Stuff not lasting like it used to? Here's what people are doing about it
Scott Noble's Cuisinart blender has been spinning since the 1980s. It was gifted to him by his mother, who had bought a new one and had no use for her old machine.
However, she may have gifted it too hastily.
"Unfortunately, her new one didn't last as long as the original one, and I still use the original one to this day," Noble told What On Earth. "They don't build them like they used to, right?"
Noble is one of many people making the conscious choice to use products that are going to last, rather than buying something they may need to replace in a few years.
He does that with the help of online communities, like the subreddit r/BuyItForLife, which has millions of members. There, people work together to figure out what items will work for the long haul, like a durable set of pots and pans or the Arby's 1985 Christmas glassware collection.
But hardwearing items are getting harder to find, and experts say companies are deliberately making products that will need to be replaced in the name of profit.
Bad by designTima Bansal says you can thank the materials economy — the way goods are produced, consumed and, eventually, disposed of — for that need to constantly replace every little thing in your home.
"Corporations have a profit incentive. And, so, the more that they sell, the more money they make," said Bansal, a Canadian economist and professor at the Ivey Business School.
For example, a company can make more money if you need to buy a new dishwasher every few years, compared to if you buy one that lasts a few decades.
The other challenge, Bansal says, is that producing products with higher-quality materials, and the recycling of used materials, costs more. She says a prime example is the current era of fast fashion, where companies sell cheap, low-quality clothing that doesn't last.
"People are now buying stuff where they just wear it once and then they throw it away, right? And it's of such low cost or low price that there's no reason to want to not just buy it again," said Bansal.
Making a changeThere are businesses making a deliberate effort to sell high-quality products, like Open Funk, based out of Berlin.
The company sells a kitchen blender that's designed to last and be easily repaired when it breaks.
"We've applied principles of repairability, modularity, local production, open source and the right to repair directly into the product from the onset," said Paul Anca, designer and co-founder of Open Funk.
The company started with blenders, Anca said, because he had one that stopped working after just a few months.
When he started the process, many people, including banks where they sought financial backing, said there would be no customer base for it. But Anca disagrees.
"The reality is that most households have a blender. And these blenders tend to break every six years nowadays," he said.
Because the company is independent, there are no shareholders demanding he increase profits. And there are plans to design and sell more products, which he's confident will appeal to customers.
"The people who are value-aligned to our business also tend to stick around," said Anca.
Other companies can develop more sustainable products, but it takes patience, he said.
Repairing what's brokenBut even the most reliable product will eventually break down. You can probably look around your own home for examples. Your vacuum sucks, but not in the way you want it to. That mixer isn't mixing anymore, making for some unintentionally chunky cookies.
So what do you do? Buy a new one? Try to fix it? Tell your guests that's just what the cookie recipe calls for?
Kyle Wiens is trying to make one of those options — fixing it — more accessible by advocating for right-to-repair legislation that would require companies to provide information about how to fix their products.
"Consumers need to have the information up front," said Wiens, CEO of iFixit.
"If you want to go and buy a toaster right now [and] you're looking at Walmart, there are two toasters — one is $20, one is $40," he said.
"Which one will last longer? You legitimately don't know."
Weins says products should come with labels that detail their durability and repairability. It's something that was mandated across some products in Europe in 2024, where manufacturers have an obligation to repair products for a reasonable price, and provide access to spare parts for consumers.
There has been some progress on right-to-repair laws in Canada, specifically around bypassing digital locks on software, but Wiens says more work is needed.
ResponsibilitySo who is responsible for making a world where products last longer?
Bansal says part of that falls to governments, but since it's difficult to regulate the durability of a product, government would need to incentivize consumers to purchase sustainable items.
She also says a portion of the responsibility falls to customers who can have a big impact by choosing where they spend their money.
"It's really hard to move customers along. That's because there are so many people and people often shop on price," said Bansal.
"The best way for consumers to have impact on longevity of products is to ask the questions when they're buying the products, and then to also ask questions about how they can repair the products."
But Anca says there's a responsibility on the part of manufacturers to produce a product that isn't destined for the landfill.
"If not us as manufacturers, then who? Everybody's just pointing fingers to each other — consumers to manufacturers, manufacturers to consumers. You have immense power as a manufacturer … the power is in your hands to really change things for the better," he said.
"We don't really have time, I believe, to just continue what we've been doing in the last 50, 60 years."
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