Annie Louise Leonard | |
|---|---|
 Leonard in February 2018 | |
| Born | 1964 Seattle, Washington |
| Occupation | Executive Director, Greenpeace USA |
| Genre | Consumerism, Ecology |
| Notable works | The Story of Stuff |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | |
| storyofstuff | |
Annie Marie Leonard (born 1964) is an American proponent of sustainability and a critic of consumerism. [1] She created the animated film The Story of Stuff (2007), which describes the life cycle of material goods. In 2014, she became the Executive Director of Greenpeace USA. [2]
Leonard was born in Seattle, Washington, where she also grew up. She graduated from the Lakeside School, and received an undergraduate degree from Barnard College in 1987 and a graduate degree from Cornell University in City and Regional Planning. [3]
After interning at the National Wildlife Federation in the late 1980s, Leonard began working with Greenpeace on a campaign to ban international waste dumping, traveling around the world to track garbage and hazardous waste sent from developed to less developed countries. "I was sneaking into the factories where it was being disposed, interviewing the workers, taking hair samples and soil samples to prove the environmental health harm," she later explained in an interview with Cornell University.[ citation needed ]
In 1992, she testified in front of the US Congress on the topic of international waste trafficking. [3] The work of Greenpeace and other organizations led to the 1992 Basel Convention, an international treaty to protect less developed countries from the dumping of hazardous waste by transnational corporations based in developed countries. [4]
Leonard is best known as the creator and narrator of the animated documentary about the life cycle of material goods, The Story of Stuff (2007). The documentary began as an hour-long talk and was made into a condensed film version based on popular demand. She also wrote a book version of the film, published in 2010 in the United States by Free Press of Simon & Schuster, [5] in the UK by Constable & Robinson, and in Germany by Econ Verlag. [6]
After The Story of Stuff, she created The Story of Cap and Trade (2009), which addresses emissions trading. Subsequent productions include The Story of Bottled Water , [7] The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Electronics, The Story of Citizens United v. FEC , The Story of Broke, The Story of Change, and The Story of Solutions.
In addition to her work on the Story of Stuff films, Leonard was co-creator and coordinator of GAIA (the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives [8] [9] ), serving on the boards of International Forum on Globalization (IFG) and the Environmental Health Fund. [10] She previously worked for Health Care Without Harm, Essential Information, and Greenpeace International, and was coordinator of the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption. [1]
Leonard was named the Executive Director for Greenpeace USA in May 2014. [11]
In March 2022, actress and climate activist Jane Fonda co-founded the Jane Fonda Climate PAC (political action committee) with Leonard. [12] [13]
Leonard lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter Dewi, born in 1999. [11]
The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, usually known as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. It does not, however, address the movement of radioactive waste. The convention is also intended to minimize the rate and toxicity of wastes generated, to ensure their environmentally sound management as closely as possible to the source of generation, and to assist developing countries in environmentally sound management of the hazardous and other wastes they generate.
Hazardous waste is waste that has substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. Hazardous waste is a type of dangerous goods. They usually have one or more of the following hazardous traits: ignitability, reactivity, corrosivity, toxicity. Listed hazardous wastes are materials specifically listed by regulatory authorities as hazardous wastes which are from non-specific sources, specific sources, or discarded chemical products. Hazardous wastes may be found in different physical states such as gaseous, liquids, or solids. A hazardous waste is a special type of waste because it cannot be disposed of by common means like other by-products of our everyday lives. Depending on the physical state of the waste, treatment and solidification processes might be required.
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The word litter can also be used as a verb: to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground, and leave them there indefinitely or for other people to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them correctly.
Environmental justice or eco-justice, is a social movement to address environmental injustice, which occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.
On August 31, 1986, the cargo ship Khian Sea, registered in Liberia, was loaded with more than 14,000 tons of ash from waste incinerators in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The city had previously sent such waste to New Jersey, but that state refused to accept any more after 1984.
Environmental harmful product dumping is the practice of transfrontier shipment of waste from one country to another. The goal is to take the waste to a country that has less strict environmental laws, or environmental laws that are not strictly enforced. The economic benefit of this practice is cheap disposal or recycling of waste without the economic regulations of the original country.
The Story of Stuff is a short animated documentary about the lifecycle of material goods. The documentary is critical of excessive consumerism and promotes sustainability.
Stericycle is a compliance company that specializes in collecting and disposing regulated medical waste, such as medical waste and sharps, pharmaceuticals, hazardous waste, and providing services for recalled and expired goods. It also provides related education and training services, and patient communication services. The company was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Bannockburn, Illinois, with many more bases of operation around the world, including Medical waste incinerators in Utah and North Carolina.
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero.
Greenpeace East Asia is an office serving the East Asia region of the global environmental organization Greenpeace. It is one of the largest international NGOs in China.
Philip David Radford is an American activist who served as the executive director of Greenpeace USA. He was the founder and President of Progressive Power Lab, an organization that incubates companies and non-profits that build capacity for progressive organizations, including a donor advisory organization Champion.us, the Progressive Multiplier Fund and Membership Drive. Radford is a co-founder of the Democracy Initiative, was founder and executive director of Power Shift, and is a board member of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. He has a background in grassroots organizing, corporate social responsibility, climate change, and clean energy. He currently serves as the Chief Strategy officer at the Sierra Club.
Guiyu, in Guangdong Province, China, is widely perceived as the largest electronic waste (e-waste) site in the world. In 2005, there were 60,000 e-waste workers in Guiyu who processed the more than 100 truckloads that were transported to the 52-square-kilometre area every day. The constant movement into and processing of e-wastes in the area leading to the harmful and toxic environment and living conditions, coupled with inadequate facilities, have led to the Guiyu town being nicknamed the "electronic graveyard of the world".
Greenpeace USA is the United States affiliate of Greenpeace International, an environmental nonprofit organization that spawned a social movement inspired by direct actions on the high seas to stop whaling and nuclear testing. Headquartered in Washington D.C., Greenpeace U.S.A. operates with an annual budget of approximately $40 million, employing over 500 people in 2020. The organization relies on donations from members, refuses corporate contributions and refrains from endorsing political candidates, though in 2020 Greenpeace USA issued climate scorecards for presidential candidates and ranked them from best to worst on climate
The Kettleman Hills Hazardous Waste Facility is a large hazardous waste and municipal solid waste disposal facility, operated by Waste Management, Inc. The landfill is located at 35.9624°N 120.0102°W, 3.5 mi (5.6 km) southwest of Kettleman City on State Route 41 in the western San Joaquin Valley, Kings County, California.
Solid waste policy in the United States is aimed at developing and implementing proper mechanisms to effectively manage solid waste. For solid waste policy to be effective, inputs should come from stakeholders, including citizens, businesses, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, universities, and other research organizations. These inputs form the basis of policy frameworks that influence solid waste management decisions. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates household, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial solid and hazardous wastes under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Effective solid waste management is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, regional, and local entities. Thus, the RCRA's Solid Waste program section D encourages the environmental departments of each state to develop comprehensive plans to manage nonhazardous industrial and municipal solid waste.
Jon Hinck is an American environmentalist, lawyer and politician. From 2006 to 2012 he served as a member of the Maine House of Representatives, representing House District 118, part of Portland, Maine. From 2013 through 2016, Hinck held an at-large seat on the Portland, Maine City Council.
Toxic colonialism, or toxic waste colonialism, refers to the practice of exporting hazardous waste from developed countries to underdeveloped ones for disposal.
The global waste trade is the international trade of waste between countries for further treatment, disposal, or recycling. Toxic or hazardous wastes are often imported by developing countries from developed countries.
Annie Aghnaqa (Akeya) Alowa (née Akeya; also known as, Aghnaqa (Annie Akeya Alowa) and Annie Alowa; 25 June 1924 - 19 February 1999) was a Yup'ik elder and Alaskan environmental activist, healer, and leader in health and justice advocacy for indigenous peoples. Miller founded the Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT). She was inducted into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame in 2016.
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, formed in 1997, is a multiracial grassroots organization based in San Francisco that works with low-income and working class urban, rural, and indigenous communities. It runs campaigns in the United States to build grassroots networks, and advocate for social justice.
