We live in a world drowning in objects: households with a television in each room; kitchen cupboards stuffed with waffle makers, blenders and cappuccino whisks; drawers filled to bursting with pocket-sized devices powered by batteries—batteries which themselves take a thousand times more energy to make than they will ever provide.
Just over a century ago, “disposability” referred to small, low-cost products such as disposable razors and paper napkins. Today, practically everything is disposable—it is culturally permissible to throw away anything from a barely-used smartphone, television, or vacuum cleaner, to an entire three-piece suite or fitted bathroom.
This has led to the serious problem of electronic waste. In the European Union, mountains of scrapped circuit boards and other computer junk are growing three times faster than any other type of waste in the EU. We generate 40 tons of waste in the process of manufacturing just one ton of electronic products—yet 98 percent of these products are discarded within just six months of purchase. Given the huge quantities of precious resources (including gold and other rare metals) that find their way into our gadgets, it would surely be worth us taking more care of them, repairing them when broken, and keeping them for longer. In fact, the opposite is happening: product lifespans are shortening as material culture becomes increasingly disposable.
