Used bulb lamps collected by Greenpeace volunteers during the clean up at Bokor Island conservation area on Thousand Islands.
Credit: Dhemas Reviyanto / Greenpeace
A popular bumper sticker in the United States – typically seen on large vehicles, with giant wheels and vibrating chrome muffler pipes – reads: “My carbon footprint is bigger than yours.” This appears as a banner for the culture of extravagant indulgence. And wherever consumption is encouraged and admired, waste follows.
The world’s rich cultures are all wasteful, and not just because of excessive fossil fuel use. Even our modern electronic devices represent a massive waste stream. Last year, electronic waste reached an all-time record of 65 million tonnes.
Planned Obsolescence
Used bulb lamps collected by Greenpeace volunteers during the clean up at Bokor Island conservation area on Thousand Islands. © Dhemas Reviyanto / Greenpeace
Even modern LED light bulbs, for example, do not last as long as incandescent bulbs made a century ago. One carbon filament light bulb, at a fire station in Livermore, […]
This is so true. I have 5 computers in my house that were supposed to be “refurbished” to run the same as if they were new. None of them lasted more than 6 months at the most. One of them only lasted 1 month before it quit working. I really don’t know what to do with them. I guess they will end up at the recycling facility. That will only happen if I can get my old 1992 Chevy APV vehicle working again. My old 1990 Toyota is starting to have problems now and I have to go out this evening to try and fix it, because I must get to the pharmacy to submit my wife’s heart medicine. The Toyota had a lifetime warranty at the time of purchase when my mother bought it new, but that does not pass on to me when I inherited it. I sure hope I can fix it or we will be out of transportation and unable to go anywhere unless I can scrounge a ride from somebody. We have few friends and no neighbors that like us except for one that we can trust. I just hope our one close neighbor family can be the ones to help us.