Title: WASTE, PROPERTY, AND USELESS THINGS
Domain: Law

Question: Intended to address the social cost issues caused by intentionally useless items (such as electronic waste) resulting from planned obsolescence strategies. Manufacturers profit by designing products with limited lifespan, but externalize costs such as resource waste, environmental pollution, and health risks to society. How to enforce the responsibility of manufacturers for intentionally useless items they create through the principles of property law.

Background: 1.The scale of planned elimination: 60 million tons of electronic waste (e-waste) are generated globally each year, containing $62 billion in scarce metal resources, of which 80% go into landfills or illegal recycling channels, polluting soil and water and endangering health (especially in developing countries). | 2.Manufacturer strategy: Apple and other companies artificially shorten product lifespan through software speed reduction, restricted maintenance, low-quality components, and other means, forcing consumers to make repeat purchases. | 3.Legal status: Consumer protection laws have failed to effectively constrain this behavior; The EU's Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system has not received legislative support in the United States. | 4.Existing theories and practices | (1)Property law theory: Locke's "anti waste principle" (prohibiting intentional destruction of property without use/enjoyment) is considered a core commitment of property law, but it has not been fully applied in the field of waste. | (2)Existing rules: | Adverse possession: Reflecting the principle of anti waste by rewarding those who end resource waste. | (3)Abandonment rule: Prohibit land abandonment (to prevent idle resources), allow movable property abandonment (to promote resource reuse). | (4)Practical limitations: Traditional property rules do not address the responsibility mechanism for product design that embeds waste attributes during manufacturing.

Definitions: 1.Planned Obsolescence: A strategy in which manufacturers intentionally limit the service life of products (such as built-in scrap mechanisms or restricted repairs), forcing consumers to replace them in advance. | 2.The Anti Waste Imperative principle: Locke proposed the core boundary of property rights: ownership does not include the "right of intentional destruction without a purpose of use", and wasteful behavior is the occupation of shared resources. | 3.Defeasible Estate: A conditional form of ownership (such as fee simple determinable) that automatically terminates when a predetermined condition (such as product failure) is triggered. | 4.Reversional Interest: After the termination of property rights, the future rights automatically return to the manufacturer, making the manufacturer legally responsible for the discarded items.

Methodology: 1.Historical research method: Tracing back to legal principles, reinterpreting Locke's property theory, and demonstrating that anti waste is an implicit principle of property law (such as the rule of reverse possession and abandonment, which reflect this logic). | 2.Empirical research method: Case and rule analysis, deconstructing property boundaries in common law (such as Blackstone's misinterpretation of "full ownership" as actually targeting continuous property rights). | 3.Interdisciplinary research method: a comprehensive study of legal phenomena from the perspectives of multiple disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, and economics. Consider planned elimination as a 'property design flaw' and correct social costs through future equity allocation. | 4.Comparative research method: Comparing the regulatory models of Europe and the United States, citing the legislative practice of the European Union in 2013 (pp. 1265), requiring manufacturers to bear the cost of electronic waste recycling (especially for products with a lifespan of less than 5 years), as a reference frame for externalizing responsibility correction. The lack of similar legislation in the United States (pp. 1265) highlights the necessity of common law reform, as consumer protection laws are unable to effectively constrain planned obsolescence. | 5.Case study method: The paper supports specific arguments with key precedents, such as defining the boundaries of property rights through Eyerman v. Mercantile Trust Co. (1975) and others. Analysis of Mahrenholz v. County Board of School Trustees (1981): | Analyzing the Illinois case law's prohibition on the transfer of reverter rights (pp. 1310), providing common law precedent support for the non transferable benefits of manufacturer reversals.

Answer: 1. Theoretical Basis: Modern Interpretation of Locke's Anti Waste Principle | The essence of property rights includes the right to use and the obligation to prohibit waste. The core concept established by Locke in "A Treatise on Government" is that ownership arises from the appreciation of shared resources by labor, but with the boundary of "Nothing was made by God for Man to spot or destroy". Its core consists of two key propositions: | Usage and Consumption Rights: Ownership includes the consumption of resources for the purpose of use (such as consuming apples for nutrition); | Prohibition of pure destruction: Ownership excludes intentional destruction without any purpose of use (such as discarding intact apples to raise market value). | | Planned elimination subverts this ethical framework: manufacturers (M/O) preset "utility termination mechanisms" (such as mobile phone battery life locks) in their products, forcing them to be scrapped in a fully functional state. This behavior belongs to 'intentional destruction without any purpose of use': | Scarce resource encroachment: Rare earth metals (such as cobalt and indium) are permanently wasted due to human induced shortened life cycles; | Externalization of social costs: The ecological toxicity (lead and mercury pollution) of 600000 tons of electronic waste is transferred to the public. | | The Locke principle is manifested in property law as incomplete ownership: intentionally wasteful individuals lose their complete ownership of the abandoned item (fee simple), and can only transfer limited rights with release conditions (defensible estate). | | 2.The intrinsic consistency of property law rules | The principle of anti waste has implicitly permeated the common law rule system, and its logic is reflected in the following paradigms in case law and academic theory: | (1)The Hidden Logic of Adverse Possession | When the original owner leaves the land idle for a long time, it constitutes a waste of resources: | The actual users (such as those who cultivate abandoned farmland) have ended the state of waste; | Legal redistribution of property rights to reward resource saviors (Holmes, The Path of the Law). | Core revelation: Property law prioritizes the protection of "ending waste" behavior rather than rigidly maintaining "exclusive rights". | (2) Abandoning the dual track system of rules | Land cannot be abandoned: permanent resource lock-in due to idle land (such as the Pocono Springs case); | Abandonment of movable property is allowed: Abandonment can promote the circulation and reuse of second-hand goods (such as "free sofas" on the street being used by new owners). | Anti waste kernel: The difference in rules depends on whether it causes permanent resource sinking. | (3) Restrictive Design of Future Rights | The common law restrictions on the transfer of reversals (such as the Illinois ban on reverter transactions) are essentially aimed at preventing resource controllers from evading management responsibilities. | | Conclusion: The existing rules can be uniformly interpreted as a continuous practice of the "anti waste principle", providing legal compatibility for constraining planned elimination. | | 3. Defects in property rights structure caused by planned elimination | The behavior of manufacturers triggers a logical break in property rights: | (1)Design contradiction: | M/O embeds a "utility time bomb" (such as an Apple spin off chip) during production, but claims to transfer full ownership (fee simple). | (2)Legal loopholes: | (2.1)M/O has no right to transfer "items that have been predetermined to be destroyed", as their intentional wasteful behavior has led to self reduction of ownership; | (2.2)Consumers only obtain defensible estates with release conditions: | Validity period: usufructuary rights of functional items (such as mobile phones) → consumer | Failure moment: Legal ownership of toxic waste (physical entity) → M/O (restoration right takes effect) | This defect leads to the externalization of social costs and requires the internalization of responsibility through the restructuring of property rights. | | 4. Institutional Construction: Reversional Interest Model | (1)Core mechanism: automatic return of responsibility | (1.1)Property division design: | M/O can only transfer revocable property rights (such as fee simple determinable), with the precondition of "artificial invalidation of the product"; | When conditions are triggered, property rights automatically revert back to M/O (similar to the reverter rule in Mahrenholz v. County Board). | (1.2)Responsibility binding effect: | Becoming the legal owner: Waste items in consumers' homes/landfills constitute a violation of M/O rights; | Mandatory physical disposal obligation: M/O must recycle or dispose of toxic batteries in a harmless manner (such as dismantling them), otherwise they will bear the responsibility for illegal disposal. | (1.3)Non contractual protection: | The return of benefits is non transferable due to the involvement of public responsibility (environmental pollution) (similar to public trust resources); | The "proxy disposal agreement" between M/O and consumers is only an agency relationship (such as entrusting consumers to discard), but the ultimate responsibility still belongs to M/O. | (2Implementation advantages | (2.1)Precision attribution: product serial numbers can be directly traced back to the manufacturer to avoid ownership ambiguity (such as lawsuits against Apple for infringement in landfills); | (2.2)Cost internalization: M/O bears the actual disposal costs (such as recycling cobalt metal) rather than abstract fines, correcting market distortions; | (2.3)Behavioral incentives: increase the cost of planned elimination (such as estimated $10/unit recycling cost), and force long-term design (following the effect of the French EPR system). | | 5. Theoretical Refutation and Institutional Stability | (1)Question 1: Does it generalize to natural wear and tear products? | (1.1)Intentional element limitation: | The reset right is only triggered when the M/O actively designs a failure mechanism (such as printer chip counting stoppage), and natural material aging (such as plastic embrittlement) is not applicable. | (1.2)Rules of Evidence: | Prove intent through internal documents (such as Apple's "speed gate" email) or industry practices (Phoebus Cartel style confidentiality agreement). | (2)Question 2: Excessive intervention in market freedom? | (2.1)Common law endogeneity: | The system relies on existing property rules (can dissolve property rights+future rights), without creating new rights (vs. EU administrative supervision); | (2.2)The Locke principle proves: | Intentional waste is already the boundary of property rights, and the right of restitution is actually the restoration of the integrity of property rights. | (3)Question 3: Can manufacturers transfer costs? | (3.1)Invalid Consumer Agreement: | M/O is unable to transfer the right of restitution through standard terms (due to the involvement of public interests, similar to the mandatory rule that land cannot be abandoned); | (3.2)Industry chain responsibility: | If component suppliers participate in the design scrapping (such as providing short-lived batteries), they may bear joint liability for infringement. | | conclusion | The institutional model constructed in this article reinterprets the anti waste principle in the genes of property law, transforming Locke ethics into a judicially sound rule tool: | 1.Theoretical basis: Confirming that intentional waste leads to natural loss of ownership, limiting the scope of transferable rights of M/O; | 2.Rule reconstruction: relying on common law property rights division technology (with the ability to terminate property rights and restore rights) to force manufacturers to "reclaim toxic fruits"; | 3.Institutional effectiveness: Achieving precise internalization of social costs through physical liability binding (non fines) while retaining judicial flexibility (such as intentional defenses). | | This framework not only provides a new paradigm for solving the electronic waste crisis, but also inspires the unique potential of property law in regulating negative externalities - replacing "administrative control" with "property design", while respecting market logic and safeguarding the bottom line of resource ethics.

Checklist: 1. Point out the key issue: the anti waste principle of property law prohibits manufacturers from transferring "Fee Simple" ownership to intentionally designed scrapped products. Manufacturers are only allowed to transfer 'Defeasible Estate' and retain 'Reversional Interest'.  
2. Redefine the nature of property rights: Products that intentionally shorten their lifespan have built-in "failure conditions", and manufacturers can only transfer limited term property rights until the product is scrapped.  
3. Establish a responsibility allocation mechanism: Manufacturers are obligated to recycle or dispose of waste products, using product serial numbers as the basis of ownership traceability.  
4. Set up a design to avoid restrictions: Manufacturers cannot transfer ownership through contracts, nor can they legally dispose of waste across jurisdictions.