Waste of ...energy?

For the past weeks/months I've been reading Annie Leonard's 'The Story of Stuff". I am slowly reading my way through the 264 pages about extraction, production, distribution, consumpition and disposal of 'stuff'.
It's well written and easy to understand, but sometimes I need some time to process what I've read.

It's pretty much unintelligible that we have evolved to human beings that produce more than we can use, throw away so many things and produce 'stuff' we use on daily basis composed of highly toxic ingredients! Unbelievable no?

One of the things that keeps flashing through my mind when I'm reading is: what would happen if more people were informed? Would they protest? Would they stand up and ask for changes? I hope so...

This is one of my favourite pieces so far, on these pages Annie is unraveling the process of producing 'cans'. Yes you know, the things you buy in the supermarket or the vending machine to immediately quench your thirst with a sugary drink (I prefer not to advertise for these products :-)).
Read it and think about it. I can say I banned them from my household (which wasn't that difficult but anyway)

Aluminum cans

"I saw a great depiction of the irrationality of aluminum beverage cans when I was working on waste issues in Budapest in 2007. HuMuSz, an organization there that raises awareness about waste, had made a series of short, entertaining films that play before feature films in Hungarian movie theaters. My favorite film took place in a WALL-E-like, totally trashed planet Earth of the future, where aliens arrive to conduct research. They find one remaining human being and grill him for answers about the incredibly valuable and widely dispersed pieces of aluminum strewn about the planet, convinced these were used for communications, military, or medical purposes. When the human replies that they were for single-use servings of sugary, carbonated drinks, the aliens berate him for lying: "No one would be so stupid, so irrational to use such a highly valuable energy-intensive metal to hold a simple beverage!". I'm with the aliens on this one."