Environmental Waste

redache — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:49:40 +0000

So my speakers finally decided to give in to age today after lasting nearly 6 years. This has made me think about a lot of the devices I have and their age in comparison to how much I paid for them and it’s kind of scary how much money I’ve probably wasted on buying things I didn’t need but felt some innate desire to have.

Here’s a nice little list of my current tech gadgetry that I have and the cost of buying them (Rough estimate) and how long I’ve had them and if they’re still in use.

Device	Initial Cost	Date Bought	Date Obsoleted/Broken	Year on Year Cost
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300	~£140	March 2007	September 2010	£46
MSI 650i Motherboard	£90	March 2007	September 2010	£30
Geforce 8600 GT	£90	March 2007	September 2009	£45
ATI Radeon HD 4870	£90	September 2009	September 2010	£90
Misc. RAM	£100	March 2007	September 2010	£33
Alesis IO\|14 Firewire Soundcard	£150	May 2007	N/A	N/A
Buffalo 1TB Ext. HDD	£60	September 2011	N/A	N/A
2011 21.5″ iMac	£869	May 2011	N/A	N/A
2010 13″ MacBook Pro	£849	April 2010	September 2011	£849(!)
Intel Core i7 930	£230	September 2010	N/A	N/A
Misc. RAM	£100	September 2010	N/A	N/A
Misc. Hard Drives	£150	September 2010	N/A	N/A
Samsung B24something 24″ Monitor	£150	September 2010	January 2011	£150
Dell U23110H 23″ Monitor	£250	January 2011	N/A	N/A
Creative Gigaworks T40 Speakers	£80	March 2006	17/01/2012	£13.3333333
HTC Hero	~£500 (part of contract)	January 2010	January 2012	£250
Apple iPhone 4S	~£500 (part of contract + £100 Initial Outlay)	January 2012	N/A	N/A
2011 MacBook Air 13″	£969	September 2011	N/A	N/A
Corsair PSU	£60	September 2010	N/A	N/A
Antec PSU	£60	March 2007	September 2010	£20
Creative MP3 Player	£160	September 2007	January 2008	£160
SanDisk Sansa FUSE MP3 Player	£70	September 2008	January 2010	£23.33
Apple iPod Classic 80GB	£190	March 2007	September 2007 (Deceased)	£190
Philips Somethingorother MP3 Player	£150	December 2006	March 2007 (Deceased)	£150
Creative Zen Micro MP3 Player	£50	January 2006	December 2006 (Lost on Bus)	£50
Laney VC30 Guitar Amplifier	£500	April 2007	N/A	N/A
Misc. Guitar Pedals	~£500	April 2007	As of 17/01/2012 I still have 4	Value of pedals now – £200 so £300 lost.
G-Echo Practice Amplifier	~£99	September 2008	N/A	N/A

This table is understandably pretty scary and I can see plenty of places where I’ve wasted money. I think I am going to try and be more conscious of what I buy and try and not buy things I don’t need anymore. The change curve leading to now shows that I’ve been spending more and more money on electronics and I would really rather not.

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Environmental Waste