Let’s Talk Demand: What’s New in Terms of Design for Repair & Longevity?

Between closed-loop recycling, the resistance to planned obsolescence, modular phone designs and improved recycling methods, maybe our hands aren’t as tied as it may seem. Maybe there is a way to get more use out of our devices, and below is how we can do it.

End-of-life products and manufacturers

The first line in defense is always going to be finding new uses for old devices. Dell is a great example of this cycle with what it calls its closed-loop recycling. 

Dell explains the concept quite well: “When something gets recycled, a common misconception is that it gets easily and immediately turned right back into the same thing it was. The reality is many materials are ‘downcycled,’ meaning they are converted into new materials that are usually of a lesser quality or reduced functionality. Closed-loop systems, however, recycle and reuse materials repeatedly. This reduces the need for virgin materials while avoiding the creation of waste.” 

In such a system, once the products are collected, the plastics get separated by type and are then shipped off to manufacturers in China. Other materials are salvaged from the machines and sold on the commodities market. Plastics are then melted and molded into new parts. 

Dell rolled this model out with its OptiPlex 3030 All-in-One, which is made from at least 10 percent closed-loop plastics. Manufacturer accountability is also a necessary component in managing an end-of-life product. Too many electronics get discarded in the name of upgrades, 41.8 million tons of it worldwide in 2014, according to the UN. Needless to say, manufacturer responsibility for end-of-life products has never been more important. 

Even state governments have been taking notice. As one example, California has the Advanced Recycling Fee (ARF) laws, which require consumers to pay a fee when buying electronics to cover the recycling programs. The fee, of course, goes to the state. But manufacturers get involved by notifying retailers of the law and what products the law pertains to. There’s a good summary of state laws here, which outlines how responsible manufacturers are in the recycling process. For instance, in Connecticut, recyclers bill manufacturers. 

Yet none of this gets to the root of the cause: how fast our electronics become useless to us.

The resistance to planned obsolescence

It’s a running joke that your computer was obsolete the day you purchased it. We can guffaw all we want, but it’s a dangerous mindset when it comes to the e-waste crisis. It’s what allows us to expect a new gadget every year (or in the case of the joke, every day). 

Planned obsolescence has been knocked around and speculated about for decades. Back in 2009, The Economist defined it as “a business strategy in which the obsolescence (the process of becoming obsolete – that is, unfashionable or no longer usable) of a product is planned and built into it from its conception.” 

In other words, a manufacturer purposefully creates false demand when a consumer feels the need to run out to buy replacements as their electrical equipment breaks or becomes incompatible with new tech because that was what the device was designed to do. 

No one can prove it, of course. No electronics bigwig is going to come out and admit to shorting the lives of his or her products. Some people say that’s exactly what manufactures do, others argue that it would make no long-term businesses sense to create crap products with no self-life on purpose. Planned obsolescence exists somewhere between urban legend, common knowledge and conspiracy theory. 

And yet there is a movement to rage against it. The New York Times ran an article on how to keep your phone longer. Hint: get a new battery. It’s the quickest part of the phone to go. 

ERI has been getting on board with repairable electronics as well. ERI and iFixit have teamed up to make electronics parts more available. With the amount of devices that are partly functional or have never been used at all, it makes more sense to allow entire parts to be put into the reuse market, rather than sending them to the shredder. Functional, secure parts will be sent over to iFixit so consumers can finally find quality parts for fixing previously unfixable products. 

And soon, new phones may be part of the modular repair realm.

Meet the modular cell phone

Sometimes it would be nice if we could fix or upgrade our cell phones like we can cars when they need new tires. That may be the way of the future. Meet the Puzzlephone and the Ara. 

The Ara is Google’s attempt to make a phone that is completely customizable and modular. A user will be able to literally insert different modules into the device to give the phone different features and functions. It’s a wildly different model than the locked-in box we’re all used to. Currently, the phone is in development. 

Also in development is the Puzzlephone, which is a direct competitor to the Ara. This concept has a far simpler design, consisting of three pieces that fit together. The largest part is the Spine, which has the display, speakers and buttons. Then there is the Brain, which houses the processor and camera. The Heart piece contains the battery. 

This way, when you break or want to change a part of the device, you do just that. Need a new battery? Now you don’t have to go online to find a complicated method of changing one out that involves disassembling the phone. You just attach one new piece. 

It seems like the way we should have been handling our electronics all along.