This is a guest post by North Carolina Youth Rep Natasha.

The term “planned obsolescence” became popular in the early 20th century. In Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence, Bernard London suggested that creating expiration dates on products and taxing those that horde legally “dead” goods would encourage the frugal Depression era people to dispose of old products and buy new ones. His approach would stimulate the economy by creating a continuous demand for goods.

Although the government doesn’t tax frugal hoarders, planned obsolescence still plays a huge role in today’s society. Planned obsolescence refers to the practice of creating products designed to fail so that customers are forced to make repeat purchases.Like London’s planned obsolescence, current practices also create continuous demand.

For example, Apple iPods are designed so that once the battery runs out a new one must be purchased since the consumer can’t replace the battery themselves. Printer ink cartridges are designed so that the printer will no longer print when one of the colors reach a certain level even if there is enough ink to do the job. Clothing styles change from season to season so fashion forward consumers are incentivized to dispose of perfectly wearable old clothes. Many products are built with planned obsolescence in mind and so the throwaway mentality emerges.

An economy based on producing cheap nondurable goods creates an incredible amount of waste that ends up in landfills. Its also an immense waste of natural resources. In a world where people are told to conserve water, energy, and other natural resources, such blatant wastefulness seems grossly irresponsible and highly unethical.

Yet, we as a society accept this since we like cheap goods and the convenience of being able to throw away things instead of repairing them. However, I cannot reconcile planned obsolescence with my passion for environmental stewardship. It’s disconcerting to be told to recycle to prevent waste and then learn that manufacturers deliberately creates goods to fail and be trashed.

Planned obsolescence benefits solely manufacturers at the expense of the environment and the consumer. Proponents of planned obsolescence argue that it speeds up innovation and creates jobs. However, spending the time and resources to design products to break quickly doesn’t seem like innovation; it seems like exploitation. In addition, many of the manufacturing jobs are shipped overseas anyway so it doesn’t decrease the unemployment rate in the United States.

Knowing about planned obsolescence, I try to consume goods responsibly and encourage others to do so as well.  I’ve stopped purchasing Apple iPods and opted for MP3 players that allow me to replace the batteries. I’ve convinced my parents to have the printer ink cartridges refilled instead of buying new ones. Instead of buying the latest fad fashions, I shop at thrift stores. Not only does extending the life of current products reduce waste; it saves us money. Isn’t that a nice win-win situation?

Us vs. Waste connection: Holding an e-waste drive at your school can rid yourself of dead technology and take on obsolescence, keep the electronics out of the landfill and can even help you raise money. Check out the Keep it Going project in Us vs. Waste.