“The industry has built in obsolescence unfortunately, so we’re seeing things become waste quicker than ever before”
– Jim Puckett, Executive director of Basel Action Network, a private group focused on halting the trade in toxic goods.
Electronics have always produced E-waste since their advent, but currently, there is an increasing amount of E-waste produced in a shorter period of time.
Planned obsolescence is the act of intentionally designing any products to have a limited life-span. For electronic products, this causes them to be functionally obsolete after a certain period of time.
Essentially, this is a business strategy that companies to ensure that consumers like us regularly discard and purchase new products. It helps the companies to achieve higher sales volume, as replacement time between new products are shortened. There is little motivation for them to create highly durable parts that are able to last as long as possible (Maycroft, 2009). Using the electronics accumulate wear and tear, and minor repairs might be needed. However, after more time has passed, vital parts begin to wear out or are incompatible with newer released parts. This causes a brand new electronic product to be required.
Companies usually balance the two seemingly conflicting needs: to design a product that breaks down after a stipulated time, but to also leave customers satisfied and confident in their products to drive more purchases. In this way, when the product fails, the customer will want to buy another newer version from the same firm. As such, the electronic products that we buy usually last long enough to satisfy our current needs. However, because planned obsolescence has become such a normal aspect of purchasing electronic products, many of us intermittently upgrade our electronic devices without much thought.
An illuminating example
Thomas Edison invented the commercially viable light bulbs around the 1879. An Edison light bulb, called the the Centennial Light, is the world’s longest continuously burning light bulb. It was first switched on 115 years ago, and is still faintly shining in Livermore, California, up to this day. You can see this light bulb shining on this webcam here.
Initially, light bulb companies were highly motivated to produce light bulbs which lasted as long as possible, because they noticed that people of that time were unwilling to pay for replacement bulbs. However, as affluence increased and many more people began buying light bulbs to be fitted into their homes, the companies changed their business model around the 1920s.
They realized that more money could be made when they made light bulbs disposable. As such, many representatives from light bulb manufacturers all around the world colluded to jointly reduce their bulb’s life span to 1000 hours . This is one of the most obvious cases of planned obsolescence as hard evidence was found for it (Hadhazy, 2016).
There are also various other different reasons where E-waste can be generated:
- Perceived Obsolescence, whereby consumers replace a perfectly functioning product simply because they perceive it as outdated.
- Economic Obsolescence, whereby new products in the market are more economic in terms of cost, such as having a lower cost of ownership.
- Feature Obsolescence, whereby new products in the market offer more or better features.
- Aesthetic Obsolescence, whereby consumers perceive new products in the market as more fashionable or more aesthetically pleasing.
- Psychological Obsolescence, whereby consumers perceive a new product to have greater emotional value, or that their current product has a negative emotional value.
As we can see, obsolescence is a large reason why the amount of electronics being discarded is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Obsolescence is also exacerbated by the increasing affluence of many countries globally.