Time to rethink our throw-away culture

Source : NST 20/9/13

http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/time-to-rethink-our-throw-away-culture-1.359619?localLinksEnabled=false

ENVIRONMENTAL COST: Manufacturers should take back roducts for proper recycling and processing as part of their corporate social responsibility

EVERYTHING comes with a use-by-date these days.  It's not just food items. Handphones, laptops and other electrical items, even cars, also come with limited lifespan.  All this is done by corporations to encourage consumerism and spending, and as such to ensure repeat purchases.

We got a new electric rice cooker some years back. Because the current rice cooker was still working, we continued to use it. When we took out the new electric rice cooker to use several months later, the LCD panel was not working. We brought it to the repair shop only to be told it was not worth repairing. For RM100 more, we could get a new one.

The implication was that you throw away a perfectly new rice cooker that needed only a part replaced because it was not worth repairing.

I don't think it is worth throwing away just to end up in the landfill. Consumers, retailers -- even repairmen -- think only about the cost of convenience. Why is it that no one thinks about the environmental cost?

Rather than throwing away an item where one part is faulty or the model is a bit outdated, manufacturers should have a policy of replacing the part at a reasonable cost. More often than not, replacing the part costs half the price of a new model!

So, consumers are forced to buy new items while paying more than the repair charges. This just leads to more goods ending up in our landfills and, ultimately, proposed projects like incinerators with the potential to belch toxic elements into the air despite the latest technology to reduce such hazards.

Why is the cause of our consumptive lifestyles not addressed at the onset? If the manufacturer doesn't have a recycling programme, then ethical consumers are left high and dry.

So, I was angry after watching The Lightbulb Conspiracy (http://ecofilmfest.my/community-screenings/film-listing.html). This documentary about the negative effects of consumerism and planned obsolescence argues that the leading manufacturers of incandescent light bulbs conspired in the 1920s to keep the lifetime of their bulbs far below their real technological capabilities to ensure the continuous demand for more bulbs and, hence, long-term profit for themselves. So, the first worldwide cartel was set up to reduce the lifespan of the incandescent light bulb.

In the 1950s, with the birth of the consumer society, the concept took on a whole new meaning as the desire to own something "a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary..." Sound familiar?

Today, planned obsolescence is pervasive. Cutting-edge electronics are also made with deliberate shortening of product lifespan to guarantee consumer demand. This is very much a sign of our modern society with throw-away lifestyles.

Hence, millions of electrical items are shipped around the world to be dumped in countries like Ghana and China for dismantling rather than being repaired or recycled.

The onus then is for manufacturers to take back their products for proper recycling and processing as part of their corporate social responsibility.

More importantly, future models should be designed to be more re-useable in models introduced to the market.

Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Associate Professor Chris Ryan suggests that companies follow guidelines set by the United Nations Environment Programme in their "design for environment" guide.

Attention to the design of a product could reduce its environmental impact by as much as 60 to 80 per cent, notes Ryan.

"With toxic waste and pollution increasing on a global scale, the focus in the next two decades will be on the recovery of materials and components," he adds.

Although e-waste in Malaysia is regulated under the Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulations 2005, local manufacturers, importers and retailers need to go through a paradigm shift to acknowledge that our planet has a finite amount of resources that will run out one day and make or procure products with extended lifespan.

Thankfully, there is a growing spirit of resistance amongst ordinary consumers in the age of the Internet. For example, two artists from New York managed to extend the lives of millions of iPods by raising awareness on the 18-month lifespan of its battery, which resulted in a class action suit against Apple.

The manufacturing giant set up a replacement service for the batteries and extending the warranty of the batteries to two years.

Read more: Time to rethink our throw-away culture - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/time-to-rethink-our-throw-away-culture-1.359619?localLinksEnabled=false#ixzz2tZ6f2dcY