The excessive consumption of natural resources has become a white-hot topic lately. The focus has been on fossil fuels but the truth is that while the whole world uses fossil fuels, some parts of it have got out of control with the overconsumption because of planned obsolescence. Consumer electronics, stoves and fridges, cars, you name it, it's obsolete in 2-5 years. Your thoughts?
I think you over-generalize. The only kitchen appliance we have that's failed in the last 12 years is the microwave. We bought vehicles in 2005 and 2006 that worked very well for 12-13 years until destroyed in accidents. With reasonable care even smartphones can last 5 or more years with perhaps a battery replacement.
The larger issue is consumer desire for the latest and greatest
My stove is 20+ years old and so is my washing machine. Our water heater in the house is 25+. In the city, we went through 3 in 10 years. I also keep hearing from friends that their appliances don't last more than a few years. With cars, it's more about advertising than actual obsolescence. I should have said perceived and planned obsolescence, now I think about it.
And yet when I was researching cars last year, I kept reading that the safety levels of every car fell sharply after it turned 5. Why? Because. I ended up buying a 2012 Mazda with just the right amount of electronics (I think) to not make me nervous. I see zero reasons for safety to deteriorate so significantly over five years. Steel doesn't rot, at least not that fast and not if you take care of the car, does it? With regular checkups and maintenance I really don't see why a car couldn't be as safe and serviceable as it was when made for a much longer period of time than 5 years.
Also, I keep seeing and hearing about new cars (less than 5 yo) breaking down a lot. The reason? Most often, electronics. My observations are nowhere near representative of anything but they are what they are.
My wife had a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix. She loved that car. When it was 5 years old it started having electronic problems. We are fortunate and have a garage to keep it in most of the time, so it was well taken care of. We are fix it kind of people, so once it started we kept trying to fix it, one thing after another. Even with computer diagnostics, it was trial and error. Mostly error I guess. Finally they said if we replaced the $1,500 computer the car would be fixed. We were sure that would be the end of it. Guess what? Still malfunctioning! After all that expense we had to get a different car. So my praise for the newer cars does have that one exception in our experience.
The consumer public should start to seriously consider right sizing... Bloated SUVs homes so big they require two HVAC systems and chronic shopping excursions to Costco that only result in waste.... This is where the individual could start to make a difference.
In some places and for families with many children SUVs are perhaps a necessity but I think many people just like their cars bigger and bigger. Their houses, too, I guess. Especially if you're not the one cleaning that big house :)
There are often tradeoffs between efficiency and durability. Have very tight tolerances and light weight materials in a compressor to maximize efficiency and the slightest thing goes wrong and it jams. That being said there are far to much low reliability electronics in appliances that don't need it. Why does a fridge need a computer? Those seem to be the parts that fail.
I would argue that it’s the excessive consumption of consumers due to wanting to keep up with the Jones’. Maybe this is an American thing, I can’t say for certain. Personally, I’ve replaced my water heater after 20 years of use (needed to), stove and fridge are 23 years old and still working, truck is 10 years old with 138,000 miles and still going strong, iPad is probably 8 years old and is making this post, phone was recently replaced after 7 years, etc. For me, routine maintenance and replacing dead or dying items with quality alternatives only when needed is a far better system than keeping up with others desires.
Absolutely - It is the tread mill that many tech companies use. Look at Apple. They actually build planned obsolescence into the software and OS to force upgrades. So if the hardware is made and lasts, they can shut down the usability of the phone with OS bloat ware as I call it. There are lots of other examples as well, and all of that adds to the energy and fossil fuels used.
I do have a special love for Big Tech. My daughter almost cried today after her Android phone deleted her music player. She had a lot to say about not being asked whether she wanted a new one.
I will pass on beating Big Business or my RV owning neighbors though I confess I smile when I see an overturned RV lying on its side on a country road. I drive an uninsured 1995 Toyota Tercel and stay in motels only because I have other things I would rather do with the money as opposed to saving the planet.
I read that most of the plastic in the Pacific comes from Asian countries that use rivers as garbage dumps. Also Africa grows enough food to feed Africa but has problems with storage and distribution and in terms of first cause, politics. I doubt the world will be a better place when they are all chowing down McDonald’s while streaming on big screens.
The law of Unintended Consequences lies in wait for any plans to legislate a solution. That said, I would go for actual recycling funded by more consumer fees. "Actual" here means much "recycling" is imaginary. The law of Unintended Consequences warns that this might lead to illegal dumping. Germany sends its garbage to Turkey and Romania where is gets burned in the open.
I laugh at the current crusade for the Right to Repair which might only increase the cost of everything and increase resource use. Imagine the cost of building or expanding distribution networks to support all of the additional spare parts plus the increased costs of manufacturing things differently. I recently took my toaster apart and found two tiny circuit boards soldered to sensors.
After we get fusion reactors and quantum computers in every home Star Trek replicators should be easy.
I think the whole build out of renewable energy, that some refer to as "replaceable" because wind and solar need replacing about every twenty years, would also fit that description. Same with EV batteries but on a shorter time scale. Studies that I have seen show that just about the time an EV is reaching the point of carbon saved catching up to carbon emitted/expended to manufacture it, the battery needs replacing.
When I was a kid, we had a small appliance repair shop in Lubbock. If your crock pot’s switch went out, you had the switch replaced. What a novel idea! Now you throw your crock pot away. Someone said it’s cheaper to make disposable small appliances and just throw them away. Your question wasn’t about cheaper, was it? I assumed you were talking about better. Not cheaper.
Back in those days, we had soft drinks in returnable bottles that they sanitized and used over and over and over. We brought our empties to the store when we bought more soft drinks. Now we throw single use glass and plastic bottles away and manufacture new ones. We have gone backwards in my mind.
Excellent point, Ken. Indeed, once upon a time we repaired things and now we just throw them away, because it has become cheaper. Not in our house. Everything gets repaired in our house (not by me) even if it really should be left alone already because it has had a long and productive life. So far my husband's brought two laptops back from the dead and fixed his Iqos (tobacco-heating) holder, which wasn't even designed to be fixable. Clearly, ours is an extreme case and not everyone has the knowledge to do this but there are still repairs shops one can take their appliance to instead of throwing it away for a minor problem.
There's been a fixit-yourself revolution thanks to youtube fixit videos. Too bad more people don't take advantage of them. Nothing "greener" than reuse/continued use.
I just remembered another one: when I was a kid people went to a restaurant and drank out of a GLASS! (gasp!). Imagine it everyone drinking directly out of a glass!
Now they place a straw on my table before I can say anything, then when I say I don’t need it they tell me they have to throw it away anyway. Because as soon as they set it on the table, it cannot be given to anyone else. Remember the huge uproar about straw pollution a couple years ago? My solution is to quit handing out straws unless the customer specifically asks for one.
I asked a young person who said they must have a straw, why they didn’t just drink out of the glass. Their reply was, “I don’t want to put my mouth on the glass.” Think of it: the beverage I’m drinking is all over the inside of the glass but I don’t want to put my mouth on the glass.
I expect the WTO agreements to break down soon as nations are forced to choose a side in the new cold war(s). I think unfriendly nations are going to see a lot of tariffs and trade barriers.
The sharp and lasting rise in materials and energy prices will rekindle peoples urge to make their purchases last.
I had the privilege years ago of speaking in depth with a technocrat behind the green policies you see unfolding over the last decade. High EQ person, amazing credentials and connected to world leaders.
She asked me what I thought about the major oil and gas producers being sued for climate change?
It was a leading question. A discovery question.
I asked her what she thought about the planned obsolescence built into almost all industries by global leaders for constant rollover and self enrichment while the masses get screwed and fossil fuels are unnecessarily overused to do that?
Example - 50 years ago a Mercedes lasted 20 years and didn’t have a single computer chip. Today they have a steaming pile of 1500 computer chips on board and after the 3-year warranty runs out the mounting service costs soon force you to trade it in for a new one.
Guess what?
She would not answer the question, refused to consider the simplest of thermodynamics in the whole discussion and today is still raking in huge fees designing the policies everyone else has to live by.
There are too many good people joining the cause without understanding the full implications.
While anecdotes in the comments section from the peanut gallery may help, bullet proof journalism is what is required to drive home what is impending upon us should we react with panic to the “emergency”.
I think it's due to the incentives of optimization. People want their appliances at a particular price and so businesses figure out where they can cut costs without clear quality problems. This can be a reduction in quality of materials, simplification of layouts, or miniaturization.
I'm sure there's also some aspect of government energy-efficiency standards that have also incentivized these reductions. I don't know enough about the space to pinpoint but I'm sure that EnergyStar was not just a marketing aspect.
The flipside is that focusing on reliability, redundancy, and repairability would put the items at a price that few could—or want to—afford. I'd be curious if the rich's appliances are any more reliable or if they're even less so because they're more frequently replaced.
A valid and important point. Energy efficiency versus longevity makes for an interesting topic if discussion. One saves energy but uses more material resources and the other consumes more energy but less material resources. Thanks for the idea!
I find it amusing how much less time domestic appliances last today versus decades past.
They did last, didn't they...
Its driven mostly by profits, but also causes plenty inconvenience!
I think you over-generalize. The only kitchen appliance we have that's failed in the last 12 years is the microwave. We bought vehicles in 2005 and 2006 that worked very well for 12-13 years until destroyed in accidents. With reasonable care even smartphones can last 5 or more years with perhaps a battery replacement.
The larger issue is consumer desire for the latest and greatest
My stove is 20+ years old and so is my washing machine. Our water heater in the house is 25+. In the city, we went through 3 in 10 years. I also keep hearing from friends that their appliances don't last more than a few years. With cars, it's more about advertising than actual obsolescence. I should have said perceived and planned obsolescence, now I think about it.
Cars seem to be the exception imo. They are really well made these days and last forever. On the contrary I'm onto dryer #3 in the last decade.
Your right about cars being well built since about 1990. Before that if you had a car with 95,000 miles on it, it was a piece of junk!
And yet when I was researching cars last year, I kept reading that the safety levels of every car fell sharply after it turned 5. Why? Because. I ended up buying a 2012 Mazda with just the right amount of electronics (I think) to not make me nervous. I see zero reasons for safety to deteriorate so significantly over five years. Steel doesn't rot, at least not that fast and not if you take care of the car, does it? With regular checkups and maintenance I really don't see why a car couldn't be as safe and serviceable as it was when made for a much longer period of time than 5 years.
Also, I keep seeing and hearing about new cars (less than 5 yo) breaking down a lot. The reason? Most often, electronics. My observations are nowhere near representative of anything but they are what they are.
My wife had a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix. She loved that car. When it was 5 years old it started having electronic problems. We are fortunate and have a garage to keep it in most of the time, so it was well taken care of. We are fix it kind of people, so once it started we kept trying to fix it, one thing after another. Even with computer diagnostics, it was trial and error. Mostly error I guess. Finally they said if we replaced the $1,500 computer the car would be fixed. We were sure that would be the end of it. Guess what? Still malfunctioning! After all that expense we had to get a different car. So my praise for the newer cars does have that one exception in our experience.
I knew you can't trust electronics!
That's why I'm never giving up my 1997 Corolla. After 25 years and a couple of hundred thousand miles, it's still as dependable as ever.
I agree Brad, society especially the younger generation are fixated on last version of everything.
The consumer public should start to seriously consider right sizing... Bloated SUVs homes so big they require two HVAC systems and chronic shopping excursions to Costco that only result in waste.... This is where the individual could start to make a difference.
In some places and for families with many children SUVs are perhaps a necessity but I think many people just like their cars bigger and bigger. Their houses, too, I guess. Especially if you're not the one cleaning that big house :)
There are often tradeoffs between efficiency and durability. Have very tight tolerances and light weight materials in a compressor to maximize efficiency and the slightest thing goes wrong and it jams. That being said there are far to much low reliability electronics in appliances that don't need it. Why does a fridge need a computer? Those seem to be the parts that fail.
Also,everything having an LED. Who cares?
When I travel I take a roll of black tape to cover all the LEDs in hotel rooms ;-)
I would argue that it’s the excessive consumption of consumers due to wanting to keep up with the Jones’. Maybe this is an American thing, I can’t say for certain. Personally, I’ve replaced my water heater after 20 years of use (needed to), stove and fridge are 23 years old and still working, truck is 10 years old with 138,000 miles and still going strong, iPad is probably 8 years old and is making this post, phone was recently replaced after 7 years, etc. For me, routine maintenance and replacing dead or dying items with quality alternatives only when needed is a far better system than keeping up with others desires.
It's not just an American thing. We all seem to like shiny new things even if the old ones are working perfectly well.
Absolutely - It is the tread mill that many tech companies use. Look at Apple. They actually build planned obsolescence into the software and OS to force upgrades. So if the hardware is made and lasts, they can shut down the usability of the phone with OS bloat ware as I call it. There are lots of other examples as well, and all of that adds to the energy and fossil fuels used.
I do have a special love for Big Tech. My daughter almost cried today after her Android phone deleted her music player. She had a lot to say about not being asked whether she wanted a new one.
Learn to 3-D print... replace broken components.
I will pass on beating Big Business or my RV owning neighbors though I confess I smile when I see an overturned RV lying on its side on a country road. I drive an uninsured 1995 Toyota Tercel and stay in motels only because I have other things I would rather do with the money as opposed to saving the planet.
I read that most of the plastic in the Pacific comes from Asian countries that use rivers as garbage dumps. Also Africa grows enough food to feed Africa but has problems with storage and distribution and in terms of first cause, politics. I doubt the world will be a better place when they are all chowing down McDonald’s while streaming on big screens.
The law of Unintended Consequences lies in wait for any plans to legislate a solution. That said, I would go for actual recycling funded by more consumer fees. "Actual" here means much "recycling" is imaginary. The law of Unintended Consequences warns that this might lead to illegal dumping. Germany sends its garbage to Turkey and Romania where is gets burned in the open.
I laugh at the current crusade for the Right to Repair which might only increase the cost of everything and increase resource use. Imagine the cost of building or expanding distribution networks to support all of the additional spare parts plus the increased costs of manufacturing things differently. I recently took my toaster apart and found two tiny circuit boards soldered to sensors.
After we get fusion reactors and quantum computers in every home Star Trek replicators should be easy.
I think the whole build out of renewable energy, that some refer to as "replaceable" because wind and solar need replacing about every twenty years, would also fit that description. Same with EV batteries but on a shorter time scale. Studies that I have seen show that just about the time an EV is reaching the point of carbon saved catching up to carbon emitted/expended to manufacture it, the battery needs replacing.
When I was a kid, we had a small appliance repair shop in Lubbock. If your crock pot’s switch went out, you had the switch replaced. What a novel idea! Now you throw your crock pot away. Someone said it’s cheaper to make disposable small appliances and just throw them away. Your question wasn’t about cheaper, was it? I assumed you were talking about better. Not cheaper.
Back in those days, we had soft drinks in returnable bottles that they sanitized and used over and over and over. We brought our empties to the store when we bought more soft drinks. Now we throw single use glass and plastic bottles away and manufacture new ones. We have gone backwards in my mind.
Excellent point, Ken. Indeed, once upon a time we repaired things and now we just throw them away, because it has become cheaper. Not in our house. Everything gets repaired in our house (not by me) even if it really should be left alone already because it has had a long and productive life. So far my husband's brought two laptops back from the dead and fixed his Iqos (tobacco-heating) holder, which wasn't even designed to be fixable. Clearly, ours is an extreme case and not everyone has the knowledge to do this but there are still repairs shops one can take their appliance to instead of throwing it away for a minor problem.
There's been a fixit-yourself revolution thanks to youtube fixit videos. Too bad more people don't take advantage of them. Nothing "greener" than reuse/continued use.
Absolutely. One of the few actually good things t come out of social media.
I just remembered another one: when I was a kid people went to a restaurant and drank out of a GLASS! (gasp!). Imagine it everyone drinking directly out of a glass!
Now they place a straw on my table before I can say anything, then when I say I don’t need it they tell me they have to throw it away anyway. Because as soon as they set it on the table, it cannot be given to anyone else. Remember the huge uproar about straw pollution a couple years ago? My solution is to quit handing out straws unless the customer specifically asks for one.
I asked a young person who said they must have a straw, why they didn’t just drink out of the glass. Their reply was, “I don’t want to put my mouth on the glass.” Think of it: the beverage I’m drinking is all over the inside of the glass but I don’t want to put my mouth on the glass.
If I’m being unreasonable, please tell me!
I expect the WTO agreements to break down soon as nations are forced to choose a side in the new cold war(s). I think unfriendly nations are going to see a lot of tariffs and trade barriers.
The sharp and lasting rise in materials and energy prices will rekindle peoples urge to make their purchases last.
This may well turn out to be the case. Good could come out of something bad.
I had the privilege years ago of speaking in depth with a technocrat behind the green policies you see unfolding over the last decade. High EQ person, amazing credentials and connected to world leaders.
She asked me what I thought about the major oil and gas producers being sued for climate change?
It was a leading question. A discovery question.
I asked her what she thought about the planned obsolescence built into almost all industries by global leaders for constant rollover and self enrichment while the masses get screwed and fossil fuels are unnecessarily overused to do that?
Example - 50 years ago a Mercedes lasted 20 years and didn’t have a single computer chip. Today they have a steaming pile of 1500 computer chips on board and after the 3-year warranty runs out the mounting service costs soon force you to trade it in for a new one.
Guess what?
She would not answer the question, refused to consider the simplest of thermodynamics in the whole discussion and today is still raking in huge fees designing the policies everyone else has to live by.
Thank you for a very insightful comment. The transition is a business disguised as ideology, then. I wish I were surprised.
Yup, the devil doesn’t roam the earth selling HELL.
Well said. May I quote this story in a future article?
Umm, no. The original post was asking for “thoughts” only.
No problem. I'll keep it for personal use and inspiration only.
There are too many good people joining the cause without understanding the full implications.
While anecdotes in the comments section from the peanut gallery may help, bullet proof journalism is what is required to drive home what is impending upon us should we react with panic to the “emergency”.
I think it's due to the incentives of optimization. People want their appliances at a particular price and so businesses figure out where they can cut costs without clear quality problems. This can be a reduction in quality of materials, simplification of layouts, or miniaturization.
I'm sure there's also some aspect of government energy-efficiency standards that have also incentivized these reductions. I don't know enough about the space to pinpoint but I'm sure that EnergyStar was not just a marketing aspect.
The flipside is that focusing on reliability, redundancy, and repairability would put the items at a price that few could—or want to—afford. I'd be curious if the rich's appliances are any more reliable or if they're even less so because they're more frequently replaced.
A valid and important point. Energy efficiency versus longevity makes for an interesting topic if discussion. One saves energy but uses more material resources and the other consumes more energy but less material resources. Thanks for the idea!