Lindsay France/University Photography.
Annie Leonard visits campus in April.

Allegra was recently asking several Raxa Collective veterans (with the vast experience of two years maintaining this site), in advance of posting this, whether we had posted any “stories of stuff,” or heard of Annie Leonard before. The answers she got, incorrectly, were no and yes. Apparently it was forgotten that we have mentioned her “stuff” once previously in one of our earliest posts (note to WordPress: please improve your search function), but she most certainly had an influence on our interest in bringing more information from the field into the public domain using online distribution. So this news item caught our attention:

Annie Leonard, environmental activist and creator of the 2007 viral hit video “The Story of Stuff,” spent nearly 25 years traveling the world investigating environmental health issues and ecological sustainability.

This spring, she finished a long-overdue project she had put on hold during that time: completing her Cornell master’s degree.

In the spring of 1988 Leonard had nearly finished the requirements for her two-year Master of Regional Planning degree. After three semesters of classes she jumped at the chance to spend her final semester in Washington, D.C., doing an internship for credit with the National Wildlife Federation.

Then she was offered a job at the environmental organization Greenpeace – “which was like a dream come true,” she said. “I had done everything except two papers for classes and a thesis. So I thought, ‘I’ll do that; how hard is that?’”

But she quickly got immersed in her work at Greenpeace, at the time in the midst of a campaign to ban international waste dumping. She agreed to travel for Greenpeace International, tracking garbage and hazardous waste sent from developed to less developed countries, to find out where it actually went.

“I was sneaking into the factories where it was being disposed, interviewing the workers, taking hair samples and soil samples to prove the environmental health harm,” she said.

The efforts by Greenpeace and others resulted in the Basel Convention, an international treaty enacted in 1992 that was designed to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. Leonard ultimately worked for Greenpeace International for a decade.

Viral video

Leonard continued working with global environmental groups on incinerator alternatives, sustainable production and rethinking the way we make, use and throw away items daily. But it was her animated 20-minute film, “The Story of Stuff,” that brought her the most attention.

The film has been viewed more than 20 million times online, translated into more than 100 languages and used in thousands of schools, churches and by environmental groups. Narrated by Leonard, the film shows how products designed to be regularly replaced fuel a disposable consumer culture of perceived obsolescence that leaves people unsatisfied and ensures that a steady stream of trash and its byproducts will pose ongoing, worsening global challenges. The video also led to The Story of Stuff Project, additional films, a New York Times best-selling book and a thriving online community of people moved to action.

Leonard’s nearly completed degree still hung over her, however.

Read the rest of the story here.