Provisional
Truth |
Essays | November 15, 2006
Disposable Consumerism
We truly have
become a disposable, throwaway society and one day we will
regret this incredible wastefulness if our idyllic,
cheap-gas lifestyle fades into dim memories of better times.
Recently I had
the opportunity to shop for new ink cartridges for a
Hewlett-Packard ink-jet printer my wife uses at her retail
store. The printer was less than a year old, and was
purchased for less than $60 from a big-box office products
superstore.
Needing both
black-ink and color-ink cartridges, my joy in finding both
in stock quickly evaporated when I saw the posted prices,
$32 for black and $42 for color, nearly $80 with tax, which,
of course, is more than we paid for the printer.
Quick-thinking
consumer I am, I immediately went to Plan B, a new printer.
As I wandered the aisles, searching, I came across a
floor-display of the identical HP 5400 model we purchased
earlier this year, on sale for $29.95!
So I bought two brand new printers,
complete with the black and color ink cartridges I almost
purchased separately for $74. After I returned to my wife's
store, I regretted only that I didn't buy four new
printers.
Naturally I removed the offending old, but
mechanically perfect, HP 5400 and threw it away.
Later, in recounting the episode, someone suggested I should
have donated the old printer to a charity. “What would be
the point,” I asked? To be useful, two ink cartridges
costing $74 still would be required. “A tax deduction, of
course,” was the reply. I suppose the charity could have
sold it for a few dollars, and a tax deduction always is
good, but it still would be a useless piece of equipment to
anyone else without spending $74.
And although it occurred to me, again, how
someday we will curse our wasteful habits, in 2006 our
mindset and our consumer habits dictate the disposal of a
perfectly good, mechanically functioning piece of equipment.
Forget the manufacturing cost of the printer and the
cartridges themselves. I imagine the cost of packaging and
shipping alone, from China as one would expect, and
warehousing, handling and shipping here in the states
ultimately exceeded my $29.95 purchase price.
Maybe the HP 5400s are obsolete or were not
selling well at $60, “marked down to move out,” as they say.
Maybe the entire replacement ink cartridge segment is the
real source of profits for both manufacturers and retailers.
But if it ultimately is cheaper to buy another brand new
“thing” rather than repair or maintain an existing “thing”
these practices only promote our wasteful consumer habits.
I thought of
the many other similar “marketing” concepts through the
years, such as Kodak giving away cheap cameras that profit
from film sales and developing would more than overcome. Or
cell phone companies who give away the phones is exchange
for expensive (profitable) multi-year contracts (and yet
charge a “termination” fee to recoup the phone cost if a
consumer wants to cancel a contract early!).
How many cell
phones have I thrown away in the last ten years? How many
printers, computers, televisions, toasters, microwaves, you name it. (Can you
envision a day in the not-so-far-off future when the oil
companies will have to give away cheap automobiles or motor
scooters in order to sell very expensive (profitable)
gasoline?)
I know by
buying new printers, instead of replacing ink cartridges, I
am part of the problem. To that I plead guilty. But, until
the economics of wastefulness are changed, and equilibrium
is reached, my consumer habits, and likely yours, are not
going to change.
Someday I truly
will regret my disposable habits. Unfortunately such a day
may come sooner than we think.
What do I know?
Send me an email.
--Keith Hazelton
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