If you really want to understand a country, a society, or even a civilization, don’t turn to its national museums or government archives. Head to the tip.

According to Annie Leonard – former Greenpeace activist, unwavering optimist and waste obsessive – the tip is akin to society’s secret journal. “Stuff” became a fascination for Leonard in her teens, choosing field trips to landfills while at university when she began to question how we came to build an economy based purely on resources.

That was 20 years ago, and a lot has changed. Waste and recycling are now burning policy issues. Forty countries, hundreds of factories and still more landfills later , Leonard worries we have not grasped the fundamental problem with our materials economy. “It is a linear system and we live on a finite planet. You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. Too often the environment is seen as one small piece of the economy. But it’s not just one little thing, it’s what every single thing in our life depends upon.”

In 2007, Leonard tried a novel medium – a YouTube video – to convey the message. The Story of Stuff was a frank and cleverly animated short film telling the story of the American love affair with stuff and how it is quite literally trashing the planet. Three years on and it’s a viral online phenomenon; seen by 10 million people in homes and classrooms all over the world. Now she has followed up the video with a book of the same name.