“Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children.”
Operating under the assumption that we do not actually own the earth, wouldn’t it be a good idea to further or fully embrace the concept of borrowing? Part of my idea would probably ruin capitalism, so it probably would never work, but I have found it interesting to think about.
There are some versions of my idea already in place like Netflix and Preserve, which allow you to mail back products when you are done with them. The Mesh is similar, but involves leveraging peer-to-peer services like zipcar and social networking in combination to buy less and use more. In a sense, it is also a way to share capital in addition to information.
There is a an organization for the taking back electronics to fight what’s becoming known as “Designed for the Dump.” The idea is that, if consumer electronics companies opted to or were required to take back products after they were used, broken, or obsolete, then the company becomes responsible for reusing, recycling, or disposing of their products. This may encourage companies to design reusable, recyclable, or otherwise better designed products that won’t have so many toxic materials and parts that go to waste. With computers, especially, the entire computer can become obsolete because of one component that is not replaceable or interchangeable, because computers are not build to be modular. They’re designed to make you buy a new one, frequently. Check out the Story of Electronics for more on this.
Another aspect I’d like to incorporate is Design for Disassembly (DfD). There is a pretty good explanation of DfD on this site. When things are made of many different materials it’s already tough to separate and sort them, but sometimes things are bonded together or blended and cannot be separated. Products made this way cannot be recycled. So, why do we do it? It seems to me like using just a few materials–or even just one–would make things easier to design, manufacture, and recycle and would probably be cheaper.
Basically, my idea is to combine these concepts in a way that minimizes use and waste of materials, encourages sustainable innovation, and makes everyone accountable for responsible consumption.
Imagine a system in which no one really owns anything. Everything is on either temporary or semi permanent loan. Is there anything that you have really had and used your entire life? I can think of, perhaps a wedding ring and some jewelry, but most things at least need some sort of maintenance in order to last that long.
Most things these days are not designed to last very long at all. ”New Every Two” is a great, bad example. It’s probably familiar to most people, but it’s Verizon Wireless’s contract incentive in which you get a new phone every two years when you renew your contract. Turns out, these phones usually break around either one or two years anyway as a part of the bastardization of planned obsolescence. More Law instead of Moore’s Law.
I can imagine a system that tracks all items you have on loan and perhaps a maintenance schedule and handles the prepaid returns. What I envisioned when I first heard about Preserve was a possible closed loop cycle. I need a toothbrush, so I rent one from them. I use it until it wears out and send it back. They send me a new one in return and my old one gets recycled into a new toothbrush. Sadly, I realized even their system ends in downcycling.
If that is not as clear as it could be, I blame the time. If anyone wants further explanation, suggest a revision and I will be glad to revisit the topic.
