In our 21st century life of heavy consumer electronics consumption, we all continuously keeping up with technology by throwing out our perfectly working appliance to home a brand new upgrade. So what happens to the working toaster you threw out last week, or your 1 year old motorola you trashed for that new iphone in your hand?
Designers for businesses/companies have been designing within a marketing strategy. A strategy where our products are made incomplete or with flaws, so that we feel a need to buy other things like accessories such as a specific charger or a fitting protective case to accompany our new toy. Through this flow of consumer business and unsustainable production lines, we can translate these short term products which are hard to upgrade easy to break and impractical to repair, as "Design for the dump".
We may be advancing and being up to-date with the latest gadgets and companies may be gaining a double in their sales, however we are also doubling product wastage, doubling the usage of toxic substances, doubling the consumption of the earth's resources and greenhouse gases. When we decide for a product to be thrown out, we are also taking waste to a cheap labouring country with workers taking apart the product and burning the useless stuff. So while we have our enjoyment from our brand new appliance we are poisoning families in poorer countries.
As Designers we need to be aware of our product's life cycle and the materials we use. Why not make our gadget last longer by making it upgradable or in a modular design, why not design so the product can be easily taken apart? Easily there are solutions to building a society made to last, but its up to a lot of depending power and us as designers to go easy on our earth and be intuitive with our designs by looking ahead of our products life
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