Monday, November 20, 2006

Planned obsolescence (and recycling)

This means deliberately making something so that it will last only a limited time so that the owner will have to buy another. This is a common practice at the present time. I am convinced that this is short-sighted and that making goods with a longer life will help conserve global resources and reduce global warming. Great amounts of energy and resources go into producing manufactured goods especially things like cars, computers, cell phones etc but also items like the humble dinner plate, mug etc. Of course this is less advantageous for technologies which are immature and rapidly advancing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Obsolescence

This is related to the practice of recycling. The item may have reached the end of its useful life but the parts may still have life as recycled parts or the materials could be recycled if it were carefully designed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle

In Guyana we have far to go in recycling, indeed we have scarcely made a start. There is nowhere to take recycled items such as plastic or metal. Garbage is not separated. Indeed you are fortunate if it is collected. Being a small country does not help as we do not benefit from economies of scale. However, there is work being done on this and things are changing. A bit more globalisation is needed in this field...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Where theres muck theres brass an old saying in the UK.

You can be the Guyana King of recyling and clean up as it were
:-) start using a skip keep it till you have enough stuff then sell it.skips