People involved in industry, design, environmentalism, and related fields often refer to a product's "life cycle". Of course, very few products are actually living, but in a sense we project our vitality-- and our mortality-- onto them. They are something like family members to us. We want them to live with us, to belong to us. In Western society, people have graves, and so do products. We enjoy the idea of ourselves as powerful, unique individuals; and we like to buy things that are brand-new, made of materials that are "virgin". Opening a new product is a kind of metaphorical defloration: "This virgin product is mine, for the very first time. When I am finished with it (special, unique person that I am), everyone is. It is history." Industries design and plan according to this mind-set.
We recognize and understand the value of feeling special, even unique. But with materials, it makes sense to celebrates the sameness and commonality that permit us to enjoy them-- in special, even unique, products-- more than once. What would have happened, we sometimes wonder, if the Industrial Revolution had taken place in societies that emphasize the community over the individual, and where people believed not in a cradle-to-grave life cycle but in reincarnation?