Let’s do a mental exercise here. Just for fun.

Imagine you have a super innovative product that your customer loves. It sells very well, it makes a profit, and it works. But the product has a serious life cycle problem. When it was invented, no one cared much about waste generation, so the flaw in your product lies here. Its useful life is relatively short after the customer buys, uses and discards, and has little to do with the product after use. And because recycling doesn’t arrive everywhere in the world, that’s not what happens with your product, no matter how hard you try to collect and recycle it. Some places in the world have even decided to ban your product.

And now, product creator? What do you do?

Pretend it is not your problem? After all, your function is to offer a good product to your customers and that is it.

You do your part by trying to collect what is possible of the post-use product and give it the right recycling destination. But you blame part of the fault of not giving a correct destination for all your production to your consumer; after all, it is also their responsibility to give the product a right destination.

You start spending all your energy, money and commitment to developing a better product that no longer generates post-consumer waste. However, after this going through this process and expending effort, you find that you have to give up your already established product and create a new one.

You can suggest other solutions and options if you have them and are more creative than me.

Addendum: Your product is not unique in the market. It is just a different and comfortable way to get the same result from other slightly more laborious or just more diverse ways.

Any clue what product this is? I was impressed that I could think of other products than I originally had in mind.

And you, consumer of the product, what do you do? What is your attitude? Stop using the product? Ask the opinion of the company that produces the product? Do you pretend that none of this is up to you or are you even aware that using this product generates waste? Are there any other solutions?

Para esse texto em Português.

Thanks, Kate Carter editing the text.