. Being free of the constant assault of ads was such a relief. It was like experiencing silence again after growing accustomed to the jackhammers of a never-ending construction project. All week I saw only one mall and two big-box stores along the highway; the stores in the towns were mostly small and locally owned, selling a mix of imported and local products, thus keeping more money in the community. It made me realize yet again how commercially saturated our landscapes are in the United States and I wondered how that relentless assault affects us all on a daily basis.
Second, I noticed the absence of something even more important: homeless people. I didn’t see a single homeless person, shanty, or slum. No trashed neighborhoods. No piles of garbage in the neighborhoods deemed unimportant by municipal officials. The homes we passed were modest compared to U.S. McMansions but were in good shape and well maintained. I asked my guide, local waste expert Alan Watson, where the poor people lived, and he looked at me quizzically. “We have a strong social safety net here, so we don’t have a lot of poor people like you do.”
Finally, in a far-off field, I saw a bunch of small structures that looked almost like shanties from a distance. “Aha!” I declared. “So that is where your poor people live.” “No,” my host explained, “those are camper vans in a caravan park on holiday.” Oh.
Each time we got out of the car, Watson had to remind me that I didn’t need to lock the doors, even though it was packed to the gills with our camping gear—and the laptop with my book manuscript. He told me that his family seldom locks their house door. “Nothing bad will happen,” he promised. And he was right.
I thought about my daughter and how different it would be to grow up in a world with that atmosphere: nothing bad will happen. To the best of our ability, we should be able to make that promise to our children and to future generations. If that means rewriting the Story of Stuff—which I firmly believe it does—then let’s get to it.
APPENDIX 1
EXAMPLES OF PROMISING POLICIES, REFORMS, AND LAWS
While each community and country requires a custom approach, there is a delicious smorgasbord of possible policies, regulations, laws, and programs that can improve humanity’s well-being and the state of the planet.
Some of these are already under way and just need to be scaled up. Some could be implemented right away, some over the short term, some more gradually. Some are straightforward; others are going to take some serious thought and planning in order to be implemented compassionately and justly.
This is not a comprehensive list, just a few of the possibilities I’m most excited about, presented in an order that matches up with the five