Monday 22 August 2011

The Story of Stuff.



The story of stuff project is one of those videos that accelerates and popularises an idea that is starting to spread through society and I think that it should be commended. The danger with videos like this one is that they attract criticism and cynicism from a variety of sources for their up-beat positive sections and their doom and gloom negative sections equally. I think that free range studios and the story of stuff project have done an excellent job of getting the balance right. The use of animation is clever because it allows the central message to be delivered without causing seeming to piggy-back off disturbing images the way that some humanitarian aid videos do.

In terms of the video content I couldn’t agree more. I believe that there should be not only take back laws, but also a register of the longevity or otherwise that could be generated by an independent body that administers the laws. This way consumers would be able to see how many of product type x that the company manufactured the year before had been returned to the company for disposal and compare that to other manufacturers so that they could make informed decisions about what is and what isn’t going to be thrown away.
In terms of computers, modularity is the key. I believe that companies that ship products with non-replaceable batteries are a key culprit here. Another is non-standardized plugs, chargers, memory card slots hard drive sizes etc. I believe strongly in voting with ones feet in this department.

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