GC: n

CT: Does planned obsolescence really exist? How is the environment affected by the unrestrained consumption of electronic gadgets? According to the UN, we generate around 50 million tonnes of this waste each year from which a high percentage ends up in waste dumps in developing countries.
Agbogbloshie is a neighbourhood located in the city of Accra, Ghana, and it is a clear case of this problem; it has become an electronic-junk dump for all that waste coming from Europe and North America, being considered the largest one in the world.
So far it was in Asia, China or India where 70% of this technological waste used to go, but over the last years the West has moved the dump to Africa –mainly Ghana and Nigeria. Exporting electronic waste is illegal in the European Union, but the US Environmental Protection Agency describes it as legitimate. It is thought that, while the sending of used hardware is designed to “bridge the digital divide”, all this hardware is most often useless (25% – 75%). It is transported in containers labelled as “second-hand merchandise” as exporting reusable products is certainly permitted by the EU regulations.

S: http://www.activesustainability.com/planned-obsolescence-problem-of-electronic-waste (last access: 29.02.2016)

N: 1. – planned (adj): 1728, “make a plan of,” from plan (n). Related: Planned; planning; plans. Planned obsolescence coined 1932, revived as a disparaging term 1950s.
– obsolescence (n): obsolescent (1755, adjective from Latin obsolescentum (nominative obsolescens), present participle of obsolescere “fall into disuse”) + -ence (-ance, word-forming element attached to verbs to form abstract nouns of process or fact (convergence from converge), or of state or quality (absence from absent); ultimately from Latin -antia and -entia, which depended on the vowel in the stem word, from PIE *-nt-, adjectival suffix. English thus inherited a confused mass of words from French and further confused it since c. 1500 by restoring -ence selectively in some forms of these words to conform with Latin. Thus dependant, but independence, etc.).
2. The altering of the superficial characteristics of a product so that the new model is easily differentiated from the old one. The marketer’s intention is to make people dissatisfied with the old model.
3. The Phoebus cartel. Established in the 1920s, light bulb manufacturers like Philips, General Electric, Osram and others across the globe decided to collude in the light bulb market. As technological advances improved and pushed out the life span of incandescent bulbs, sales volumes would be negatively impacted. Fewer, infrequently burnt out bulbs meant less need for replacements – less demand for their products. While price fixing was a natural result of cooperation in an imperfectly competitive market, the Phoebus cartel strived to do more than hike prices. They went beyond limiting product innovation – over the gradual course of a few years, manufacturers actively lower the life span of light bulbs. The industry standard of 2,500 hours in 1924 would eventually drop to 1,000 hours by 1940. Light bulbs were deliberately made more fragile, and competitors would be closely monitored (and if necessary, fined) to ensure strict adherence to product degradation. The Phoebus cartel would eventually dissolve due to increased external competition and the disruptions of World War II, but it had successfully demonstrated a very important point. Stifling innovation and product quality was a feasible means of sustaining consistent consumption and profits.

S: 1. OED- http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=obsolescence; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=plan&allowed_in_frame=0 (last access: 20 February 2016). 2. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 23 February 2016). 3. ESSA- http://economicstudents.com/2012/09/planned-obsolescence-the-light-bulb-conspiracy/ (last access: 23 February 2016).

SYN: built-in obsolescence

S: IATE – Terminology of waste management,1984,PE 87.200 (last access: 4 March 2016)

CR: carbon dioxide, environment, waste of electrical and electronic equipment.