The Journey of Stuff

Since my mom is getting out of the girl scout business, we spent last Thursday with all the girl scout families cleaning out and moving all the girl scout stuff out of our garage. My mom decided that since it was also Earth Day on Thursday, April 22nd, we could also show them a short documentary called The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. It is about where our stuff comes from, what happens when we throw it away, how it is affecting the environment, and how we are on a dangerous path which is using up all our resources. If you haven't seen this film, and you also have a lot of stuff, you can  watch it free on the Internet at : http://www.storyofstuff.com/. We also have her new book, The Story of Stuff, which includes all her research on the subject for 10 years.

The first problem with our ways of making stuff, is the fact that we are running out of natural resources to make the stuff with. Almost one third of the worlds natural resources have already been consumed and thrown away. I would really like to know how long it will take to consume the rest of the world's resources at this rate. It is obvious that our way of making stuff needs to stop. It is even more vital that we stop putting so many chemicals in our stuff.

Some products have been known to have up to one hundred thousand synthetic chemicals in them of which none have been tested with other chemicals we use in day to day life. Pillows, some blankets, and mattresses are good examples of this. They are doused in B.F.Rs (Brominated Flame Retardants), otherwise known as a Neurotoxin, otherwise know as a toxin that kills brain cells. A pleasant thing to rest your head on for eight to ten hours a night! Adding chemicals to products also ruins the environment. Although a lot of the chemicals leave the factories in the form of products, even more chemicals leave as pollution. The United States alone admits to releasing more than 4,000,000,000 lbs. of pollution each year.

The next part of the journey of stuff, is actually buying the stuff. This is often no problem for the average American as they buy stuff all the time, but who said we were really buying the stuff. Part of the documentary was about how we don't really pay for the stuff we buy. One day she was walking to work and wanted to listen to the radio so she went to Radio Shack and bought a radio, for five dollars. As she listened to it, she began to wonder how the radio could cost her five dollars. She learned that the metals were likely mined in South Africa, The Plutonium was drilled in Iraq, the plastics were probably made in China, and the whole thing was probably put together by some fifteen year old in Mexico. Either way, it made me think that I can't even get a bus ticket that would take me to the next city with five dollars let alone across several countries! I wonder how they have enough money to pay the workers.

The final problem with the journey of stuff is how we are getting rid of it. Corporations have long ago mastered the art of scamming customers. Two of their most useful ones are planned obsolescence, and perceived obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is when the corporations try to make an object break, become archaic, or useless as fast as they can. The sad part is, it works. Ninety-nine percent of all the stuff we throw away was purchased less than six weeks ago. Perceived obsolescence is when the corporation tries to convince you to throw away perfectly good stuff by making it look out of fashion. In other words both planned and perceived obsolescence means "designed for the dump." After the corporations have convinced you to throw away an item, it is then dragged out to the curb where it spends the night with all the other junk awaiting its fate. Our unfortunate can of garbage is then taken to a landfill that is just a big hole in the ground. The junk then gets either buried in the landfill, or burned in an incinerator and then buried in the landfill. Although both methods are extremely dangerous to the environment because of the possibility of any water in the landfill becoming leachate (an extremely toxic material made as water trapped in the landfill is blended into the toxic chemicals) and flowing into ground water supplies and poisoning them. Incinerating trash before burial is even more dangerous to the environment. Do you remember all those toxic chemicals that were in all that stuff that was just thrown out: the Neurotoxins and the B.F.Rs in the pillows, mattresses, and blankets? Well, they were just incinerated and the chemicals were changed into the super toxin called Dioxin (deadliest toxin known to science) under the high heat. So just throwing away stuff is not as simple as it seems.

In her new book about the story of stuff, an example of one of the things she does for school presentations is she takes a soda can, places it on the table, and asks the students, "What is it?" If the can is on the table, they say, "It is a soda can." Next, she throws the soda can in the trash can and asks the students, "What is it now?" If the same can is now in the trash can, they say, "It is trash."  She pulls it out...it's a can. She puts it back in...its trash. So trash isn't the condition of an object, it is whether or not it is in the trash can. Another way of explaining this theory is that what one person thinks is trash, may not be considered trash by another person. Also in her book, she talks about being in Bangladesh and seeing an old shampoo bottle she threw in the trash later the next day pulled out of the trash and with the addition of wheels it was now a child's toy car. When my mom looks in my room, all she sees is "trash." My favorite Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows poster = trash to her. My dad's slightly battered acoustic guitar = goodwill item or garage sale item or dumpster contents. Plans for a hydraulic engine system that I plan to earn a million dollars with = fire place food. Kirby pinata I made out of paper mache = art box, garage or any other place on earth (or not) where she will never have to look at it again. These are only a few examples. If I were to list all of the stuff she has an urge to give away, throw away, or light fire to, I would have to start a whole other blog.

However, this blog is about what our family is doing in our homeschool "mystery." So what we are doing this month is trying to figure out how we can stop environmental problems. We also went to Earth Day at the Chandler Environmental Education Center and International Migratory Bird Day at the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area. I think it would be nice if people would celebrate Earth Day past April 22nd.

How I Was Taught to Ski by Beaverman

By now I think I may have already mentioned this to anyone actually reading this blog, but last week I was taught to cross country ski by a beaver. Or a man. Or a Beaverman. I'm not sure.

It was an unexpected twist to the snow adventure that my son and I took last week. It all started after my "unsocialized" homeschooled son worked at the church rummage sale all day without his parents around: one was working and the other one was peddling Girl Scout cookies. My son was picked up on the front porch at 5:00AM, and he did not return home until 3:00PM that afternoon so he had plenty of time to check out the merchandise. He was assigned as a "floater" at the sale, relieving the other youth for their breaks, but found the "Sporting Goods and Hardware" section to be in particular need of help. Apparently, he spotted a snowboard being sold for the whopping price of $5. Having been taught from an early age never to pass up a bargain, he bought the snowboard, brought the thing home, and for every day afterwards was snowboarding in the living room. This is what happens when you are brought up as a desert rat. This is also what happens after Shaun White sweeps the Winter Olympics just weeks before the snowboard is spotted, and you are a homeschooled kid who has just spent the last month using the Olympics as the basis for geography, history, and science lessons. (I'm adding another link here for a good science site.) This is the second time we have used the Olympics in our homeschooling adventure; the first time was the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I was recently "organizing" homeschool stuff (ha ha, the task that never ends) and came across the 50+ page "Educational Kit" that I printed off during the Beijing Olympics (x 2 kids = 1 printer cartridge), and I'm just so thankful that we didn't get knee-deep in the Chinese "fuwa" mascots again because that was a lot of ink! Remember them? They looked like little Pokemon, but they were a fish, a flame, a panda, a bird, and an antelope. All color ink, by the way. So this year's Olympic studies concentrated in the online.

Anyway, time had come to take the kid to the snow so we decided to try cross-country skiing, but we brought the snowboard along. The thinking here was that if we got really good at cross-country, then we could take on the half-pipe later in the day. We are nothing if not optimists. The other thing at work here was the fact that the one and only time I went skiing, when I was just about the same age as my son, I ended up riding the ski lift downhill after a little mishap where I failed to get off at the top. I'm still recovering from the humiliation of arriving alone back at the embarkation spot with my skiing companion laughing his way down the hill. I will try downhill skiing again when I get good enough to ski to the top.

So we arrived at the Flagstaff Nordic Center all set for a day of "easy" cross-country skiing, and I encountered yet another skiing obstacle: I couldn't get the ski on. There were seven of us enrolled in the beginning class, and they all got their skis on prior to the instructor's arrival at the meeting spot. So when the instructor walked out there, all six of them were there (my own son had already disowned me), but I was about 20 feet away at the ski put-on place frantically trying to shove right boot into right ski to no avail. Here's where I first encountered Beaverman. I had heard stories about the infamous half-man, half-beaver Scottish hobo, but I hardly expected to find him in the Coconino National Forest teaching ski lessons (although stranger things have happened to me.) I'm sure it was him. When I master adding photos to the blog, I will post a picture of him, but he was most certainly my cross-country ski instructor, taking time out of his busy day munching wood to get me skiing. Thankfully, Beaverman also got my ski on.

But my troubles did not stop there. As it turns out, Beaverman quickly identified that I had not yet mastered walking. So while my six other classmates were already far ahead, Beaverman removed my skis, and instructed me to "walk around for awhile" until I got the feel of it. I have a long history of sitting in the back of the class, never asking questions, figuring stuff out for myself, etc. so I was really happy to have all this extra attention! It was so great to have come all this way to walk around in the snow! I think Beaverman sensed there was some hostility because after my walking demonstration he said, "Here, come give me a hug, you're doing great! What do you do for a living?" I said, "I'm an emergency nurse." To which he said, "Oh, well there are no lives to save here today, we're just having a good time." Hmph.

Things did get better, and as soon as I got my skis back on, I pretty much ditched Beaverman. At the end of the class, my son and I did a loop trail, on skis, and it was really fun. So I'm recommending cross-country skiing. Thumbs up. We also stopped at Montezuma Castle, and we're still pondering how it is that Montezuma Castle and Notre Dame Cathedral were built the same year. It's mind boggling. Here are some photos to compare: