Drawing from the Story of Stuff website
by Christine Muller
Everything has a story. All things come from somewhere, perhaps from another country far away. Who were the people who manufactured them? How might their working condition have been, and were they paid fairly? What was the environmental impact of production? Have resources been over-exploited? Did it cause pollution of water, land, and air? Did it contribute a lot of carbon emissions that cause climate change? What happens to all the stuff when they are broken or no longer used?
We will not be able to find answers to all these questions – it would take far too much time to research everything we buy. However, we can educate ourselves to become more aware of the life cycle of things by learning about the story of just a few items. One easy way to do this is to watch the 20-minute film The Story of Stuff. On the Story of Stuff website, you can find other brief documentaries, for example, “The Story of Bottled Water” or “The Story of Microplastics”.
Did you know there is even a Baha’i-inspired curriculum for youth about the Story of Stuff? You can download it directly here (scroll down). The six-session course lays out Baha’i perspectives, but it is interfaith in spirit and invites participation from your wider community of interest. Here is a brief description of the curriculum
