Uploaded November 2016 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Today, designers purposefully limit the quality of products. Companies employ our best minds to create a product that fills the criteria that they demand and not what the consumer demands. If a printer manufacturer decides that a printer should print 20000 copies but then stop then the designer builds it to do that. Even if that means including a chip that records how many copies have been made and on the 20001 copy sends the error message that the printer has an internal error.
What does it mean for the Planet?
Would you really replace your printer every few years or you mobile phone every 6 months if it continued to work? OK Mobiles are something of a status symbol and many people replace them for the newest model, but boring products such as printers, radios or cookers are less likely to replaced before they go wrong. The resulting waste is of course deadly for the environment.
Electronic waste is one of the fastest growing sources of waste according to the UNEP. It is also an especially dangerous form of waste as it contains many heavy metals and toxic plastics. The rich world has found a place to put its electronic waste though: the developing world. They need computers too after all. The waste is often sent as used goods for resale however it is mostly just rubbish. Rubbish that is then “recycled” by the poor; recycled through burning the plastics away to get at the precious metals.
quiet-environmentalist.com
Today, designers purposefully limit the quality of products. Companies employ our best minds to create a product that fills the criteria that they demand and not what the consumer demands. If a printer manufacturer decides that a printer should print 20000 copies but then stop then the designer builds it to do that. Even if that means including a chip that records how many copies have been made and on the 20001 copy sends the error message that the printer has an internal error.
What does it mean for the Planet?
Would you really replace your printer every few years or you mobile phone every 6 months if it continued to work? OK Mobiles are something of a status symbol and many people replace them for the newest model, but boring products such as printers, radios or cookers are less likely to replaced before they go wrong. The resulting waste is of course deadly for the environment.
Electronic waste is one of the fastest growing sources of waste according to the UNEP. It is also an especially dangerous form of waste as it contains many heavy metals and toxic plastics. The rich world has found a place to put its electronic waste though: the developing world. They need computers too after all. The waste is often sent as used goods for resale however it is mostly just rubbish. Rubbish that is then “recycled” by the poor; recycled through burning the plastics away to get at the precious metals.
quiet-environmentalist.com
