Our Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has teamed up with young photographer and music video director, Christian Tierney to launch an exciting new competition for secondary schools today themed ‘The Story of Your Stuff’.  Students are invited to choose an everyday object such as a pen, mobile phone or a water bottle and use a visual medium to illustrate its lifecycle, where it came from, how you use it and more importantly, where it’s going to end up!

The competition is open to secondary school students up to and including 18 years. Students might decide to use video, a storyboard, a comic book illustration or in another format. The prize is: €500 for the winning entry and €500 plus a video workshop with Christian Tierney for the school. All information about the competition can be found on the http://www.thestoryofyourstuff.ie. The closing date for the submission of entries is 30^th March.

The Story of a plastic water bottle is given as an example

The Story of Your Stuff is all about thinking about where our ‘stuff’ comes from and becoming more aware of the life cycle of products and the transformations they go through along the way. By becoming more aware of the story of stuff we begin to understand why using less is best approach. Recycling and using recyclable materials on a daily basis is also important. The EPA’s web resource Irelands Environment provides the best source of information for students to research their entry.

No doubt the EPA competition was inspired by The Story of Stuff, a short animated 2007 documentary from the US about the lifecycle of material goods. The documentary is critical of excessive consumerism and promotes sustainability. Filmmaker Annie Leonard wrote and narrated the film and it has been viewed millions of times. It can be viewed on YouTube.

Events in March can be found here