Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.
In search of a better way to live and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works.

	January 11, 2007

Tech Trash Talk The release of Apple’s new iPhone immediately made me groan: More encouragement to continue to throw out old cell phones and 'obsolete' high-tech toys. Consumers will buy over a billion cell phones this year, and the rate is growing by 10-20% per year. The average life of a cell phone is a year. Virtually none of them are recycled. They all end up in landfills, largely in struggling nations. A billion a year. Deliberately shoddily manufactured garbage, laced with cadmium, beryllium, lead and other toxic materials. Disgraceful. Last summer I charted the pathetic cradle-to-grave agribusiness food production system and all the atrocities and waste it produces. This is what the process looks like for high-tech products (and in fact for most manufactured goods): Intellectual property is secured by absurdly over-broad IP laws, stunting innovation and competitiveness. Toxic materials for the product are mined from struggling nations with slave and child labour, producing toxic pollution, waste and illness.  Plastics for the product are manufactured in plants that use huge amounts of oil and spew out carcinogens and other toxins into the air and water, to produce shoddy, fragile shells and extravagant packaging that gets immediately thrown out. The materials are transported huge distances to manufacturing and assembly sites, mostly in struggling nations with no enforceable social or environmental laws. Manufacture and assembly occur in sweat shops with slave and child labour, producing yet more toxic pollution, waste and illness. The disposable finished product in the disposable packaging is then transported huge distances to markets. The product is then marketed as a disposable fashion item, with inadequate warranties, poor service, and no recycling or reuse capability. The product breaks as soon as it gets dropped, wet, overheated or used more than lightly and occasionally, due to its shoddy construction and planned obsolescence. The product is dumped into un-recyclable garbage.  It ends up in either local or struggling nation landfills; in the latter case, it is ‘mined’ by beggars for parts, causing yet more illness and injury. The customer jumps in his SUV and drives miles to the box store to buy a replacement piece of junk. There are three recent books out lamenting this sorry state: Heather Rogers’ Gone Tomorrow, Giles Slade’s Made to Break and Elizabeth Grossman’s High Tech Trash. Their lesson is the same: Technology never creates less waste. Piled on top of the billion cell phones are the equally shoddy and toxic computers, MP3 players and other toys, as well as more traditional personal care, media and entertainment devices. Analogue TVs and CRT monitors, with their especially toxic components, are added to the pile, often replaced by energy-gulping plasma units. And some municipalities like New York and Washington DC, after being bribed or coerced by the tight 'waste disposal' oligopoly, actually stopped their recycling programs before consumer outrage forced them to be reinstated. Consumer protection legislation and education are too late in the process to change this. The answer is quite simple, but it would take more balls than we'll ever see from a politician: Prohibit the manufacture or importing in the first place of goods that are not entirely reusable and taken back by the vendor for reuse. Zero waste. This is completely feasible, though it would be expensive and, by enabling consumers to buy much less often, would precipitate a recession. Don't believe me? – Read any of the three books mentioned above. With modern technology there is no reason for us to be producing any garbage, anywhere, ever. Tax bads, not goods – place steep taxes on products that are imported, polluting, energy-consuming, or have a short warrantied life, so they’re more expensive than locally produced, cleanly-made, low-energy, long-life, 100% reusable alternatives. Mandate consumer-friendly minimum warranty and service standards, monitored by consumer organizations, and have steep fines for offenders. There are a lot of problems in our world that are complex and intractable, but this isn't one of them. All it would take is political will. Don't hold your breath. Category: Corporatism, Free Trade & Distorted Markets 6:34:24 PM  trackback []  comment []

© Copyright 2007 Dave Pollard. Last update: 01/02/2007; 7:04:00 PM.