Taken from: The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard

Taken from: The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard

 

Please feel free to copy, paste, and adapt the sample letter below.

The Vinyl Institute's address:

 

Vinyl Institute

1737 King Street, Suite 390

Alexandria, VA, 22314 USA

 

Dear [Producer, Store, Vinyl Institute],

 

Enclosed is a [raincoat, handbag, rubber duck, binder, shower curtain, etc.] that I am returning to you because it contains polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. PVC does not contribute to a healthy household or a healthy planet. In fact, PVC is the most hazardous plastic at all stages of its lifecycle, from production through use and disposal. I encourage you to stop [making/selling/promoting] PVC and to instead opt for materials that are safer for workers, communities, consumers, and the planet.

 

Production: PVC production is especially hazardous for workers and communities where plants are located. PVC production requires vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), a dangerous explosive, and creates toxic waste, notably ethylene dichloride (EDC) tars—two things no neighborhood wants. Wastes from PVC production have been proven to contain the powerful carcinogen dioxin, which then is spread to wherever the waste is buried or burned. In addition to the inherent hazards of PVC, its production requires even more toxic chemical additives to prepare the PVC for different uses: plasticizers (such as phthalates) are added to make it soft and pliable, heavy metals (such as lead and cadmium) are added as stabilizers, and fungicides are added to stop fungi from eating the other additives.

 

Use: The chemical additives added to PVC are not bound to the plastic so they leach out or evaporate over time. That is why PVC items often reek of a "new car smell" and lead dust has been often found on PVC window frames and mini-blinds. The most common plasticizer used in PVC is DEHP, a suspected carcinogen and endocrine disruptor that is now showing up in human and wildlife bodies tested all over the planet. If we bring this stuff into our homes, schools, and workplaces, we end up with these toxics in our bodies.

 

Disposal: Whenever PVC is burned, dioxins and acidic gases are released. This happens when discarded PVC ends up in an open burn pile or a waste incinerator. It also happens when buildings catch on fire, since PVC is widely used in building materials. When PVC is dumped in a landfill, the additives leach into the environment, and it is also at risk of burning since landfill fires are common.

 

PVC recycling is not a solution. PVC recycling is technically difficult, not economically feasible, and polluting, releasing a range of toxics into the facility's air. Even more basic, though, recycling a hazard perpetuates a hazard. Faced with such a uniquely hazardous material, a better response is to reduce its circulation rather than to figure out how to use it yet again.

 

The good news about PVC is that it isn't necessary. Alternative materials are available, including many safer materials that PVC has displaced over recent years: glass, cotton, metal, paper, ceramics, leather, and wood as well as less hazardous plastics. Many companies around the world, including Nike, IKEA, Sony, the Body Shop, a dozen automobile makers, and even Wal-Mart, have taken steps to reduce or fully eliminate PVC in their products.

 

Knowing how hazardous PVC is, and knowing that alternatives exist, why are you continuing to [use/sell/promote] this material? If all those companies can take a stand on the side of community, worker, and environmental health, you can too.

 

Please write back to me to clarify [company name here]'s position regarding PVC. Specifically, I would like to know if you have a plan, with a timetable, to phase out PVC from your operations. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely, [Your name here]

 

Create Jobs with Planned Obsolescence

When our the president and congress debate how to jump-start the economy they might want to look at history.

 

The idea of planned obsolescence gained legs in the 1920s and 30s when government and business people realized our industries were making more stuff than people cared to or could afford to buy. In 1932, Bernard London, a real estate broker, wrote and distributed his pamphlet called Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence.  His argument was for creating a government agency with the task of assigning death rates to specific consumer products, at which time consumers would be required to turn the stuff in for replacements, even if they still worked fine. London argued this system would keep our factories humming along.

In 1960 Vance Packard documented the debates about planned obsolescence in consumer products in the 1950s and 60s in his book The Waste Makers. Some individuals opposed the idea believing it to be unethical and jeopardized their professional credibility, others recognized it as a way to ensure continuous markets for all the stuff they designed, produced and advertised and accepted it wholeheartedly. He quotes an industrial designer, Brooks Stevens who is credited with the popularizing in the 1950s "instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary." Stevens said "we make good products, we induce people to buy them, and then the next year we deliberately introduce something else that will make products old-fashioned, out of date obsolete… It is organized waste. It's sound contribution to the American economy.

The strategy has worked beyond the wildest dreams of the people who instituted it. Planned obsolescence continues to dominate and define consumer culture today, and dispose of (often perfectly good) products at an ever-increasing rate. In the service of perceived obsolescence in particular, there's a whole industry hard at work spending billions of dollars each year to manipulate us into buying something new, better, different. That industry is known as ……advertising.

 

 

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN


Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
          http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

"Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too."

 

---Voltaire

 

 

John Brown's Speech at Trial

I have, may it please the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted -- the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.

I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case)--had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends--either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class--and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.

This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done--as I have always freely admitted I have done--in behalf of His despised poor was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments--I submit; so let it be done!

Let me say one word further.

I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated that from the first what was my intention and what was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind.

Let me say also a word in regard to the statements made by some of those connected with me. I her it has been stated by some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a word of conversation with till the day they came to me; and that was for the purpose I have stated.

Now I have done.

WhyDoes Anyone Want to be in Government

Why does anyone want to be in government, other than to increase their personal wealth? To do what is required takes character, ethics, morality, integrity and courage which in the political world are rare.

 

We love growth. It frames the political and economic strategy of every government in the world, democratic or not. It frames the strategy of every company and even determines the longevity of board directors, CEOs and corporate executives. It is, for most people, one of the key measurements of progress through life. We consider our success over time in the context of whether we see growth in our assets, income and financial security along with material manifestations as in our homes, cars, and lifestyles.

 

The end of growth is not going to be a smooth process. As population grows, we need more jobs which require growth. That will continue to be more difficult because technological efficiency and productivity improvements drive down the number of people needed to create the goods we produce. If the economy doesn't grow fast enough to overcome these efficiency improvements and deal with population growth, unemployment goes up, spending goes down, fewer products are produced, and fewer jobs are created.

 

Growth has effectively ended.

 

When five hundred million people lose their livelihoods and one billion people their protein because fisheries collapse growth for them will be a fading dream. If we have to eliminate the fossil-fuel industry to cut CO2 emissions, we will lose $3 trillion of economic activity. If we don't eliminate them we will face runaway climate change with the potential loss of the insurance industry, the collapse of food supply, and political crises and instability over water and refugees. If we get growth back we will face peak oil and food shortages with prices moving to new highs that stop growth again.

 

Why does anyone want to be in government?

Propaganda / Violence

Propaganda (violent movies, video games, television shows) is a form of communication that is aimed towards influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the chosen result in audience attitudes.

As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political, religious or commercial agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of ideological warfare.

While the term propaganda has justifiably acquired a strongly negative connotation in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally benign or innocuous, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to law enforcement, among others.

Emial to Congress

 

Congress wins as a team and loses as a team. This morning you are a loser. You were not elected to create chaos. As you Republicans said during your convention, Barack Obama had been given a chance and failed to do the job, same with you. You and all your fellow Congress men and women should resign and give someone else a chance to govern responsibly.

 

You created the "Fiscal Cliff" in August 2011 to resolve a partisan struggle, also with a deadline and also self-created, over raising the federal debt ceiling.

 

Your record of not getting the job done goes way back. Setting a deadline to avert self-created calamity has become your preferred way to govern in recent years. When all else fails, as it often does, it's supposed to frighten members into action.

 

Now your constituents look forward to the next Congress made disastrous confrontation over the debt limit in two months, with the radical right wing of the House Republicans determined to send us over the edge if they don't get their way.

 

You continue to be the worst Congress in our lifetimes.

While you fail to do you job your constituents continue to experience a weak economy and no jobs.

 

Since I do not believe you have the integrity to resign the first thing Congress must do is elect new leadership from the top to the bottom. No one currently in a leadership position would be eligible for any appointment.

 

Governing requires compromise. Get busy and get the job done. Congress is an embarrassment.