Disposable Planet: Produce, Consume, Throw Away, Destroy

Take-make-throw away, that's our entire economic model in a nutshell. We take without counting and plunder the planet; we produce ever more, inventing new needs to consume avidly, throw away, and finally buy something newer, trendier. "Always more and always cheaper!", we could adopt Wal-Mart's motto, which, deep down, only embraces our fantasies. Annie Leonard condemns our economic model based on overconsumption and questions our way of life. Where do our products come from? What are the real costs of manufacturing a simple T-shirt or a computer? In natural resources, environmental damage, or human costs? What do we do with our waste? What do we pay for, and especially what are we not paying for... for the moment? Because if all the inhabitants of the globe adopted our consumerist lifestyle, we would need 3 to 5 planets...

After producing the animated film The Story of Stuff, she devoted her teaching talents to writing this clear and provocative book. She analyzes the flow of material goods within our economic system in a few stages, pointing out its inconsistencies, its absurdities, its inequalities: it has become more economical to replace an object rather than to repair it, to exploit other populations, elsewhere, to satisfy our desires at lower costs, to plant "green deserts" in place of the biodiversity of our forests...

But the author also proves that it is possible to live differently; she tells us about new solutions that some people are already trying all around us. Let's act now, individually and collectively, before others make our planet an uninhabitable and unliveable place.

Published in France by Dunod.