The nail, a metallic element used for joining things together and consisting of a flat head and a pointed shank, is – in my opinion – the paradigm for this reflection on the shift in the threshold of perception of disposability. Many years ago, every object or material had a value - when a new apprentice arrived in the carpentry shop, their first task was often to straighten crooked nails, which had been extracted from other wooden components, to reuse them. Now, however, it seems an anachronistic practice: when a nail becomes slightly bent, we throw it away, thus avoiding any possible inconvenience. Time is money and straightening a nail would waste too much time, even for an apprentice... But straightening a nail was perhaps also a formative practice – in a broader sense.

The inner tube of a bicycle, placed inside the tyre, features an expandable tubular rubber structure filled with inert gases under pressure. Of course, every cyclist’s nightmare is a punctured inner tube. When I was a kid, I used to repair the hole myself: I would take the wheel apart and after removing the inner tube from the tyre I would immerse it – thus inflating it – in a bucket full of water, having fun trying to find the air bubbles, always hidden near the hole. With a bit of putty and a patch (sometimes made from old inner tubes), I would then fix the damage. Each well-applied patch could be considered a permanent repair. Nowadays, however, it is more straightforward to replace the entire inner tube directly because the cost of this replacement is low and, for many, does not justify the time needed to repair it.

The kitchen knife, a cutting tool consisting of a blade, usually made of steel, attached to a handle that can be made of different materials, has always relied on the professionalism of the knife-grinder – a craftsman, often travelling, who restores the cutting capacities of certain tools by sharpening them. Routine maintenance of the blade is important: cleaning and ‘do-it-yourself’ sharpening, with an abrasive stone or other tools, allow us to maintain an effective and clean cut. How many of us still do this? If the knives are not of great quality or, more trivially, the owner does not feel like wasting time, they prefer to throw the knife in the bin and buy a new one. For some, it is better to have a cheap knife, knowing they can replace it more often without worrying about its upkeep. The same thing applies to scissors.  

The umbrella, a foldable and portable shelter against sun or rain, consists mainly of a shaft with a handle and folding ribs attached to a piece of waterproof fabric. Its low cost, its difficult repairability and the consequent disappearance of umbrella-makers made the umbrella a real ‘limited-use object’. When the metal joints break, it becomes almost impossible to replace them, even with a more expensive umbrella – which does not necessarily mean it has a higher quality and repairability. Sometimes, during a sudden rainstorm, we buy umbrellas from street vendors, perhaps only to arrive at the destination, often forgetting about them or breaking them almost immediately.

Speaking of umbrellas, the U211 project by the Pocodisegno studio is very interesting. They have designed a durable umbrella with metal joints that can finally be repaired.

Beach slippers, often made of plastic or natural materials, can be considered exemplary to evoke all those objects, clothes and utensils that gravitate around the temporariness of seaside life, typical of holidays. Flip-flops are often considered and purchased as seasonal footwear, thus becoming ‘limited-use objects’; In fact, once the holiday is over, they are often thrown in the bin directly at the holiday resort: this can also happen to beach umbrellas, buckets, and shovels. Such objects are becoming real ‘disposables’ almost like a tube of toothpaste; probably the low cost, poor quality and laziness – typical of the consumerist, superficial and indifferent to the environment – lead to disposing of them just so as not to have to take them back home. Rubbish bins and, unfortunately, also seas and beaches, are invaded by objects of this kind, abandoned more or less unconsciously.

Household hairdryers are another object that – in the event of accidental breakage or malfunction – are not worth trying to fix; often these objects cannot even be disassembled, so they do not allow the user to identify the source of the problem. In some cases, they feature a joint that makes them foldable, in order to save space, but this choice increases the chances of breakage. Enzo Mari’s idea of putting ‘the user at the centre’ still seems difficult to apply: low price, poor user manuals, and lack of time all work against this idea; the long-awaited repair manuals are unfortunately difficult to decipher. It thus becomes normal to think of the (low-cost) hairdryer as an object to be consumed and thrown away: it may represent all appliances that cannot be disassembled or are not worth fixing. Higher quality hairdryers offer spare parts for repair, but then one has to consider the cost of the technical intervention and assess its actual cost-effectiveness.

The smartphone is now an object that many people, of various ages, can no longer give up, and have become addicted to. Many people are accustomed to replacing it too quickly, lured by the mirage of ever-higher performance, leading to chronic premature obsolescence. Recently, fortunately, we are hearing more and more about the process of refurbishing smartphones. Even if the user is still unable to fix the phone on their own, there are centres where used phones are subjected – before being put back on the market – to functional checks and the replacement of small components, in order to restore their original quality. In this way, many smartphones can be given a second life and sold at a lower price without prematurely clogging up landfills. Unfortunately, however, refurbishing only really concerns some mid-to-high-priced products because cheap smartphones are limited-use objects, despite the new European directives on the subject.

The Rompitratta project is a light switch consisting of two moulded shells made of hardening plastic. It was designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1968 for the company VLM and represents an authentic eulogy to reparability. I believe that this example of ‘anonymous designer’ product shows how possible and necessary it is for the designer and the company to create objects capable of surprising for their immediacy of use, poetry and longevity: the possibility of opening this small switch by removing two screws has allowed entire generations of ‘anonymous buyers’ to fix small inconveniences resulting from prolonged use over the years by themselves. More and more often, however, we are forced to fiddle with plugs and switches that cannot be inspected for faults, with the consequent inability to work out what is really wrong... at best, we end up replacing the whole wiring.

Bruno Munari and his quote “nothing goes out of fashion like fashion” anticipates many themes related to the logic of contemporary consumption. The obsolescence of clothing is favoured by the very concept of fashion, as a fast-changing trend, and by clothes of ever poorer quality offered at ever-lower prices. Nowadays, it may happen to buy a t-shirt, for example, only for one season, or even for a particular occasion, and then throw it out: the markedly reduced prices implement, especially among teenagers, such limited-use garments. Fast fashion is sometimes seen as a way of democratising fashion, allowing everyone to dress according to the latest trends – assuming this is necessary; however, it has numerous negative aspects, such as the pollution (from the production process and from the continuous generation of waste) and the exploitation of labour, especially child labour, to guarantee lower prices.