RIP #2: Reuse, Repair and Recycling

More powerful than you can possibly margarine?

In the blog, I've tried everything.  I've tried contrition, I've tried humor, I've tried data, I've tried logic, I've tried film, I've tried professionally edited video, I've tried slide shows, I've tried appeals, I've tried legal links to law, I've tried lots and lots of analogies.

The Death Star of Planned Obsolescence is too powerful.

In part the challenge is to make access to internet, sustainable repair jobs, resource conservation, rain forests and bush meat into a simpler tale for people who get their news about recycling the same way they get their news about foreign trade and health care.

The "cathode ray tube" isn't going to be remembered as all that more important than a light bulb.  In the Spanish video on "planned obsolescence" which I reposted yesterday, the light bulb is a the center of the story.  There is a light bulb in use at a fire station which was installed in the 1920s.  The video speaks about the evolution of the light bulb, from solid state to disposable.

The move from CRTs (with 25 year lives) to fluorescent-backed disposable LCDs could have been the topic of that video.  To most Americans, it's kind of a niche subject.   I could be remembered as a mad uncle who got all wound up about the changes to the tint or brand of paint on a town fire engine.  The fact that you are right and are being outvoted doesn't make you important or righteous.

Sandrine, Ngware, Maman, Filomen, and Petitemadame in Robin's 1986 living room.  Seconds after the flash went off, there was RIOTOUS LAUGHTER, making this a favorite photo from my Cameroon album.

The USA is diminishing as a source of used computers, and the price of more disposable display devices is dropping.   Our role in creation of an "E-Waste Death Star" could be studied for years.  But I'm learning enough about how policy gets made from photos, distrust, sound-bites, corporate interest, and over-reactions to understand why so many people think that "free and fair trade" should be the default.  I want what's best for my kids, and for my neighbor's kids, and for my friend's kids, and for stranger's kids.  Don't let the perfect "ewaste solution" become the enemy of the good "repair and reuse", my friends.

I'm taking digital photos of photos this weekend, I'll put them online and share them here.

if you strike me down i shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine