George Clooney recommends buying coffee in individual wrappers

I found an exceptional video recently, produced by a website called, Story of Stuff. Annie Leonard, like me, questions the value of our current consumer culture. She rightly points out that it is damaging both the environment and ourselves.

Pay her a visit over at story of stuff and watch the rest of it. I like it because she is not making unrealistic claims and actually has some information instead of the usual “Save the Planet” rants. Quite honestly, I think the planet will take care of itself, it’s us we should be worried about.

And if you have recently been doubting the value of the existence of any of the following list of products, she might have some thing to say that makes sense to you:

• Individually packaged ice cubes
• Fruit flavored water in a 12oz plastic bottle
• Washed potatoes
• A new color phone
• An MP3 player that is 12% smaller than the last one you bought
• A speaker box that flashes disco lights
• A new intercontinental ballistic missile system
• A GPS navigation system that speaks to you
• A slightly bigger version of last year’s HumVee
• A free plastic toy with a McDonalds hamburger

I could just go on and on with this list, but you get the idea. I mean seriously, individually packaged cups of coffee that require a special machine to make them? WTF? Come on George Clooney !

This is a clip from her video and the full version is available at StoryofStuff.com