Chapter 3 in Annie Leonard’s The Story Of Stuff focused around the distribution of Stuff as she refers to it. I have read previous research regarding the distribution of material goods throughout the world and what kind of environmental impacts it has. This chapter though helped show some other aspects of distribution that I was not as familiar with. The opening section talks about how large companies like Nike and Apple aren’t exactly selling you the product they directly. They are trying to sell you the image or brand of their company that is encompassed in the stuff the consumer buys.
I am working on creating more water refill stations around campus with some classmates in the UEP 246 section. This idea of selling the brand or image of a company has a very strong role when it comes to bottled water. Many people falsely believe that bottled water is better for you, when in fact many bottled water companies have the same water quality as the tap water most people already receive. Not only students at Occidental, but also millions of people in the United States have a stigma about tap water. Due to genius marketing, bottled water companies have made the public think that purchasing bottled water is not only healthier but a sign of higher class. This advertisement has led bottled water into a four billion dollar industry. Although the bottled water market is shrinking within the Occidental campus due to price increases on bottled water, I think that there will need to be a shift in thinking when it comes to the difference between tap water and bottled water.
