Global consumer spending has skyrocketed in the past two decades. But is advertising to blame? Do we all simply want more stuff, or do we need it for our high-speed modern lifestyles? It's a little of both, says marketing expert Kit Yarrow.
What if everybody in the world consumed like the "average" American family? Sean Cole went in search of that family to find out how much they consume in a given week or month. He didn't have to look too far.
Globalization's delivery of goods to consumers depends on intricate choreography of container ships, trucks, trains and other heavy equipment. The scale is breathtaking. But so are the side effects. Sarah Gardner reports,
If a port is the mouth of America's consumer economy, the landfill is the other end. Tess Vigeland reports on the people and places wrestling with the question of what to do with all the waste.
Kai Ryssdal begins our series with a visit to the Port of Long Beach. You could say it's the mouth of a consumer economy that's getting hungrier and hungrier. He talks with the port's Art Wong about its continuing growth.
Meet the Mullens, a family of four who've sworn off buying new consumer goods for a year. Tess follows the family through their experiment in scrounging.
In September, Tess carried all the trash she generated around for two weeks and challenged you to do the same. We bring you the stories of three listeners who heard the call.
One country's garbage is another country's gold. Scott Tong takes us across the Pacific to see how America's trash has spawned a whole industry in China.
