The Research Lab

I will be investigating how our indifference towards the products that we use leads to overconsumption and a throw-away society.

According to the United Nations, we dump a total of 2.12 million tons of waste every year. In 2014, the average amount of waste generated per person in the European Union was 475 Kg. Even though nearly 100% of it was treated to ensure it had the lowest possible impact on the environment, only 44% of it was recycled or composted. It is interesting to see that the wealthiest countries are the ones that produce the most waste, some of them reaching 800 Kg of waste per person.

The waste we produce does not just disappear in landfills - it impacts our entire planet in ways that are becoming disastrous and destructive. Elie Wiesel once said that « indifference is more dangerous than anger and hatred. » Our indifference to the products that we use leads to this throw-away society in which nothing is important and everything can be replaced. Why should we still repair a product, take care of it and make it last, when it’s so easy and cheap to buy the newest latest and trendiest version of it to replace it before it’s even broken?

My research question is the following: in which way is waste a consequence of our indifference towards the products that we use? 

According to the directive 2008/98/EC Article 3(1) of the European Parliament, waste is « any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard. » Indifference is defined as a « lack of interest in someone or something; the quality of not caring about or being interested in something or someone » by the Cambridge Dictionary. For this research question I will define a product as any physical object that is manufactured and offered for sale. I will not take into account services and virtual products.

As I lay disassembled on a table at the very back of the room, I hear the lecture going on near the entrance. The echoes of the speaker’s words are bouncing around the walls and remind me of the sounds I used to make. I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to me now. My new owners just spent an hour disassembling me and studying my different components, only to leave me lying around uselessly while they went back to their lecture.

I used to be important. The very idea behind my conception, back in Germany, came because I was much needed in the music world. In fact, before I met Marc I travelled a lot. Although I have not been to Germany myself, my concept was born there when a few passionate musicians teamed up with a group of designers and engineers. They all had a common goal which was to make good music accessible to everyone. The idea came from Uli  Behringer. A few decades before I was created, audio processing was still a mystery for most people and because the companies were trying hard not to reveal their secrets, their devices became very expensive. Uli Behringer decided to figure out how it worked on his own and when he did, he delivered good audio processing at an affordable price for everyone, which was a first! From then on they started making a lot of equipment for musicians, continuously innovating, and all of it is great quality at an affordable price. I still stand out because they chose this very bright pink color for me and I’m also the cheapest in their collection of distortion pedals. I came a few decades after Uli Behringer’s success story, which started in the early eighties. By now, the technologies that are used for sound distortion have become better and cheaper, which is why Behringer is able to lower the price so much while maintaining excellent quality. 

I’m also a little bit Chinese. Or a lot; I was made in China. After I was designed in Germany, all of my parts were made and assembled in huge factories in China. My original colour is actually white, but in those factories they spray-painted me in bright pink which gives more personality to my appearance. After my case had been painted, they added all the components that would make me work once the batteries would be added. There’s a tiny push-switch that was then covered by a large plastic pedal, which the musician would later use to activate the sound distortion. It is probably because of the very small size of this switch that I am here today, broken and useless. Although my plastic case is surprisingly sturdy, that tiny switch was bound to have a problem connecting with the musician’s moves at some point. I don’t remember exactly when that first happened. After I was assembled and my plastic housing was screwed together, I was shipped to the Netherlands to be sold in a music store. I was just sitting there on the shelves among many different devices and instruments, and everyday a lot of passionate musicians would walk around and take a look at all of us, often to leave empty-handed. I am lucky. I was the cheapest on my shelf so I sold pretty fast, to a young woman who seemed slightly hesitant and asked a lot of questions to the store owner before making her decision. She certainly wasn’t a musician so I wondered what she was buying me for. She made sure that the sales person wrapped my box in pretty paper with colorful ribbons around it, and I spent quite some time in that box, in the dark, before it was opened again.

I met Marc on christmas, about eight years ago. It was his sister who bought me at the store, and I was her present to her brother. He plays the guitar in a band, and he needed a new distortion pedal. For eight years after that day, we have made music together. I was finally useful for something, and important for someone. Marc took great care of me and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because he needed me for his music, or because I was a present from his sister. He knew I could be shoved around and kicked about without a problem. My plastic case is quite strong and protects all the fragile components inside. But at the end of the day, when he was done making music and stepping on me while playing the guitar, he took care to take me back to his place and store me neatly with the rest of his equipment. He’d never loose me or forget me somewhere. He always made sure to know where I was.

Since he played with his friends most of the time, they were also allowed to use me when it was needed. I’ve worked hard for eight years, helping his band and his friends make the music they like and following them around to gigs or practices. Many people have heard the sounds that I made their instruments make, but most of them probably weren’t aware of it, or just didn’t think about it. People like to enjoy the music without wondering how it’s made.

And then at some point I started faltering. One day Marc stepped on me and nothing happened. When he stepped on me again, I managed to work once more. But from that day on, every now and then there would be these moments where for some reason I would be unable to do what Marc was expecting from me. Probably because of the connection between the large pedal that he was stepping on and that tiny, fragile switch. The problem became so frequent, that Marc stopped using me. I was just laying around with the rest of his equipment, but he would not use me anymore to play with his friends or to practice with his band. He had other pedals, of course. All musicians have several of us. But he never chose me to be part of the set again.

“Accounting for a comparatively small percentage of the total waste in our landfills, roughly 2%, e-waste represents nearly 70% of the toxic waste in landfills. Our tech addiction is literally poisoning the planet.”

“So why aren’t people utilizing reuse and recycling programs instead of trashing their stuff? Maybe it’s because society isn’t aware of the impact their waste is actually having on our planet, or maybe the process to reuse or recycle household items isn’t simple enough, or maybe individuals don’t think their personal choices will have a measurable impact so they opt out of green practices all together.”