Anyone who is supporting elderly people knows that they require special equipment (wheelchair, patient bed, oxygen generator…) on their final days. The usable days of such equipment is unknown. Therefore, people usually do not want to buy very expensive models and opt for cheap ones. Most of these cheap products are not serviceable and cannot be used by more than one person due to their poor quality. This leads to more landfill.
My proposition for developed nations, especially for Europe, is to design and standardized such devices. The objective is to make these equipment 100% serviceable and modular with standardized dimensions and connections. Once such products are produced, they would be rented to individuals. The users would make payments as long as they keep using them. Some or all of this rent cost can be compensated by the social system of the country or the insurance firms. When the user stops using the equipment, it would be renovated at a servicing center. In order to reduce the waste generated during the renovation, appropriate materials should be selected in the design.
Once such system is formed, the people who requires such equipment would benefit the most while they would be using higher quality products at a reasonable cost and don’t need to consider the aftermath when they no longer require them. Additionally, much less waste would be generated over the years which also lowers the energy requirement to manufacture them.
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