A Materials Life

Have you ever wondered where your personal belongings come from? Where they go after you dispose of them? Stuff moves though a system called the materials economy. It goes from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. All along the way, this system is interacting with society, cultures, economies and the environment. Most global citizens are unaware of what we have been doing to our planet.The materials economy is a system which global citizens are responsible for. Therefore citizens have to take local action to preserve the global environment. A simple answer is that we are trashing it!

Extraction and production, the base of the materials economy and are constantly depleting natural resources. Extraction is taking away natural resources for production. This has caused many natural resources to deplete! According to Annie Leonard, featuring in the video’’Story of Stuff’’, we have already lost 80% of our natural resources. In the Amazon alone we lose 2000 trees a minute. That’s 10,512,000,000 trees a year and they don’t plant them back. Some resources take decades to return such as oil. Our natural world is damaged because we take pieces of it to make products. This brings us to production. In production, the natural resources are mixed with toxic chemicals and most of them haven’t been tested for health impacts. Every day we get exposed to toxic chemicals. Most factory workers have or have had several health issues caused by the large amount of poisonous chemicals they are exposed to. Factories have chemical waste which in most cases end up in rivers or the sea. Another environmental problem is that factories release smoke which can cause the warming of the earth. I think that factories should have more concern about what effect this has on the environment. It looks like they care more about their profit than their own health and environment!

After all the resources have been extracted and turned into products, the products move to another stage of the system called distribution. Distribution means selling all the new products as fast as possible. Stores do this by keeping the prices low, so we keep buying. They keep the prices low by externalized cost which means that the effort put into making the product isn’t matching the price. Consumerism, the driving force of the materials economy, is why this system exists. Consumerism is the act or practise of an increasing consumption of goods. Consumerism has increased in the last half decade causing increasing amounts of extraction and production. This is a problem because our natural resources aren’t just growing back. The increased consumerism is an effect of two methods that marketers use. One is planned obsolescence which are products that were planned to be disposed of fast. After a certain amount of time, planned obsolescence products become useless, old, nonfunctional or broken. Examples of planned obsolescence are coffee cups and plastic bags. Another method is called perceived obsolescence which are products that are meant to take over the old products. They do this by starting new trends. Perceived obsolescence products might be a new game or clothing. Media plays a big role in these strategies. Media communicates through radio, television, Internet, newspaper and magazines to influence people to purchase products, services and much more. As mentioned in the ‘’Story of Stuff’’ video, an average American watches about 3000 advertisements a day. Now our consumerism has increased and we are still not satisfied. This is because we use our free time interacting with products and not by spending time with family and friends. I think that we could be satisfied with less stuff. Consuming goods are not the solution, it’s the problem. Solving this problem keeps you and the world satisfied.


The last part of the materials economy is disposal where consumers can make a significant contribution to save the environment. Disposal is when we trash our garbage. Referring to the video, each citizen of the US disposes 4.5 pound of garbage each day! This is twice of what they made 30 years ago. 99% of the stuff we buy gets trashed within 6 months. Mainly because of planned obsolescence. When an item gets disposed it either goes into a land hole or it gets burned by an incinerator. This impacts the world by damaging the land, oceans, rivers, air, animals, societies and even you. Have you ever heard of ‘’The Great Pacific Garbage Patch’’. Its a trash island herded by ocean currents. This has impacted the marine life because many sea animals die of suffocation by plastic waste. Burning trash is even worse than throwing it in a land hole. By burning trash in an incinerator, the toxic chemicals that have been mixed with the natural resources get released into the air. It can even create greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. That’s what we get exposed to almost every day. Finding solutions to these problems is essential for the future. In fact, they already exist, we just have to apply them! I think that we dispose of too many goods. I believe that we can stop our high production rates. I believe that we can stop damaging the environment. I believe we have a future.

We all want a future for the coming generations. In order to do so, we have to work the solutions out. Some solutions that you might want to try out are saving energy, wasting less, walk more, using energy efficient light bulbs, recycle and most importantly buy less, use less! All these green solutions work against the materials economy. If we waste less than we will also dispose less. The most effective way is recycling which basically is that we can use our disposed resources again. Also an important local action is that people are stimulated to collect all the garbage for recycling instead of throwing it away on the street. Recycling can be improved by separating waste into paper, glass, plastic and metal.The materials economy is linear. For this reason we are going to run out of resources some day. By applying those solutions we can make the system circular. The materials economy is a system which global citizens are responsible for. I think that making the system circular is a global achievement. ‘’Think globally, act locally’’ ~ Paul McCartney

The Eyes Of A Friend

Have you ever noticed how you survive a long boring day of school? A day where you have quizzes, tests and you don’t feel like you can comprehend the topic being discussed. Then you sit down to take your test, and your friend right next to you makes absurd faces. Suddenly you burst out laughing and the test becomes easily mastered, just because your friend is there. Friendship is the key to a joyful day. From my perspective, a friend is somebody who develops a feeling that you are not alone in the world. A person who can create that feeling, is a person who I can call a friend.


People help each other a lot in their daily lives. Everybody meets problems in their lives which could be solved easier with friends than on your own. Befriending somebody who helps you, will make you feel like you are not alone. Insun, a college student who posted an essay about friendship on the ‘’This I Believe’’ website, didn’t like to communicate in college which made her feel lonely. At that time she made friends with Sophie, a classmate. Due to financial problems, Insun started to eat less and suffered from malnutrition. Sophie would come cook for her and kept her fed, making Insun stronger physically and emotionally. When I first came to Malaysia I made friends who helped me through the first days of school but it was difficult to do this, as a result of me not being able to speak English fluidly. I think that friendship is born out of trust and that by helping somebody you earn trust. Just like with Insun, I found friends that decreased my loneliness and helped me solve my problems. Because of this experience. I want to do this for others. Friends helped me come through the depressing days and made me feel like I’m not alone in the world.


Strong friendships are worth keeping up, even though you are on the other side of the world. ‘’I believe that true friendship is worth keeping even if your one hundred to one thousand miles apart.’’states Lindsey Roscoe, a college student who also posted an essay. I agree with this statement from my own personal experience. In the time I have spent in Malaysia, I frequently contact my friends in my home country. These far distance friendships are important for me because their supportive comments cheer me up. Sometimes I feel a bit home sick and when I talk to my friends in my home country, I feel like I’m closer to them. One day my best friend in my home country called me, saying all the events that happened to him in a period of time. Specifically about my old field hockey team which he joined. This was amusing to hear because the events that he expierience were similar to my previous life in my home country. By hearing his experiences, I can better understand his way of living, to expand trust. Friendships were essential to me in the Netherlands and even more important for me in Malaysia.

Spending time with friends creates pleasant memories and laughter. Kelsey Miles is someone who remembers the pleasant times she had with her friends. Whether it was at the farm or in the cinema, while she was enjoying the times with her friends, they laughed. By spending time with your friends, you start to build trust. This is what Kelsey Miles did by trusting her friends with her secrets. When she was unhappy and upset, her friends, were there for her. Just like mine are there when I have a depressing day. A day where I have a giant headache and a supportive friend classmate cheers me up. If a friend is there for you, you don’t feel like your standing alone.I think friendship is all about laughter and trust. My best friends are the ones which I trust and where I can unleash my feelings.


I expect my friends to be supportive, entertaining, trusting and friendly. All I can do is to succeed fulfilling my expectations of a friend. I think that friendship has to be built from both sides. By understanding my friend’s feelings, will help me comprehend his expectations of a friend. The moment that you can call somebody a friend is when he or she succeeds fulfilling your expectations. Maybe you don’t realize it but just like I have my expectations, you have yours. I realized that I don’t fulfill my expectations of a friend. Therefore I’m starting to adapt the way my friends look at me. I can do this by meeting his expectations. So I’m the friend in the eyes of my friend.

Causing Or Solving Global Warming

Have you ever wondered what causes global warming, why the weather changes from freezing to blazing, or why the ice in Antarctica melts? Many people in our world don’t know about the greenhouse effect, even though it could damage our environment. The greenhouse effect is a natural warming process. It happens when gases that we release, obtain energy, forming heat. The four main gases in the air are water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone and methane. They form a blanket around the earth, not only to make a comfortable temperature, but also to help life grow. If the greenhouse effect did not exist, then the earth would be too cold for most of its life. Human activity on earth has been increasing this effect. Reducing the number of greenhouse gases is important to fight for because if the greenhouse effect continues to increase, this could cause a global climate change.

The warming of the earth causes many natural disasters. These days, we have cars, buses, and planes that add gases into the environment. In a matter of years, our lives could change. ‘’The Day After Tomorrow’’ has some true science in it. In the movie, society has been producing greenhouse gases causing major ice sheets to melt. This changed the Gulf Stream current in the Atlantic Ocean and made many oceans colder. Additionally, the mesosphere, which is very cold, gets pulled to the earth. The mesosphere itself is 90 degrees below 0 degrees Celsius and is between fifty and eighty kilometers high, creating a second ice age in the northern hemisphere. This movie might be ‘’cool’’ to watch but it could be true. Gases that we release make the blanket around the earth thicker and cause this effect by making a global climate change. Our society does not know that this could happen and are then not reflective in their actions.

According to a NASA study, earth’s climate will change over the next 50 years. James Hansen, who works at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies claims, “Some continued global warming will occur…even if the greenhouse gases in the air do not increase further.” However if we keep increasing the number of greenhouse gases, global temperatures may increase even by 1-2 degrees Celsius. Researchers use different instruments to predict earth’s temperatures in the next half century. One of these instruments is called a climate model which displays the change of temperature and the energy balance over the next fifty years. Also it demonstrates how the greenhouse gases form a blanket around the earth. This blanket was made by nature and increased by human activity. It traps heat just like a blanket traps body heat. If we just continue doing nothing to address this problem than our world will make that global climate change. Therefore the whole human race should at least attempt to take action.

Scientific evidence shows an increase in global surface temperature. Global warming is real and cannot be denied, so what can we do? Mainly we could try to reduce the number of greenhouse gases in the air and discourage our development that involves these gases. Reusing energy would be efficient in this process. We use energy daily for our technology but this energy is mostly produced from oil and other gases. Another type of energy that's called green energy is energy produced by for instance sun panels, wind mills and water power.

Generations pass by and we don’t take action. Our actions have a big consequences.The effect of global warming is that there will be more natural disasters such as floodings, hurricanes and the increase of sea level. Informing people about the effects could help them to be more thoughtful to save our environment. It is a global goal that could be achieved only if all people agree. Changing our future that lays beyond, we could make the earth a better place for our following generations.

Earning Our Voice

Society has been infected by uncertainty
Authority racially opposes people’s conviction.
You may question authority
But you, as the minority, may lose your voice to the majority
as an uncertainty.
Our society’s limbs are infected with declarations from the opposed minds.
If we believe in what we say to the society,
The authority will notice our conviction
If we speak with wisdom and confidence
We will earn our voice.

Equal Rights Make Freedom Possible

‘’I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.” ~ Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela was a black man who fought for the rights and freedom of black people in South Africa. He wanted to make the society equal and encourage all the unequal people to fight for their rights. This was worth fighting for because black people were treated as inferior to the white population.

Equal rights are important to fight for because otherwise people think that they are more important than others. If this is so, people could be discriminated against and freedom is taken away. As Mandela grew up into a segregated society, he started thinking of why this is so and what could be done to stop it. Living in a system called the ‘’Apartheid’,’ which is Dutch for separate. Black people lived in poverty because they did not get enough paid and did not share the same opportunities only because they didn’t have the same skin colour as the white people.

A white person in South Africa has more rights than a black person and would think that this was right. Mandela thought the opposite and fought for justice. He did not want to fight, he did not want to be better, but he wanted to be equal. As Mandela encouraged the unequal to stand up, the government was against him. They did not think that what he did was right. So they placed him in jail. After being locked up for 27 years, he did not gave up for his struggle for freedom. This time he changed the minds of the government. He showed them what South Africa wanted. This was the beginning of the end of ‘’apartheid’’. He created the chance to stand up and fought verbally for the rights of black people. He persisted to make a change.


Mandela said that it would not be an easy walk to achieve an equal society, as becomes clear from his following words: "I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended." As Mandela said these words he did not think about himself but about the people of Africa. Mandela took the first steps to a utopia society starting with the equality of black and white.

Coming back to the initial quote of Mandela: ‘’I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man’’, which means that racialism is uncivilized, whether it comes from any human race. Nelson Mandela thought this was violating human rights and stood up for it. The government disregarded the black people and did not look out for them. He build the tolerance between white and black as it was never before. The satisfaction needs to come from both sides. He was the impetus of a equal society. Mandela fought for what he believed and made it happen.

The Freedom To Speak Up

Albert Camus, claimed, ''Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.'' Freedom is the power or right to act and speak your thoughts and the right to be equal. If given the opportunity to begin a New World, I would hope the society would be built around freedom. This is a key characteristic to a peaceful world.

Freedom is an important characteristic because everybody should have the equal rights. If people are treated equally, they feel free to practice their own religion, can say what they want, and they can go where they want. To achieve this nothing should not be corrupted by a leader that could declare unhappiness or maybe even war. Many countries fought for freedom. Some of them tried and some of them died but at least they fought. Imagine a world full of corrupted societies and poverty. In some countries people do not have he freedom to speak up to the government. For example China. They can't say what how bad their government is, otherwise they will be send to prison for a crime they didn't committed. In this situation they did not get the chance to speak up.

Additionally, it is important for a society to be built around freedom because if there was no freedom than there would be not be democratcy .In Germany during WWII, there was a dictatorship by Hitler. I could picture myself as a Jew who was taken away by the Germans. How their life was. Seeing their father and mother get killed only because they are Jewish. This was not fair. This was the opposite of freedom. This is not a world, I would want to live in.

Without freedom, the New World would look like a dishonorable and dystopian society. As I mentioned earlier, freedom is getting a chance to stand up. As Albert Camus said, ''Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better,' meaning that by standing up, you can have a chance for a better, peaceful society. I think you could only achieve this goal if everybody agrees about the rights of freedom. In most cases not all of the people agree with what happens in their society. Every time I think of freedom a thought pops up into my mind, saying that it is the hardest thing to create unless you start all over again.

The Hat

I was once the happiest hat in the world. Kings wear me during their vacation. I was their favorite hat but than it all changed. The last king died. He was my favorite. The next king was evil and had no respect to everybody. Not even me. He trowed me away and thats where my story began. I moved trough the wind. It was like I'm in heaven. Side to side with the birds. I was lucky that there was a lot of wind. I traveled and I traveled. I thought it would not end but finally I stranded on a beach. Not knowing where I was, I managed to go 12 meters further. Than I stopped, a coconut roled over me. I couldn't move. Waiting there for a few hours, I noticed that there were people on the island. A young girl came to me. Picked me up and she placed it nicely on her head. Walking trough the hot sun. I feel like I finally got a function again. Protecting the girl from the sun.