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DVDs to Ashes, CDs to Dust
In the future, you may be able to dump crummy movies and second rate music into the compost heap. The Japanese company Pioneer is developing biodegradable DVDs and CDs. According to the British publication Green Futures (January/February 2005), the discs are made of a starch derived from corn. When the new technology goes into mass production, it is expected to be cheaper than the current plastic discs. (Tip: Perhaps Pioneer can hook up with fellow Japanese company Hemp Plastics for a fully recyclable product; inspired by how the first T-Fords used plastic parts made from wheat gluten, Hemp Plastics now produces totally degradable CD covers.)
Stormtroopers Patrol the Prairies
Farmers in North America, already beset by economic woes, now must also fear the "seed police." Biotech company Monsanto has 75 police and a budget of $10 million U.S. to nail farmers using their patented seeds in an "improper manner," including the age-old tradition of saving them to plant the following year. Charges have even been brought against an elderly Saskatchewan farmer who authorities concede wasn't even a Monsanto client--the company's seeds blew onto his land from a neighbouring fields. According to the progressive Christian publication Sojourners (10 April 2005), cases have been filed against 150 farmers and 40 other small businesses. Every year, Monsanto investigates some 500 farmers. So far, the biotech giant has earned more than $15 million U.S. from court cases it has won. One unlucky farmer even spent eight months behind bars.
Conspicuous Irrational Consumption
When his watch was stolen at a bus station in Bolivia, Dutch economics student Luuk van Kempen bought a cheap replacement at the local market. He hadn't walked a block when he discovered the watch was broken. The vendor reacted to his complaint with surprise: "But sir, none of these watches work!"
That experience marked the beginning of a thesis project for the Institute for Development Issues at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Van Kempen had been researching the consumer behaviour of people earning less than $2 U.S. a day. He ran across absurd examples: farmers in Mali wearing digital watches without batteries, Sri Lankan farmers who buy TVs even though they have no electricity, Tibetan nomads who proudly display their mobile telephones even though there is no reception for many miles. Van Kempen told the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant (23 April 2005): "Poor people also like to show off their nice things; items they would rather their neighbour didn't have."
Status symbols and brand-name goods aren't just for the rich, Van Kempen concluded. In the slums of developing countries, consumers are just as irrational in their purchases as people in the wealthy West. According to the economist, many poor people are well aware that luxury goods are essentially useless. But they also know that the more useless the product you can buy, the more status it gives you.
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