>> All right.
So everyone take a look at this video.
And, obviously, we can see that there's a celebration of some sort going on.
Any guess to what type of celebration this is?
Nobody knows?
>> Eagle Scout?
>> Is it Boy Scouts?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> All right.
Listen to this.
You guys are wrong.
>> Sing happy birthday to a light bulb.
Well, we didn't think they would, but they did.
>> Happy birthday dear light bulb.
Happy birthday to you.
>> And that sounds funny, but, actually that's really interesting
because that light bulb actually lived for 100 years.
And the light bulb actually stands
at a fire house that's located in a small town in California.
Now, when's the last time you saw a light bulb live for 1000 -- 100 years?
You expect.
>> Not a hundred but I've seen one in Nevada [inaudible].
>> Oh, okay.
Well, that's good.
Maybe it was built before the idea of planned obsolescence came about.
My name is Kayla Pinson, and I will be talking to you about planned obsolescence.
And we will be covering what planned obsolescence is.
It's the effect on consumers.
The environmental effects.
What's happening in the future?
And then we'll talk about questions.
Now, I'm not an economist.
I'm nobody that can tell you much planned obsolescence.
But I've done a lot of research, and I'm a consumer.
And I'm here to tell you that we're all consumers.
And because we're all consumers, we all fall into the category.
We all are being, you know, affected by the planning of obsolete products.
And so planned obsolescence is basically an idea that belongs to capitalists producing goods,
and have been programmed to death and had to be replaced time and time again.
Basically, this is just saying that products have a limited life.
And basically, this came about in the 1930s during The Great Depression with Bernard London.
And he basically said that there needs to be lease on the life of products
so that you can't keep a product.
Imagine if every light bulb in your house lived for 100 years.
You wouldn't buy new light bulbs.
But then what would that do to the economy?
If everything that you had lived for 100 years, you wouldn't buy anything.
And so in order to stimulate the economy, there needs to be a lease on life so things,
there's always a demand for something and there's always jobs for product.
And so this was essentially coined to do for the good of the economy.
However, in the 1960s, Vance Packard proposed that obsolescence be described
to function, quality, and desirability.
And this, when he did this, he created stylistic obsolescence.
And stylistic obsolescence is different because no longer are we concentrating on the necessity
of things like just because it doesn't work, we actually desire things.
And so now we're starting to get into the psychology of the mind.
This had a negative impact on consumers because, you know, it's what we desire.
But it's not what we need, so we're just buying things that we don't really need.
So what has this, what effect does this have on us as consumers?
Nothing that you have will last forever.
Not today, not tomorrow, and probably nowhere in your future.
So you're constantly replacing things.
And like I said before, this was supposed to be good for the economy.
But now it's just hurting our pockets more and more.
There is perceived obsolescence.
And that has become the plan.
Perceived obsolescence, there's 2 different types of obsolescence.
There's relative and there's absolute.
When you get into absolute obsolescence that means your phone doesn't work.
Anybody ever had picked up a phone, try to call somebody,
and then it just didn't work or they couldn't hear you?
Or something like that?
Or the phone just stopped working, right?
But at that point you can't use the phone anymore.
However, there's a relative obsolescence.
And that's 3 different things, technical obsolescence,
economic obsolescence, and psychological obsolescence.
Technical obsolescence has to do with function.
And in saying function, I'm talking about how it's being outdated or outmoded.
So who had an iPhone 4 when the new iOS came out?
Anybody? Did your phone update?
Or did it take a long time to update?
It took a long time to update because, ultimately,
the hardware could not compete with the software.
So the software was updated, but the hardware was like "We can't do all that.
We're not that high tech."
And so the function of it became obsolete because it couldn't keep up.
But then there's the quality.
Now, we're getting into economic obsolescence.
If you bought something from Family Dollar and you bought something from Walmart,
which one is going to live longer?
The last number, the thing from Walmart because you paid more money for it.
And basically, that gets, that talks about the quality of things.
Because you get what you pay for.
And, so if you pay cheap for something,
then it's going to be cheap when it's operated to produce.
So that's talking about economic obsolescence.
Now, psychological obsolescence is the one that we're most apt to, that we fall to the most
because it talks about how we just desire new things.
Anybody have say iPhone 5?
Or iPhone 4S?
Samsung S4, S5?
Now, how many of you are wanting to get the iPhone 6 when it comes out?
Psychological obsolescence.
You have the desire to have the newest things that are on the market.
And so we're constantly consuming products.
And, like I said before, it's taking the necessity out of things we buy.
And it's just basically going off our desires.
But what do we do with these products when we're done?
How many of you all have phones just sitting in a drawer?
How many of you all threw your phones away in the trash?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
All right.
Well this is the effect that your throwing your phone in the trash,
Marshawn [assumed spelling] has on the environment.
Now, electronics are not biodegradable by no way shape or form.
So if you threw your phone in the trash can, it's probably still sitting somewhere.
They are also bio accumulative.
Now, phones are made of metal not bananas, not anything organic, correct?
So they're not going to, when they disintegrated, they're not going to go back
to the -- enrich the soil, you know.
They're going to, the metals, actually, they seep into the soil and they seep into the water.
And that's going to affect us because lead, arsenic, aluminum,
all of those things are in your phone.
But none of those things are good for your body, correct?
So you threw your phone away, and now it leaks into the water, it contaminates the soil.
And now it's causing health problems.
And they can cause damage to nervous systems, reproductive and developmental issues,
and also cancer and genetic impact.
So when you threw away your phone, Marshawn,
you might have just took a couple years off your life.
>> Or somebody else's.
And I'm glad you pointed that out because now we're going to talk
about how what we do might be affecting somebody else somewhere else.
Now, these are the ways that people take care of their phone now.
They think they are doing a good job by recycling their products.
Anyone ever been to the mall and saw a recycling bin?
Like, "Oh, recycle your phone here, we'll give you $10."
Okay. All right.
What happens is it sounds good.
But essentially the recyclers are, they're just trading.
So they're trading the recycled phones and recycled electronics to another country.
And in doing that, it's not doing anything to the help the environment.
It's sitting in the same landfill in another country.
It's just not sitting on American soil.
But America is doing nothing to prevent this from happening.
And so now there's a worker over there breathing
in the same dangerous toxins that we're not breathing in.
So we're killing somebody else in someone else's country who may not have access to health care.
And so, essentially, we're not helping the environment by recycling.
We're just outsourcing the harm that we're doing to the environment.
And this is what it looks like.
It looks like this right here when they send it over.
When they send all the E-waste is what they call the electronic waste.
When they send it over to different countries.
And so you have to be careful how you dispose of your products
because that's what it's all about.
Planned obsolescence, it has a lot to do with what we consume, but how we dispose
of our products is more important.
And so refurbishing is the way to go.
Let's find a way to refurbish and reuse your phones.
And the right way to do that is through LINC.
LINC is the future of cell phones.
And what happens is basically they're going to have a little chip in your phone that's going
to -- that you're going to be able to take out and put elsewhere.
But all the -- it's going to remove all the other components that might become hazardous.
So to access that part of the phone, if they automatically --
say they come up with a holographic screen, the LINC phone will update
to have the same holographic screen from the touch screen or whatever.
So you'll send back the touch screen phone, they'll send you the holographic screen phone.
You just take out the chip and put it in.
Because how many of you all have got a new phone and lost all your contacts?
That's why people who -- but your phone also didn't work, right?
It was obsolete, correct?
And then you had to upgrade but you couldn't upgrade
because you didn't want to lose all your stuff.
So this has fixed all the problems that have come along with, you know, upgrade.
So to recap, we have talked about what planned obsolescence is.
We talked about its effects on consumers and,
more importantly, to society and the environment.
We talked about what's happening that they say is helping but really not.
And then we talked about the future.
So does anybody have any questions?
Yes.
>> The LINC problem that you were just talking about, if I want to upgrade
to the holographic screen, and I send them back the touch screen what's going
on with the touch screen?
>> Oh, the touch -- oh, so that's a great question.
I'm glad you asked that.
What happens with the touch screen is they reuse it and recycle appropriately.
So they'll just recycle it and put it in a different phone.
All right.
If you have any questions, you can see me afterwards.
Basically I'm just going to give you a charge.
These are 3 things that you can do with phone, sell it on eBay if it still works.
Donate it to a cause.
So you can donate it to a soldier, and they'll give them a phone card so they can call home.
Or visit the EPA Web site to decide how your specific phone can be disposed of properly.
All right.
And thank you all for listening.
I hope you enjoyed the presentation.
[ Applause ]