Abstract
The paper investigates state and international policies on e-waste and on so called “planned obsolescence”. But first it explores the personal emotional story behind the most important and meaningful electronic device in the author’s life.
Keywords: favorite personal electronic device, international policies on e-waste, planned obsolescence problem
My favorite device
My favorite and really meaningful for my whole life electronic device now is the Seagate Fast HDD Portable Drive which can store up to 4 terabytes of files and documents of any nature. It looks like a black cigarette package with attached to it a short 40 cm cable with the USB port connector at the end. I cannot imagine my life in the world, if this device will be lost or stolen from me. Why it happened so?
Some years ago I used to do my written works and readings at home with the help of the usual personal computer placed on the floor at my table with a lot of cables connected to a huge screen, a keyboard and a “mouse” which occupied almost all space on the surface of my working table. Then my first laptop arrived, the old computer had gone to some relatives that lived out of town, and I do not know what happened to it. My working table was again filled only with my favorite books and newspapers, and the laptop mixed among them just as the ordinary paper notebook, only small stereo audio loudspeakers were placed at the corners of my table. I enjoyed some music from my laptop, but also I used it to listen to some political podcasts from the likes of BBC and some public lectures that can be easily downloaded from such good websites as the London School of Economics, some of those audio files were supplied with written transcripts, so I can follow the talk also reading the text on the screen of my laptop. For the file exchanges with my friends I used very small memory stick that can store files via USB ports at the laptop and I can easily transport all the files on this flash memory stick to and from in my pocket.
But a couple of years ago I had to upgrade my notebook in order for it to be capable to run more modern and sophisticated software and to be able to watch films on my laptop, which sometimes needed much more hard disk space than my first laptop can provide. Also in order to store my favorite or “must-see” films I had to buy the external hard disk drive that can store a number of huge files up to several gigabytes long, usually it were the films stored for my personal archive or for the exchange of files and films with my friends.
And now I start really to approach the two required themes for this student assignment, that is, the meaning of my favorite device for my life and how to deal with the e-waste problem. I never discharged my first laptop, neither to some relatives or friends, nor to any e-waste facility. Instead I upgraded its hard drive to the greater volume of some two hundred gigabytes and it is still working sometimes for me. But the most interesting thing is that the old hard drive disk that was inside my first laptop is still very useful for me. How it happened? There is a very simple and cheap device, looking the same as my current favorite Seagate external disk with 4 terabytes capacity for which I paid a handsome price of some 350 dollars a couple of years ago. Such cheap box can be filled with the old hard disk drives extracted from the old laptops and it has a cable connecting the content of this old hard disk to the USB ports of any other laptops. So if the ordinary small flash memory stick has the maximum capacity of 16 gigabytes, that self-made boxes with the old hard disk drives inside can have much more capacities, and their sizes are also very small, they can also be carried in the pocket.
But how such simple devices with such down-to-earth functions can become for somebody one of the most meaningful things in life? Here I have to refer the readers first to some pages of the book edited by Sherry Turkle, included in this assignment. The most relevant for my message is the essay “The Archive” by Susan Yee. It is mostly dedicated to the French architect Le Corbusier and to his engagement in the unfinished project of “The Palace of the Soviets” in Moscow. I know, it seems, the story and its outcome, I even recently saw the Cathedral of Christ the Savior that was erected some 15 year ago on the same site that was designated for that project designed by Le Corbusier “The Palace of the Soviets”, located close to the Kremlin and the British embassy across the Moscow River. This project was the modern imitation of the old 19th century Cathedral, built then by sort of “crowdfunding” in memory of the Russian with its allies victory over the Napoleon in 1815, that Cathedral was later blown up into the bricks by communists in 1933.
But I strongly disagree with the author about the lower significance of electronic archives in comparison with paper documents’ archives. At least this issue is case specific, in her case, of course, after the emotional compassion with the touch of the real footprints of great work done by Le Corbusier, she is a bit disappointed with the electronic version of those historic documents. In my case the electronic archives of all my meaningful activities in life, saved on my favorite device provide me with the indefinite opportunities to look at my life and its meaning, if any, sorry What I mean is that my electronic archives give the opportunity for the cross-examination of any my step in productive life looked at from very different perspectives. Any document or file in my archive, be it an important film, or video of some public event, or the reactions from various public circles on the book, that seemed for me so important at the time, can be accessed from various indexed contexts and perspectives, this modern opportunity is not possible with paper documents’ archive because it is a very expensive human work. But for only my personal time spent I can have almost the same opportunity to look at any thing in my archive from very different angles and perspectives. Usually I start to look on anything chronologically, then I look at the same thing from the points of view of the people that I respect or consider important in the concrete context. All this is possible and is now very cheap with the use of my favorite thing, so the whole history of my meaningful life is stored on my lovely 4 terabyte Seagate device. I am sure that whatever the future will be, we’ll have the opportunity to save our life histories now forever. It’s quite a novice situation in human history, it can become unpredictably creative for the humankind as a whole.
The roots of the e-waste problems
I really saw all the films and read all the texts attached to this assignment in the context of the problems with the e-waste and the issue of the alleged conspiracy behind the so called “planned obsolescence”. Most of all I was impressed by the story about the special chip installed in the printer to make it in due time “obsolete” in terms of hidden interests of its “independent” producers and the decisions of their unknown powerful bosses. These really very powerful bosses must exist somewhere otherwise individual producers, say, from China will not have enough courage to be engaged in such a conspicuous conspiracy without some guarantee that they will not be made responsible for their particular actions and for the whole thing. The question is who are those powerful bosses who make key decisions on this “planned obsolescence”, what are their primary motivations, and what should be done to prolong the life cycles of mass market electronic devices as long as it is feasible and reasonable.
It seems, that these are the “tens of trillions” questions. I know that some such significant globalized world questions are regularly discussed at the Public Lectures in the London School of Economics (LSE). It is well-known that the standards that all the electronic devices must comply with are established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) created in 1906, and the International Standards Organization (ISO), created 50 years later by the IEC design only to rubber-stamp, they say, the decisions reached by the special professional bodies such as IEC. So I tried to search-engine the LSE site in order to find out what they think about the role of IEC on the “e-waste” and the “planned obsolescence” problems. Sorry, but I failed to find anything meaningful. I was quite amazed.
So then I tried to find anything about the global role of the IEC in the “e-waste” problem at the site of the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN) which collects millions of the best articles from around the world on any socially relevant issue. Sorry but I found only one article with the relevant exposition of the IEC activities, it was the article by Buthe (2010). But I was quite happy, this article was a real hit. It occupies 47 pages of main text and 18 pages of References. It deserves to be quoted as much as possible in the context of the “e-waste” and the “planned obsolescence” problems. But I limit myself to only one very important quote from Buthe (2010), “For substantial parts of the global economy, a single private body is recognized as the focal point for global rule-making (in its area of expertise). The selection of the institutional setting here effectively takes place prior to drawing up the specific rules, with important consequences for the politics of regulating global markets”. So, I believe, in search for bosses ultimately responsible for the “e-waste” and the “planned obsolescence” problems we would better start with the proper analysis of the IEC arrangements.
References
Buthe, Tim, Engineering Uncontestedness? The Origins and Institutional Development of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) (October 1, 2010). Business and Politics, Vol. 12, No. 3, October 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1796533
