The Disposable Economy Has to Change
I few weeks ago, I saw two films at the Hot Docs festival that, for whatever, reason hit home.
One was the excellent Manufactured Landscapes, which looks at the industrial revolution happening in China, as well as “recycling” efforts in China and Bangladesh. The other was Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home, in which a middle-class Toronto family saves their garbage for three months to really see how much waste they generate.
What really resonated with me was how much stuff we consume and subsequently turf. We live in a consumer-driven society where lower prices make products easily and quickly disposable; products that used to be things you bought every five years. Case in point, what ever happened to the Maytag repair man?
The consumer electronics industry is perhaps the worst offender. When you’re buying $29 DVD players or even $400 computers, throwing them out after a year or two has become fairly common. If something goes wrong with them, there’s no sense repairing them when the replacement cost is not that much higher.
It’s a terrific environment for people who want and/or like new things but terrible for the environment. Sooner rather than later, consumers need to start realizing that there is a cost associated with buying cheap products with a short shelf life. Think about what all the consumer electronics you’ve purchased over the past five years would look like if you threw them into a pile on your front lawn.
Of course, most people never think about it after the garbage truck has taken away the broken DVD player, or your chemical-laced computer is being manually disassembled in rural China.
What we need is a return to quality based on the idea that products should last longer. We need products that can be upgraded rather than tossed aside when something new with more features captures our fancy. Computers, for example, should be a snap to upgrade. If you need more RAM, open your computer case and quickly insert more RAM. If you want to add more features to your one-year-old iPod just buy a download from Apple as opposed to buying a new one.
Of course, consumers are obsessed with buying new products, and manufacturers are driven by selling more stuff. This paradigm isn’t going to change any time soon but people have to start thinking about the total cost of living in a disposable, here-today-gone-tomorrow world.
Note: Another inspiration for this post is a 12-year-old Procter Silex coffee maker that has no frills other than the ability to brew coffee. In an ideal world, I would trade it for a new $40 coffee maker with an auto-timer but it works and makes pretty good coffee so why get rid of it.
Update: Great Green Gadgets has an interesting post looking at the search for the “perfect green computer”. It cites an Irish company called iameco, which is making environmentally-friendly computers and components. iameco’s logo is above left. As well, check this cool video: The Story of Stuff.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Wouldn’t grand unemployment ensue?
May 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
No one said this was a simple problem to solve.
Maybe producing products that could be upgraded would generate different kind of jobs/expertise.
Mark
May 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Ugh! This is really terrible. I get depressed just thinking about it. Our garbage is out of control. Totally. Just at work alone. All the crap that gets shipped with our computers is sick. Dongles for monitors, dongles for UPS devices, dongles for keyboards, and so and so forth. We don’t use any of this stuff. Stop shipping it to me. It goes in a box we save for a year and then dispose of it. If somebody says, “hey we should do something instead of throwing this crap out’ about 10 ppl shrug, agree and go back to work. I could probably generate enough income to work part time just by selling dvi/vga dongles, power cables from pc’s and servers, usb/ps2 converters and serial cables for UPS’s. Its crazy. Manufactures and resellers should provide the option to ship me just the servers, no software, no cables no nothing. Same goes with our PC’s just send me the computers/servers please thats its no extra ’stuff’. Stuff is out of control. Even my dry cleaner looks at me wierd when i return the hangers I collect from months of dry cleaning my pants like I am the only one who does. sigh.
May 11th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Another problem is that even when we want to recycle/reuse the components, it’s tough to find out where. There’s a few companies that seem to pick up and refurbish used computers in the Toronto but none return calls or e-mails.
Perhaps this should be a centralized operation for many types of “broken” electronic components? Just ship them here, possibly for a tax refund or reduced/free shipping…
May 11th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
There is a very interesting company getting started here in Ottawa that has a unique way of dealing with collected waste and garbage; they use plasma torches to gasify the solids, then recover the gases to drive production of electricity. One stone, two birds.
I encourage everyone to take a look. Seems like it has great potential. http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/
May 11th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
[...] The Disposable Economy Has to Change :: Mark Evans - an interesting post that takes a look at how the disposable economy might not just be the end all be all it is purported to be. A good read - thanks Mark. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Great thoughts Mark! Really enjoyed reading this and I found it to be thought provoking and informative.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I’m always struck by this in January, when right on the heels of the overindulgence of the Christmas shopping season you get the CES. I did a CBC Business Network column about it this year:
Print: http://tinyurl.com/3v9shg
Audio: http://cbc.ca/calgary/media/audio/biznet/20080109J9-COL.ram
At minimum, both electronics companies and municipalities have to get better at providing—and publicizing—legitimate alternatives to just dumping all the gadgetry into a landfill.
A case in point: when my laptop screen frizzled last year, I ordered a new one, and undertook the surgery necessary to replace it. But I was not sure what I should do with the old one. I eventually set it aside and took it to the municipal recycling centre with a load of other stuff, and tossed it in the electronics bin. Unfortunately, that bin was pretty much empty.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Mark… well said. There aren’t any *easy* answers, but definitely a view we need to have. Thanks for writing this. Dan
May 12th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Dan: It’s something few people think about; maybe this will prompt a few more to do so.