...your Mom is a cultural construct

repurposedgoods:

Completely getting rid of e-waste is impossible, but designing for repair, longer life, and upgrading will do wonders for this negative trash equation.

In order to keep this video’s message concise they chose to scapegoat the “designer”, but it desperately needs to be understood that its is also the engineers, project managers, creative directors, marketing strategists, academic researchers, and the design “chain of command” that have a hand in this landfill production. Those that are involved in this cycle need to push back and not always give the consumer what they want. We don’t give our kids candy every time they whine because it encourages the behavior. According to Pavlov and his pups, we, the product producers, have done a bad job training and handling consumer needs. Where was that class in college?

That being said, RG is going to do its part! This weekend we are going to gather and tear down more pallets for an upcoming ICE event at Ambient+ on November 21 and 22 called, BYOB : The Sweet Tweet Retreat, “Build your Own Birdhouse/Birdfeeder”. Come by, buy some pre-sawn and partially painted pallet wood and make a sweet tweet retreat. 

unconsumption:

Core77 posts the latest in the Story of Stuff series — the Story of Electronics, which charges that many of our gadgets are “designed for the dump.”

It will be interesting to see what sort of response this gets. On the one hand, I think it’s a little glib to accuse the electronics category of old-school “planned obsolescence.” ut It’s more complicated, but more honest, to cope with the distinct possibility that gadget-change is a function of actual, measurable progress in the quality and power of the gadgets. 

On the other hand: The video is very much on point in emphasizing the fact that companies externalize the downside of gadget churn. That is, those companies simply offload the problem and responsibility of ewaste to consumers. The call for strong laws to force companies to take that responsibility themselves seems sensible.

Finally, it will be particularly interesting to see if the design world chooses to get vocal and involved in that issue — I like that the video hammers away at designers and design, rather than just “corporations.” If the design world is going to take credit for the good work it does for clients, it also needs to accept its role in perpetuating problems like those the video describes.

Not that consumers should be let completely off the hook — we don’t always follow through on our legitimate responsibilities in this process.