What will it take for brands to design products that arent disposable?
advertisement advertisement  In a throwaway society, we take it for granted that products arent designed to last. If an electric toothbrush or a cheap sofa breaks, it ends up at the curb, not repaired. When the latest smartphone comes out, the model you spent hundreds of dollars on 18 months ago feels dated. When a new pair of running shoes wears out after a few months, it goes in the trash. advertisement  advertisement  For companies, theres little immediate motivation to change, since short product lifespans mean that people end up buying more. But just as designers a century ago pioneered planned obsolescencethe idea that products should rapidly need replacement, either because of frequent upgrades, cheap materials, or because theyre intentionally made impossible to repairits possible for businesses to embrace a new paradigm and redesign products that people want to keep for years or decades or longer. In a new book called Meaningful Stuff: Design That Lasts, Carnegie Mellon design professor Jonathan Chapman explains how product design can change course. Chapman started thinking about the problem as a design student at the turn of the millennium. I would see things like a dumpster full of bricks and construction rubble, and then on top of it would be a Dyson vacuum cleaner that someone threw out, he says. Why do things make that transition so quickly? The waste starts before a toy or toaster or smartphone ends up in a landfill. By one estimate, for every ton of consumer products that are manufactured, another 40 tons of waste is produced. Massive mining operations pull rare earth elements from rocks and soil to make things like computer chips that might be tossed out months later. Even when components are valuable, they typically arent recovered. Theres approximately 80 times more gold in a ton of smartphones than in a ton of rocks from a gold mine, Chapman writes. However, because of the way we have designed our industrial systems, the rock-bound gold is currently considered to be more economically viable to extract than its phone-bound counterpart.  advertisement  advertisement  Part of the solution is to make products that can actually be repaired, whether its a vacuum or a computer. Fairphone, a Dutch phone manufacturer that uses conflict-free materials and aims to make its tech last as long as possible, makes it simple for people to take apart their phones and repair or upgrade parts. Beyond the practical value, it can help people care about their phones more. Theres something about investing time and care in an object which then deepens your connection with the object, Chapman says. Chapman, who studies what makes people feel an emotional connection to some of the things they own, says that designers should think about how they can design a meaningful experience connected to a product. It can invite you to participate in a more complex, interesting way, he says. He points to a simple example of brass pens from a Taiwanese company called YStudio. As you grip the pen to write or draw, your hand polishes the brass. It creates a really interesting pattern which is, in a way, a reflection of you and how you use the pen, he says. For any given product, the approach may be slightly different. Some kitchen appliances might be designed to last a lifetime. Other products that cant last, like printer cartridges, can be designed for a circular system that reclaims the materials for recycling. advertisement