A century ago, General Motors capitalized on the idea of “planned obsolescence” — releasing a product with a purposefully shortened shelf life to encourage consumers to eventually buy a new version.
That principle now drives basically all of tech, but planned obsolescence might even be coming for things that once seemed worryingly permanent.
Born to die
High-end plastic furniture maker Heller adds an enzyme into its manufacturing process that accelerates the rate of biodegradation, per Fast Company.
Why? Plastic pollution is choking the Earth and potentially killing us, so Heller wanted to do more “good for the planet.” Heller’s furniture looks and costs the same as other brands, but the company says it biodegrades over about five years instead of much longer.
Now you can feel better about buying these ~$1.5k lips, or this ~$1k… shape.
Worry Free Plastics, which makes the enzyme, is happy to hype it up:
- Depending on the landfill, a standard plastic water bottle might take ~450 years to decompose.
- The enzyme could lower that to just over seven years.
- It even works on supposedly compost-friendly bioplastics.
Despite this take on planned obsolescence…
… Heller doesn’t envision its furniture as an eternally replaceable product like a Chevy or smartphone.
- The chairs won’t instantly disintegrate like a paper straw.
- The enzyme only triggers in an oxygen-free environment like a landfill.
- Heller wants to show the enzyme’s viability and encourage other furniture makers (i.e. ones that sell cheaper chairs you’d be more likely to throw away) to try it.
Now we just need to grab the 360m metric tons of plastic waste created annually and coat it in a biodegradable enzyme!
