Disposability & planned obsolescence

Packaging is a nightmare for landfills and every household in America. Whilst General Mills and Nabisco reduced the volume of cereal boxes, they never changed the size of the box – the top ¼ is empty. When you ask them why, they use the simple excuse, “settling of product.” The pleasure you have, as a consumer, is that your garbage can gets just as full, actually quicker, since you have to buy more than one box to get the same amount of food.

Plastic is a nightmare for the environment. Every fish bought and caught has, on inspection, micro particles of plastic in its gut. Similarly, crows, all sorts of scavengers like cats and coyotes, who are dissected are found to be riddled with plastic particles. The volume of plastic bottles in America goes up every year. In 1960 we wasted only 390,000 tons of plastic. Ten years later it was 2,900,000 tons. By 1990 it was 13,780,000 tons, by 2010 it had risen to 24,370,000 tons and by 2020 it reached 31,260,000 tons. That’s 62,520,000,000 pounds of plastic thrown away in the USA alone. That’s 189 pounds for every single American per year now. Last year the USA bought and discarded 29,000,000,000 plastic bottles which required 86,310 barrels of crude oil, each containing 42 gallons, making a total of 3,625,020 gallons of the black-brown ooze.

All that ended up in the ocean, landfills, local dumps, and nature.

Another nightmare is planned obsolescence. When you make, for example, a refrigerator, if you know a component inside will wear out in the likely time of, say, 15 years, there is no point in making the rest of the fridge any better. Engineers, provoked by the cost savings demanded by the bosses, make the fridge metal thinner, make the compressor likely to last just about 15 years, the rubber gaskets begin to fail about then too. All this is planned. All this is deliberate. Instead of seeing that one or more components will not last past 15 years – making extra parts and warehousing them for that 15 year expiry date – the manufacturers instead reduce the warranty, claim that 15 years was a good life for an appliance and quickly create a cultural and advertising beat-the-Jones model of buy new, feel rejuvenated, shopping is the American way!

The list of nightmare products – from cars to phones, from computers to TV sets, from shoes to sheets, from cookware to shovels – all have planned obsolescence or disposability in their manufacture profiles. You can buy a shovel that will last a lifetime, but it will be twice as expensive; not because it cost much more to make, but because they will only sell one and make the profit once instead of maybe 5 or 6 in a lifetime of buying cheaply made ones, likely from China.

And yet you can find – American made – products designed to last a lifetime. Toilets, bathtubs, houses, car wheels, filing cabinets, windows, doors, Christmas ornaments… there are thousands of things made in America that are designed, in fact must, last a lifetime. Next time you go to buy something, ask yourself if you want it to last. Chances are it’ll be made in the USA and will be both durable and become a familiar part of your life, not merely discardable in all too short a time.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Millerton News and The News does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

All are welcome at The Mahaiwe

Paquito D’Rivera performs at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on April 5.

Geandy Pavon

Natalia Bernal is the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center’s education and community engagement manager and is, in her own words, “the one who makes sure that Mahaiwe events are accessible to all.”

The Mahaiwe’s community engagement program is rooted in the belief that the performing arts should be for everyone. “We are committed to establishing and growing partnerships with neighboring community and arts organizations to develop pathways for overcoming social and practical barriers,” Bernal explained. “Immigrants, people of color, communities with low income, those who have traditionally been underserved in the performing arts, should feel welcomed at the Mahaiwe.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Living with the things you love:
a conversation with Mary Randolph Carter
Mary Randolph Carter teaches us to surround ourselves with what matters to live happily ever after.
Carter Berg

There is magic in a home filled with the things we love, and Mary Randolph Carter, affectionately known as “Carter,” has spent a lifetime embracing that magic. Her latest book, “Live with the Things You Love … and You’ll Live Happily Ever After,” is about storytelling, joy, and honoring life’s poetry through the objects we keep.

“This is my tenth book,” Carter said. “At the root of each is my love of collecting, the thrill of the hunt, and living surrounded by things that conjure up family, friends, and memories.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Clued in

The first play in four years returned to the Webutuck Auditorium Friday, March 28. The production of Clue was put on entirely by students from the Webutuck Middle School and starred an ensemble cast of, from left to right, Jacob Dean as Mr. Green, Caroline Eschbach as Mrs. White, Brooke Bozydaj as Yvette, Liam Diaz as Wadsworth, Nolan Howard as Colonel Mustard, Mariah Bradley as Miss Scarlett and Lois Musgrave as Mrs. Peacock who is pictured on the floor of the stage.

Photo by Nathan Miller