Another thing to consider : more and more single-use items also have processors and electronics in them. At what point will disposable electronics have more processing power than, say, the Apollo flight computer?
A couple of examples that I've noticed :
There's a sports good store near here where they attach some form of RFID tag to each item (including individual protein bars), to automate the scanning. That means these are RFID tags intended to be scanned exactly once.
There's also the case of "digital" pregnancy tests, which consist of a regular paper pregnancy test, a processor to read out the results, and an e-ink display to show the results. All of this is included in the single-use disposable predictor stick.
Those RFIDs make it possible to not just scan them when the article gets bought, but also to very easily scan the inventory of the whole store by just walking through the store with a scanner.
Just as useful, although currently still more likely to be done with barcode scanners is to identify the products in the logistics chain. Right now you need scanning ports with at least 4 cameras/scanners or humans manually scanning each barcode, with RFIDs the port would be simplified further.
I still agree that it's amazing that our society can make functional structures with feature sizes in the nm/µm ranges so cheaply that we can afford to throw them away.
A couple of examples that I've noticed :
There's a sports good store near here where they attach some form of RFID tag to each item (including individual protein bars), to automate the scanning. That means these are RFID tags intended to be scanned exactly once.
There's also the case of "digital" pregnancy tests, which consist of a regular paper pregnancy test, a processor to read out the results, and an e-ink display to show the results. All of this is included in the single-use disposable predictor stick.