From creating art, to writing to your representatives, to hosting a nonfiction book club, to investigating corporate corruption, to rallying at a protest, there are all kinds of ways to get involved and make change! Everyone is unique in the ways that they make an impact. We each have our own interests, skills and personality…
Grassroots Power, Real Change January 2026 Since 2017, The Story of Stuff Project’s Grassroots Grants Program has invested in one simple but powerful idea: lasting environmental change is built from the ground up. Across the United States, small, community-based organizations are leading the fight against plastic pollution, water privatization, and extractive systems that harm people…
In 2026, we’re launching The Reuse Revolution, a new mini-documentary series spotlighting the emerging solutions and bold innovators tackling the plastics and waste crises through reuse systems. This series showcases business, public initiatives and community leaders planting the seeds for a reusable future. While some of the initiatives are in their nascent phase, they are…
A New report, intended to commit to new measures to reduce plastic and disposable packaging, draws on its own flawed practices to forecast a ‘worst-case scenario’ for reusable packaging. In October 2025, McDonald’s released a report, ‘The Complex Reality of Reusable Packaging in Europe’, stating its position on reusable packaging based on an analysis of…
Do you think life seems more meaningful when we step away from throwaway, consumption-crazed culture? A recent New York Times piece, Throwaway Plastic Has Corrupted Us, got me thinking. Cheap, versatile plastics made throwaway culture explode, fueling overconsumption and turbocharging corporate profits… The social costs of our addiction to disposable plastics are… subtle but significant. Cooking…
Groundbreaking New Report Integrating Reuse Into California’s Beverage Container Deposit System: A Feasibility Study The Story of Stuff Project commissioned Eunomia Consulting to investigate how the state of California might create a system for converting a quarter of the state’s 28 billion beverages sold annually, to reusable containers alongside the benefits of doing so. The…
Implement California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act Without Delay Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 54 in 2022 – the nation’s most far-reaching plastic reduction law – pledging to “hold polluters responsible” and “cut plastics at the source.” But now his office is being targeted by industry lobbyists to delay the law’s…
Global Citizens or Mass Consumers? With the holidays around the corner, we can expect an uptick in the same tired messaging that tells us to buy more and more Stuff – because apparently that’s the only way to participate in what really matters to us. But, as a friend of Story of Stuff, we’re guessing…
Will this big tech partnership get you to shop more? You might have seen Amazon’s latest partnerships with TikTok and Pinterest, which will allow and encourage you to buy Amazon products without leaving the apps. It’s the latest tactic to further accelerate overconsumption. If you’re anything like us, you know this is terrible news –…
Summer has begun, and so have the heat waves. Did you know that the cool beverage bottle you reach for when it gets too hot is a major contributor to climate change? We’re not talking about the product – we’re talking about the packaging. The beverage industry sells more than 580 billion PET plastic bottles…
