One day or another, everyone might find himself confronted with concrete results of planned obsolescence: the inability to fix a broken computer, to replace a broken piece of a washing machine, etc. Consumers often get the impression they don’t control the life-span of the products they buy, and feel trapped in a system in which what’s disposable prevails over what’s repairable.
Through this accelerated replacement of goods, we speed up depletion of natural resources, accumulate toxic waste mountains, increase social inequalities and destroy local maintenance and repairment jobs.
What should be done then? There are solutions to fight against planned obsolescence at national, European and international levels: public spendings’reorientation, extension of the guarantee system, display of goods’ life span... Above all, it’s a matter of political will and change of mindsets.

Essay
ISBN 978-2-36383-239-9
Publication date : September 21st, 2017
88 p., 10 euros
The "policies of the transition" - "politiques de la transition"