Materials+Economy

=Material's Economy=

Have you ever wondered where all the stuff we buy comes from and where it goes when we throw it out? Stuff moves through a system, from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. All together this is called the material’s economy.

Although this system appears to be stable, the system is in crisis because it is a linear system and we live in a finite planet and you can not run a linear system in a finite planet indefinitely.

Every step along the way this system is interacting with the real world, it is interacting with societies, cultures, economies and environments. And all along the way it is bumping up against limits.

Extraction: It is another word for natural resource exploitation, which is another word for trashing the planet. They cut down the trees, they blow up mountains to get the metals inside, they use up all the water and they wipe out all the animals.

Production: Energy is used to mix toxic chemicals with all the natural resources to make toxic contaminated products. These products are meant to be cheap and have a short life expectancy to maximize purchases.

Distribution: All the toxic contaminated stuff is sold as quickly as possible. All the prices are kept down to make the people buy their stuff.

Consumption: The heart of the system. It is a cycle controlled by corporations. You go to work and you earn some money. Then when you get home the media tells you that you have to buy the latest in fashion for example and you feel compelled to go and buy that product and then work more so you will be able to afford more goods. The more people buy the goods, the more profitable companies are: more profits creates more production which in turn creates the possibility of more profits and in turn, more waste and damage to the planet.

Disposal: We buy a lot stuff that will eventually break, become obselite or takes up too much space; therefore we throw it to the garbage. All this garbage gets dumped in a landfill which is just a hole underneath the ground. Or even worse, it is burned and then buried on a landfill. Either way they pollute the air, land, water and does climate damage which could possibly lead to climate change.

This topic is significant to the world because it tells us the truth about stuff and the damage it is causing. From how it is made to how it is disposed, and we become more alert and we learn the true facts about it.