Planned obsolescence is a seemingly inescapable facet of life under American capitalism. Ever since light bulb manufacturers first conspired to limit their products’ lifespan, we’ve been buying products designed to have limited lifespans and, for the most part, eating it up. Never before, however, have we seen such a fast turnover rate of high-tech consumer goods, many of which are still perfectly functional and only made “obsolete” by artificial standards – standards that serve only to improve already bloated corporate bottom lines. The negative impact this aspect of our culture has on our wallets is matched only by the murderous effect it has on the planet’s ecology: electronic waste is one of the fastest-growing and least easily recycled forms of waste, and the resource-intensive strip-mining of increasingly scarce rare-earth minerals in far-off locations is exacting a devastating toll on far-flung locations around the world. Add to this equation the enormous amount of petroleum, coal, and heavy metals used directly and indirectly in the production of these largely unnecessary goods, and the trend toward greater and greater consumption of the latest high-tech gadgets is an ominous sign for our planet’s future.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way – alternatives that are much better for the environment and your bottom line are readily available.

Before you buy that new phone or tablet, do a little research online to see if the differences between it and your current model are really worth shelling out for. If you decide you just can’t live without it, consider buying one secondhand via eBay or craigslist, and be sure to sell your old one rather than trashing it as well, as yesterday’s technology to the gadget-conscious is almost certainly an upgrade for someone else.

Laptop computers have also become an increasingly disposable high-tech status symbol in recent years; as such, much of the above advice applies. Yesteryear’s notebooks often don’t differ appreciably from today’s models for the average user, and can be had for a fraction of the price. In addition, the plummeting price of RAM and hard disk upgrades means that a notebook a year or two old can often be made superior to a current model for half the price or less. Again, craigslist and eBay are your best friends when trying to get the best bang for your high-tech buck and save the planet in the process.

Another resource that is invaluable to those looking to extend the lifespan of aging computers is the burgeoning open-source software movement. While the monsters of the industry like Apple and Microsoft are constantly pressuring consumers to buy unnecessary, wasteful new hardware to run their unnecessary, wasteful new software, an alternative to this proprietary, money- and resource- devouring system has emerged: open-source software. Created and distributed free of charge and without copyright, open-source operating systems (such as Ubuntu and other “flavors” of Linux and freeBSD) offer a way to escape the Windows-Mac upgrade treadmill. Any computer made in the last 15 years or so can run Linux quite well and be used for anything that 95% of PC users could ever want to do. While barriers to entry were once quite high, the usability of Linux-based operating systems has increased dramatically in the last few years to the point that most anyone with a basic degree of computer literacy can use Linux to make their old systems feel, often, faster than they were when brand new. In fact, this very blog post was typed on a decade-old IBM Thinkpad running Ubuntu Linux. The computer cost me $90 on eBay, all the software on it was free, and I would venture a guess that it performs better than 90% of the machines this article is being read on right now. Truly a win-win.

The culture of planned obsolescence is one of the great threats to our environment today, and one that is continuing to grow at an alarming rate. Thankfully, with a little self-control, a bit of ingenuity, and a few hours’ research, it is both possible and profitable to break free of this destructive treadmill. You go out of your way to live sustainably in other areas of your life – using CFL or LED light bulbs, recycling, composting, perhaps even buying green power – why not compute sustainably as well?