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What You Should Know About Planned Obsolescene

What you should know about planned obsolescence

Posted on January 9, 2017January 24, 2023

This documentary was on my list for a long time, but well, my list of documentaries I still want to see is endless anyway. The Light Bulb Conspiracy is a documentary of 52 minutes (short) about planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence, what? Planned obsolescence of products, it exists. Even though it sounds ridiculous, it really exists. Here’s what you should know about planned obsolescence.

Planned Obsolescence

Planned obsolescence (I have said this word six times already, jeez) means that when companies make products, they make it so that the product breaks right after the warranty. And so, you have to buy a new product. It is mostly done in electrical products. There are two types of planned obsolescence. The first type is the most obvious. The product is assembled so that it breaks at a certain point (an example is a printer that has a hidden extra chip, after a certain number of prints, the machine shuts itself down). I think this is actually forbidden, but well, there are more things that are forbidden but ignored.

The second type of planned obsolescence has to do with fashion. Maybe this sounds familiar to you. You buy the newest Iphone and it costs you a fortune. Yet, a year later they launch a new seemingly better model again. Frustrating, but you decide to keep the ‘old’ phone. Yet, everyone else has the new phone and so it makes you feel less cool (this is what marketing does, it makes you feel like you’re dumb, less cool, ugly, anything to make you buy a new product). And besides that, the software in that old phone doesn’t even work anymore at a certain point. You can’t update it (which is kind of alike the first type of planned obsolescence I described above). Trust me, I experience this with my Iphone 4. Eventually it is considered like a dinosaur. All this creates tonnes of waste, gross!

What to Do About Planned Obsolescence

We can all complain, yes, but what can be practically do about this problem?

  1. Try to use any product you have as long as you can. Check, still an Iphone 4 over here.
  2. Repairing is better than buying a new product. So when something breaks, try to get it repaired. Check, I’ve had to replace the screen a number of times already.
  3. Recycle. Recycling in general is not the solution of the entire problem. But it can be a part of it, when things do break to the point you can’t use them anymore. Check out Stichting Aap to recycle you old phone and do something good meanwhile.
  4. Buy only secondhand or refurbished. Most of the time you get a two-year warranty on those items too.
  5. Save up for something sustainable. If you really don’t want secondhand or refurbished, choose sustainable. Check out Fairphone if you’re looking for a sustainable phone to last forever.

The Light Bulb Conspiracy

The Light Bulb Conspiracy tells you what you should know about planned obsolescence. I wrote a little summary of the documentary for you. Planned obsolescence was founded already in the 1920’s. It was founded by a cartel named Phoebus. Phoebus existed of a group of companies who sold the most light bulbs around the globe (Philips was part of in The Netherlands). The first light bulb invented by Thomas Edison had a lifespan of 1500 hours. This was later improved to 2500 hours, but the cartel wasn’t happy with this. The cartel then set up a plan to make sure that all light bulbs only had a lifespan of 1000 hours. Producers were constantly checked and fined if the lights had a longer lifespan. During the Great Depression Bernard London even had the idea to make planned obsolescence a law. This way consumers would keep buying.

In 1950 there came a new kind of planned obsolescence. Consumers had to be seduced to buy the new product each time, it became a matter of fashion. Brooks Stevens was one of the first to do this with his products and he spread the idea. This is still done today, by companies like Apple (who were even sewed in 2003 because of this). The waste is mostly shipped to third world countries under the name of ‘secondhand goods’. The consequences are terrible. Waste is dumped everywhere and it creates dead zones. Overconsumption is one of the biggest challenges of our time.

That’s all you should know about planned obsolescence if you’d ask me!

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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ABOUT ME

 

Hi! My name is Romee Hoeksma and I am on a journey to an eco-positive life. An eco-positive lifestyle is a lifestyle in which I have a more positive than negative impact on the beautiful planet earth. On this blog you can follow my journey to a life with only positive impact. At this blog you can find all sorts of things, from tips to recipes to personal experiences, but most of all fun (I hope!). I write about how I want to change the world, but don’t look at it as if I’m judging you. If anything, I like responses from my dear readers the most, so don’t hesitate to contact me or respond to any of my posts!

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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Eén van mijn favoriete vegan snacks, bij de Lidl tijdens de Griekse week 🇬🇷. Op dit moment is plantaardig eten nog niet de norm in Nederland, helaas. Daarom hebben veel mensen dan ook geen idee wat veganisten eten. Om die reden heb ik de afgelopen week weer eens een eetdagboek bijgehouden, want wat eet ik nou als veganist gedurende de week? Je leest het nu in mijn vegan food diary via de link in mijn bio 🥭. #plantaardig #veganfood #dagboek Verpakkingsvrij wasmiddel kopen, dat hoeft niet moeilijk te zijn! In deze reel laat ik je zien hoe ik dat doe 🧺. Volg mijn account voor meer duurzame tips. Elke maand doneer ik ongeveer 7% van mijn inkomen aan goede doelen, omdat ik dat zie als enorm belangrijk en het juiste ding om te doen 💸. Maar daarmee komt de vraag op: geloof ik dat goede doelen het antwoord zijn op alle grote problemen van onze tijd? Oftewel: is geld doneren de oplossing? Over die vraag én het antwoord schreef ik een uitgebreid artikel die vandaag online staat, de link vind je in mijn bio. #goeddoel #doneren #blog Vegan pizza tonno, hmmmm. Dacht je dat vegans geen tonijnpizza kunnen eten? Think again! 🐟 Een hele tijd geleden schreef ik een artikel over e-mail activisme: een vorm van activisme die je thuis op de bank kan doen. Vandaag deel ik graag een geslaagd voorbeeld daarvan met jullie ✨. Vandaag staat er een documentaire-tip op mijn blog. Disclosure, een documentaire over de representatie van transgender personen in de media 📽. Echt een must-see, want wat wij hebben als cis-gender personen nog een hoop te leren. Lees meer over de documentaire via de link in mijn bio. #disclosure #documentaire #transgender Vandaag deel 2 van de vegan hotspots in Londen 🧆. Wat heb ik lekker gegeten daar, niet te doen! Bubala was mijn absolute favoriet, dus als je iets moet kiezen, kies Bubala. Vorige week verscheen er een artikel over treinreizen naar Londen op mijn blog. Aanvullend daarop verscheen er vandaag een artikel over een ander aspect van duurzaam reizen: het eten. Lees nu het artikel met mijn favoriete veganistische restaurants in Londen nu via de link in mijn bio 🌮. #veganfood #veganlondon #veganrestaurants

Read my latest posts

  • Femicide
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  • Documentary: Disclosure
  • Vegan restaurants in London

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