Planned Obsolescence

The question i have gone for is ‘What effects does planned obsolescence have on Sustainability and the environment?’. in this essay i want to aim at finding out and explaining a bit on what Planned Obsolescence actually is and the effects it has towards the environment. Planned obsolescence is the practice of producing consumer goods requiring frequent replacement, The manufacturer designs the product not to last a long period of time or may need to be repaired eventually. The manufacturer can also released dated products which the consumers would wants new and better products, for example the iPhone which always keeps improving. This takes its toll onto the environment in many ways by wasting materials and where does the old gadgets get dumped when they are thrown away?. The strategy behind this is to generate long-term sales by getting people to purchase or even re-purchase the product. Reducing the life of products to increase consumer demands forced to buy products not because they need it but for the sake of having it. The subject really has interested me as not a lot of people are award that it has been a subliminal big impact towards us as consumers. The main reason i have chosen to to do my essay on this topic is mainly because i feel everyone has been affected by this issue, Therefore i want to expand my knowledge and explore more on how people feel about this issue which can be interesting.

The topic i have chosen can cover a lot of issues in terms of looking into how businesses use the strategy and how the history of it has come along; i have chosen instead to talk more on how it has kept a good balance in the economy but yet has a bad affect towards the environment. I am aiming to provide information and facts to support each side of my arguments and in order for me to do that i need to look at different platforms of research that will get different views on both good and bad sides to the issue.

So far i have just been doing online research and have watched one documentary called ‘The Light Bulb Conspiracy’. The documentary is based on the history of how products have been made for a certain period of time, The main example they use is the lightbulb, it once had a lifetime of lasting up to 2500 hours which was then reduced ‘purposely’ down to 1000 hours.This is done to benefit the company, as you will have more people purchasing a new light bulb more frequently. The strategy first came around in the 19th Century; this was thought about to assure repeated purchases. In Livermore California is the home of the longest lasting light bulb in the world. The light bulb has continuously been burning since 1901, ironically it has out lasted two webcams in the process of filming it. This can just show that it is possible to create certain products to last much longer, but why isn’t that the case?. I found it very interesting and i do want to watch more about it but more towards the environment side of things. The subjects has a lot of advantages