I was struggling with the initial part of this article as I was contemplating the general idea of the article that consumption, specifically hyper-consumerism is bad for us. This led to my research in the economy in general, how our general material consumption affects it. Articles similar to Forbe’s disproved this for me. Still, I needed to say something about our unnecessary consumerism, specially in tech is not sustainable at all, then this was released:
A record 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of e-waste – discarded products with a battery or plug such as computers and mobile phones – is reported generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years.
And I do blame tech companies for this, Apple, Samsung, Asus, etc. What began as a pursuit of making things that simplify and improve our lives, ended up with an unnecessary annual product introduction that with its incremental improvement is unnecessary. On top of which stupid innovation coupled with hard-to-repair consumer products forces consumer to replace their product, incremental product design is contributing to such waste. Ask yourself next time before you buy a new electronic item:
- Do I have something that can do the same job already?
- Do I REALLY need that upgrade?
- Can I repair/upgrade/improve my existing item in any way?
- What can I do with the old item should I buy a new one?
You could save the environment while saving yourself some money.