{"id":1077,"date":"2012-05-02T09:14:27","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T07:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/?p=1077"},"modified":"2012-05-02T09:16:18","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T07:16:18","slug":"planned-obsolescence-light-bulbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/2012\/05\/02\/planned-obsolescence-light-bulbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Planned Obsolescence- Light Bulbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygreen.com\/cm\/thedailygreen\/images\/lightbulb-white-sticker-lg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"276\" height=\"216\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Planned Obsolescence is a trend started in the 1920&#8217;s by the Phoebus Cartel, a group of light bulb manufacturing companies, in which the product is intentionally designed to become obsolete and require replacement.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">After more than 100 years Thomas Edison&#8217;s early light bulbs still glow in the museum where they are kept. Clearly the technology exists to keep lightbulbs glowing for centuries but then why do our lightbulbs never last more than a year or two? This is because lightbulbs have been intentionally designed to die after 1000 hours, in a scheme to increase profits for the manufacturer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Advantages for the manufacturer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>generates long term sales which turn into profits<\/li>\n<li>increases the demand for the lightbulbs, if the lightbulb had a life-time\u00a0guarantee then the consumer would only ever demand one lightbulb<\/li>\n<li>can use low-quality, non-durable, cheap materials which reduces the cost of production<\/li>\n<li>not designed to last so construction can be fast, simplified and efficient which also ultimately decreases the cost of production<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-align: left\">Advantages for society:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-align: left\">the increased demand places pressure on the manufacturer to increase output which provides more job opportunities<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-align: left\">promotes new innovation, as times are progressing demand for new and improved products is high<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"text-align: left\">Disadvantages for society:<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>creates waste which creates negative externality, it usually ends up in illegal dumps in third world countries<\/li>\n<li>exploits consumers as they are constantly spending their income on a product that they could buy once<\/li>\n<li>decreases the quality of the product as it is not designed to last<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The manufacturer has the technology and the ability to lengthen the life span of lightbulbs through their selection of materials, production technique, and the repairability of the produt. Yet they choose to exploit consumers and harm the environment all in the interest of maximizing profit! Does that really seem far? There are a number of ways that we as consumers can attempt to overcome the manufacturer-enforced problem of planned obsolescence. In the case of lightbulbs we can consider buying longer lasting lightbulbs such as LED and\u00a0florescent\u00a0bulbs. These may cost more initially (unfair for the consumer) but down the line they will prove to be a better investment and save a lot of energy which benefits the environment. Most importantly, we can keep our lights turned off as often as possible as the less bulbs are on the less energy they use and the longer they will last.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Planned Obsolescence is a trend started in the 1920&#8217;s by the Phoebus Cartel, a group of light bulb manufacturing companies, in which the product is intentionally designed to become obsolete and require replacement. After more than 100 years Thomas Edison&#8217;s early light bulbs still glow in the museum where they are kept. Clearly the technology [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1106,"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions\/1106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruthtrumpold.id.au\/blogs\/designtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}