Evan Kinto
5/17/10
Multi-Media
Cell phones! Laptops! Flat screens! Who doesn’t have one? Even if you don’t, who doesn’t want one!? Everyone knows that flat screen TV’s, laptops, and cell phones all evolve. Whether it’s adding more memory, changing or adding a new color scheme, or just plan changing the whole style in general. We all want what’s new and what’s “cool” these days but did you ever think about where everyone’s old pieces of technology go? Or how it might affect the environment? These are all just “details” these companies forgot to care about when they produce gadgets that they know will fail or become outdated.
In the article I found they state that at least 90 percent of the 315 million still-functional personal computers were discarded in North America in 2004 and it was 63 million just a year before. That to me makes no sense that still-functioning computer would be trashed only to be replaces because new “better” models were released. I can only think of the pointless reasons these computers were let go. It also says that more than 100 million cell phones (that is 200,000 tons worth), were thrown away in 2005. You would think that cell phones could last a bit longer than what the numbers show but for what, to throw your money away just to make these corporations wealthier? Oh and don’t forget that the more we throw away the worse it is for our environment. The article also says that cell phones are especially dangerous, because of their toxic components are too small to disassemble and recycle.
I don’t know about you but I would have to say that electronics are most likely the worst discarded planned obsolescence object out there and we should be doing more to better protect our environment and the money we spend.
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