See How Our Shopping Endangers Children And Alters The Landscape

You can click to order almost anything — but not without a human and environmental cost. This narrated slideshow takes you to the humungous, futuristic warehouses that handle our stuff, and to the people who live with the pollution they generate. Part of a BuzzFeed News investigation.

Most people don’t give a lot of thought to how their stuff gets to them.

Courtesy of the port of Los Angeles

But if you live in the United States west of Chicago, chances are the clothes on your body, the appliances in your house, and the shoes on your feet passed through vast warehouses that have sprung up in recent years in the scattered cities east of Los Angeles.

One tiny community here, Mira Loma Village, is almost completely surrounded by warehouses.

With warehouses come trucks and trains — thousands upon thousands of them.

Photograph by Jesse Kaplan for BuzzFeed News / Via JesseKaplanphoto.com

In Mira Loma, 15,000 trucks pass through the city every day.

The trucks have helped make the pollution so bad that children are at risk for growing up with stunted lungs.

Photograph by Emily Berl for BuzzFeed News

Air quality in southern California overall has been improving, but Mira Loma has some of the worst air in America. (This child lives in Mira Loma but was not in the study that found stunted lungs.)

To find out the shocking solution to Mira Loma’s severe air pollution, watch this narrated slideshow.

Branden Sueper helped produce this slideshow.