Disposing with Disposability

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What do you consider a bigger problem today: technology devices that are quickly becoming obsolete or disposable items like paper products?

Well, they are both dirty industries. Paper's a completely dirty industry (speaking as a Canadian); it's a massive pollutant. The trouble with technology is that people are blind to it. They think it's this clean, wonderful, shiny sort of impeccable industry, but it's not. It is, in fact, very dirty, both at the production end and at the waste and disposal end. Technology is maybe more [problematic] than paper because of the worldwide volumes of information technology products. We're going to pump a massive amount of toxins into the environment over the next decade and most people just aren't aware of that. The lack of awareness is really dangerous.

Do you think people want items that will last?

I think so, though people have been conditioned to want items that don't last. We can condition people to spend money on something that lasts longer. It seems pretty reasonable to me that you don't want to get rid of all your disposable cash and disposable income by replacing things over and over and over again.

Your book puts planned obsolescence mostly on the shoulders of the manufacturers. What do you think people can do?

Well, first of all, read my book. (Chuckles.) I guess what I'm trying to do is make people more aware of their casual purchases. Every Christmas-Kwanzaa-Hanukkah season, these new toys come out and people consume them more and more, and junk their old ones. I think we're past the point where we can do that -- each act of consumption has a sinister downside to it. You really have to make yourself aware of what you're doing with these things. Do you really need that new phone because it's so extra-slim and cool? Or will your old phone keep you going? Do I need a flat screen for my old PC? Not really. I don't have to junk the old one -- not yet. I can make it last, keep it out of the waste stream. And I can save some money doing it.

The Federal Communications Commission has bumped back the mandated switch from analog to digital televisions until 2009. Are they planning to do anything regarding the disposal or recycling of all these analog TVs?

Not that I've heard. I'd love for them to have some sort of plan. They've mandated a group called NEPSI [National Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative] to come up with environmental legislation that would cover the take-back and recycling of analog televisions and other e-waste. But NEPSI was an organization that included the stakeholders -- the electronic manufacturers -- and they stymied the whole process so that eventually they came out with this non-agreement. No legislation came out of it.

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