Planning For Obsolescence Soon To Be A Crime, Now A Shameful Business Practice

Yes, this life is short... so buy wisely.
Buy every 'thing' necessary; needs over desires, m'kay?

Imagine you buy a car and in a few years there will be no more parts made for that car.

If something breaks there is no available parts to do the repair.

Or nothing 'breaks', but certain parts simply need to be replaced (like many parts on a car that need regular maintenance).

When you attempt to put something together yourself the car manufacturer threatens to sue you.

What is the manufacturer hoping you would do?

Buy another car from them.

Sounds ridiculous enough, and perhaps this simple analogy doesn't fully explain the entire story behind this story about planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence benefits mostly the selling side of the business transaction... leaving customers with products that eventually stop fully working although nothing has broken or gone wrong on their own.

I have this very situation with my current laptop; a 2007 model that is perfect for what I do... but certain things are now 'expired' and its operating system cannot 'handle' updated features.

It still works fine, but isn't as 'secure' as I would hope it would be (it discontinued being secure by no shortcoming of my own, but became outdated by a lack of effort, I say, on the manufacturer's end).

There are ways around this effort of the manufacturer to ensure the selling of newer products, but not everyone is able, capable, or desiring the hassle.

I could buy a new computer, the cost not being the issue.

The issue is the point of this article.

The story my car analogy is about concerns a man named Eric Lundgren who specializes in recycling electronic parts.

He's built a business employing over 100 people of turning shorted-out trash into electrified treasure.

His aim is to address the very big problem of trash heaps that are still useful.

Lots of plastic and other substances that are not reusable are filling holes in the dirt.

This kind of stuff doesn't just turn into fertile soil, but fills large spaces where natural biology (dirt) meets man's frankensteinian designs (synthetics) and the two do not play well together.

Synthetic items do not break down quickly enough to keep up with the natural seasons of life on earth (as organic matter does).

Besides this issue of the unnatural filling natural spaces, is the solution Lundgren is working on in the realm of electronics.

His expertise and genius has brought about more than just an income for himself and his employees.

His efforts are similar to a way of thinking that is becoming very contagious.

The more people that catch this contagion may be considered the business olympians of tomorrow... although being erroneously vilified in the halls of justice today as threats to today's business titans.

The law can always be more perfected, surely.

What is great, I think, about Mr. Lundgren's vision is that his Frankenstein is a monster that answers the previous monsters.

A good monster if you please.

Instead of this Frankenstein destroying its makers (as the heaps of trash going into landfills and furnaces are doing to our ecosystems and our very bodies), this Frankenstein of Lundgren's is the next logical step in bringing forth 100% recyclable and reusable products.

Technically he broke the law.

Technically the law is flawed because it still doesn't consider the natural environment.

Technically, we are 'still' nature-based beings.