Saw this cartoon and it got me thinking..
The biggest cause of global pollution is excessive production for consumerism.
Put simply this is because they produce far in excess of what is actually needed the global needs can be sustained with production levels of at lease half of their current rates.
Why?
Because of the use of “planned obsolescence” a mechanism that artificially reduces the functional life of a product such that you are forced to replace it frequently , for example a washing machine can easily be designed to run for 25-30 years, but in fact fails in as tittle as sis years, just after the five year warranty runs out! This is deliberate design function to ensure future sales of replacement product.
It is also exasperated by the fact that spares are often difficult to obtain and with many products are impossible to repair due to the design of the product that prevent basic repairs from being carried out.
LED lamps are another example, after 40 years of electronics experience, I know that LEDs have an extremely long life if the electronics are properly designed 30,000 hours plus should be expected, but manufacturers are now bringing that down to less that 10,000 by designing the power supply to fail earlier with underrated components that will fail in about 10,000 hours.
These are just two examples of domestic devices that are designed to fail before their time to increase the profit margins for businesses and their shareholders.
In other areas, millions of plastic products are made with plastics that are designed to deteriorate far quicker than necessary to produce repeat purchases,
Shoes have soles made of materials that wear much faster than they should.
Cars used to be really bad before there was a consumer backlash in the 1970-80s after many deaths caused by cars that were designed to rust quickly getting involved in crashes and causing deaths by completely crushing as they were weakened by corrosion, or in some cases causing crashes by breaking up while being driven.
Then there is “perceived obsolescence” where consumers are being pressurised into replacing stuff that is perfectly functional with the latest and greatest model, which is usually the same as the previous one except for some more go-faster stripes or similar. The fashion industry is the worst offender here.
Then there is all the “single use” plastics to reduce costs in a fast food restaurant for example, to avoid paying for someone to wash dishes afterwards.
Finally to add insult to injury, there is a whole “recycling & waste management” industry created to get rid of all this rubbish.
So the third pane of the cartoon makes a lot of sense.
People just need to know what is happening in the world, whinging about climate change is a cop out, they need to be looking at their own consumerism and the corporate greed that is feeding it.
We should be lobbying our MPs, TDs or MEPs to try and outlaw the deliberate life shortening of products and ban manufacturers from making their products unrepairable or by preventing third party repairers getting parts.
One thing would be to mandate that products display a label with their design life and their ease or repair, similar to the energy ratings they currently carry.
“A” rated devices for example would have a design life in excess of 25 years and all parts are replaceable, it can be done.
Doing this will give the consumers a chance to demand longer life expectancy and repairable products by shunning those with a short design life or not serviceable.
Please share if you agree