Profit-driven planned obsolescence poses an e-waste crisis with grave health & environmental harms

In 2020, Apple agreed to pay up to $500 million in a consumer-fraud lawsuit that alleged that it had issued a software update to intentionally slow down the batteries in older phones.1 In some cases, this caused the phones to completely shut down, which rendered them useless.2 The suit alleged that the slowdown was intended to frustrate consumers into discarding their existing phones and purchasing new phones.3

If the allegations in the suit were accurate, then Apple was engaged in a strategy of planned obsolescence.4 Planned obsolescence is a business strategy where a product is intentionally designed to have a limited lifespan and to become obsolete within a designated timeframe. 5 This strategy encourages (or in some cases, forces) consumers to replace their existing products with newer models, leading to repeat purchases and increased revenue for the manufacturer.6 In designing products to fail within a designated timeframe, manufacturers are engaged in the mass production of intentionally useless objects.

Unsurprisingly, planned obsolescence strategies also generate enormous amounts of physical waste in the form of discarded objects.7 Electronic waste is one of the most harmful form of this waste. 8 Electronic waste is generated when consumers discard obsolete refrigerators, laptops, smartphones, gaming consoles, microwaves, cameras, printers, and so forth.9 These electronic objects contain toxic materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and brominated flame retardants which leech into the surrounding environment, poisoning water supplies and wildlife and posing grave risks to human health. 10

Nearly 60 million tons of electronic waste is discarded annually, much of it produced by planned obsolescence, representing a substantial form of resource depletion. 11 Intentionally useless objects require enormous amounts of energy and raw material, including rare and precious metals. 12 Annually, electronic wastes represents $62 billion worth of tangible raw materials (such as gold and other scarce metals) that has been intentionally rendered useless. 13

Electronic waste also accounts for 70% of our toxic waste production.14 Only about 20% of electronics waste is recycled.15 The remaining 80% ends up in landfills and other waste repositories.16 Not only does this impose land use other environmental costs, but it also imposes significant costs on human health, environmental justice, and community wellbeing.17

A great challenge posed by planned obsolescence is that most of the costs imposed by the practice are not borne by the manufacturers who profit from it.18 From the perspective of manufacturers, planned obsolescence is an extremely profitable strategy. 19 In other words, planned obsolescence produces excessive negative externalities in the form of resource depletion and the proliferation of useless, toxic, objects. 20