The Story of Stuff Project
During a recent keynote speech in our hometown, Annie made it abundantly clear that she just plain “gets” what we are doing here at GroVia. And with 15 million (and counting!) views of her online movie The Story of Stuff (a self-described ‘20-minute cartoon about trash’) Annie has become an inspiration to parents and citizens worldwide. We are proud to have Annie involved with the GroVia SuperMom program and hope you will take the time to learn more about her findings and organization.
In Her Own Words:
It is a mother's job to worry about our kids' future and inherent in that is worrying about the state of the planet. Starting in the 1960s, humanity has been using more resources than the planet can replenish each year and creating more waste than it can assimilate. This is clearly not a sustainable trajectory. Some of the solutions - like rebuilding our entire energy infrastructure to run on renewables - are giant complex tasks. But other opportunities to reduce both resource use and waste production are simpler - like switching to cloth diapers.
In the U.S., we throw away 20 billion disposable diapers a year. That's not just a lot of waste, but also an incentive to go drill more oil to make more plastic, cut down more trees, synthesize more toxic chemicals for fragrances and extract or produce all the other stuff that goes into making throw away diapers. If we care about the future of the planet - and what parent doesn't? - switching to reusable diapers is a no-brainer.
I raised my daughter on cloth diapers, and my mom raised all three of her kids in them too. It's true that it's a bit more work, but the savings in environmental damage (as well as the savings for my pocketbook) are strong motivations. And when all those cloth diapers came out of the dryer or off the clothesline, they felt so good and cottony - not all plastic and chemically - that I felt good putting them on my baby's bum. Try it - you'll never want to go back to throw aways.
Today diapers - tomorrow we take on the whole throw away economy!