What a 44 Year-Old Toaster Can Teach Us About Sustainable Design

9 by Timothy Hurst on October 20, 2009

toaster_top

How $2 bought me one of the best appliances I own

I like my toast. I'm one of those people that believes bread simply tastes and performs a better when thoroughly warmed and a little crispy on the outside. So you can imagine my consternation when my toaster recently stopped working. It's not that the toaster stopped toasting, but rather by not automatically popping the bread up at the end of the toasting cycle, the problem was actually that it wouldn't stop toasting.

Now this was no special toaster for which I had some personal affinity. It was a nondescript white toaster that I picked up at a thrift store a few years ago to replace another nondescript toaster that had also stopped working some time before that. And I probably would have bought another mediocre and nondescript toaster at the thrift store had my girlfriend not found me a beautiful chromed-out two-slotter at a yard sale one Saturday morning.

The toaster looked to be relatively new and in good condition. As soon as I laid my eyes and my hands on it, I knew it wasn't just any toaster, it was an heirloom, or at the very least it was designed like one and it quite literally had a story to tell. Tied to the toaster with a piece of twine was a handwritten note that read:

THIS TOASTER WAS A WEDDING GIFT IN 1965. (44 YEARS!) IT HAS BEEN USED DAILY SINCE THEN. IT STILL HAS A LOT OF USE LEFT IN IT. MAKE US AN OFFER!

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A toaster that I had thought was maybe 4 or 5 years old was actually ten times that. And the 44 year-old chrome-wrapped "Coronado" has taken its place on my kitchen counter as one of the nicest small appliances I own.

The "Coronado" was made in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Gamble-Skogmo, Inc., a now-divested conglomeration of hardware, automotive and miscellaneous retail chains that once numbered nearly five thousand stores at its peak in the middle to late twentieth century.

As far as toasters go, it has everything I need: two slots, automatic pop-up and a light-dark control lever. There is an additional control on the bottom of the toaster for finer tuning should the toaster seem to lose strength over time. But the point is not that this thing is all tricked out with all kinds of bells and whistles, in fact, it's quite the opposite.

toaster-and-note

They do make 'em like they used to, it just costs more

The point is that this toaster served toast daily for 44 years—and to possibly three or even four generations of this family—and the only repair it ever needed was a new plug because of the wear and tear put on it from being unplugged after every use.

But the Coronado is not likely representative of the majority of toasters and other small appliances purchased or tossed into American landfills every year. toaster_underside_blurry

It is not that you can't find a toaster that lasts 44 years any more, you just can't afford one. Toasters are not designed to last a long time; they are essentially made to be replaced. Inventor Saul Griffith recently challenged designers to help change that by designing "heirloom products" and fostering a culture of maintenance and repair among designers and the general public.

One need only look to the classic and timeless designs of the Vespa scooter and the Kitchenaid 4-1/2 quart stand mixer to see that there are certainly successful examples of heirloom design available on today's market. While the cost of these products have generally gone up, the price of cheap imitations have gone down.

Cheapness has become valued over quality because it has gotten so easy to make things and throw them away. The problem, simply put, is that manufacturers are not paying the full cost of production and consumers are not paying the full cost of disposal. And until those externalities are folded into the cost of doing business, things won't change a whole lot.

Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying my 44 year-old toaster made by an obscure and now defunct mid-western hardware and retail conglomerate and the perfectly-browned toast it produces, always keeping an eye out for that next hidden heirloom.

eric

Nice toaster! Love the look, but I’m not a fan of single purpose equipment given a chance.

A nice little toaster oven would replace your toaster and allow you to make small cakes (9″x9″ pan), heat up all sorts of things (chicken fingers for the kids) and even make toast.

Either way, nice to know this beauty didn’t end up in some landfill.

Doug

You feed your kids chicken fingers, maybe that’s part of the problem.

http://dvortygirl.blogspot.com/ Dvortygirl

I think the corollary here is that products need to be designed to be able to be repaired and maintained, and to be worth repairing, and people need to think in terms of repairing objects before dumping them.

If that second-to-last toaster were worth repairing, you could probably have repaired it. Most toasters have a simple bimetallic strip that acts as a thermostat. When it gets to a certain temperature, the strip bends and makes electrical contact with the thing that lets your toast pop up. A repair would be either a matter of replacing a damaged part of that mechanism or popping it back into place.

For all that to happen, the lid needs to come off without voiding the warranty or destroying the appliance, and replacement parts need to be available.

When is the last time you cleaned your refrigerator coils or checked your vacuum cleaner bag, roller, and belt? Even if those appliances weren’t built to last 50 years, a bit of simple maintenance will help them last as long as they can and operate at their best efficiency.
http://arcticcirclecartoons.com/blog alex hallatt

I bought a toaster that was at least 50 years old in a second hand shop. It’s a Morphy Richards, made in England, heavyweight beauty. Single function, but it does it well and probably using less electricity than a toaster oven.

The element burned out a couple of years ago. It cost me $25 to fix – more than a new toaster, but less than this toaster originally cost in real terms, no doubt.

Well worth it.
http://Website(optional) -dan z-

“it has everything I need….” Thanks for using proper English rather than the usual “it’s got….”
Uncle B

Many lifetimes ago, I attempted employment at an appliance repairman! We all prospered for a short while than the onslought of chep Japanese products made it cheaper for ourt clients to buy “New” over the cost of a repair! Parts for the impoerts impossible to find, we gave up to go work for “The Man” and forgot independence and its freedoms! The corporatists wone by default, the trade schools stopped teaching “Appliance Repair” and we all got shafted except the scrap metal man for a while then things got so flimsy and plastic, he too suffered and failed! We are gone, historical figures with the egg man, the bread man, the milkman, the iceman, the mailman, then local tailor, the TV and radio repairman, – all gone to the footnotes of the history booke, once considered good jobs! Even telephone operators and secretaries have suffered, as well a local buthcers, gas staition mechanics, and the like! It is a disposable world mow with all profits gone to the corporatists and the old time guilds-man,tradesman the tinkers and tailors bakers and carpenters all died out! Even the Union worker is suffering diminishing ranks as Americas Middle Class is decimated by things modern!

http://greenupgrader.com Matt Embrey

Well said Uncle B. Tehcnology will keep forging on but I’m still optimistic that we’ll be able to shift to an “Heirloom culture” and an investment based economy. We kind of have to. Even if we stop global warming, we are going to run out of natural resources and be drowning in trash if we don’t change our consumption habits.

Anonymus

Using things for a long time and sustainability in general are incompatible with our full blooming corpocracy of today.

Durability is the enemy of demand.

watch the free documentary “the century of the self”
tiley

Old toasters and quality manufacturing can teach us a lot about sustainable design.