Build ‘Em To Fall Apart

When my parents were married in 1947, they were given a toaster as a wedding gift.  When they moved out of my childhood home in perhaps 1995, I happened to notice that very appliance among their belongings.

Before the late 20th Century, it never occurred to build and sell something that was engineered to break and be thrown away, to be replaced by a new gadget whose life expectancy was even shorter.  

1984 was the last year that Mercedes Benz made its engine block for its diesels from a metal that would last indefinitely.  The company happily sent out stickers that read “500,000 miles!” that the owner would proudly display on his back bumper–until, perhaps 10 years later, the “75o,000 miles!” sticker arrived.  There were people driving Benzes that had 1.25 million miles on them.

Eventually, someone in Stuttgart said, “OK, this is bull**** —  (Kuhscheiße or Quatsch in German); we need to sell cars.” So they developed a new alloy, and now Benz owners are essentially in the same boat as the rest of us.  Anything over 250K miles is considered icing on the cake.

What we’re looking at here, of course, is the battle between corporate greed and us sustainability folks, and the stakes couldn’t be any higher, especially when Big Oil is eagerly baking the planet.