A couple of months ago I bought 3 of these extension cords from Clas Ohlson, since I wanted a switch that allows me to quickly unplug all my living room electronics when leaving home. Well, so far 2 of the 3 switches have already failed. What this effectively means is that I will probably go and buy new cords from some retailer with higher quality standards. As a result, all the oil poured into making those plastic gadgets and delivering them to me from the other side of the world have now gone to waste.
The question is: for how many nights do I need to unplug my LCD TV from the mains before I will have saved up enough natural resources to offset the manufacturing, transportation and other handling of the 2 extension cords? We are still quite far from having that level of transparency into the effects of the decisions we make as consumers. This leaves the door open for all kind of “eco friendly” product positioning, which tries to enforce the paradox that you need to “buy new stuff to save the environment”. The message is simply more compelling than the alternative of “buy less stuff”, as that would mean we’d have to learn how to give up something that we could have. How could I ever give up my right to own plastic gadgets that run on electricity?
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