OUR WORST OF THE WORST: Time magazine’s list of its 50 worst inventions has been updated often in the past quarter-century. But many of these have stood the test of, uh, time.

Inventors Digest is taking a shot at whittling down those 50 to 10 (in no particular order), with a final entry that is not on Time’s list:

Agent Orange. Bad war (redundant, we know), bad idea for this potent herbicide used during the Vietnam War for cutting through Vietnam’s thick foliage to reveal enemy troops. The exposure caused deadly cancers, and hundreds of thousands of injuries and birth defects to Vietnamese people.

Tanning beds. About 90 percent of skin cancer incidents are the direct result of UV radiation—so somebody decided to invent a machine that smothered the human body with said radiation and introduce it to the American public in the 1970s. Stunningly, these are still popular at many U.S. gyms and “health clubs” with commercials that show you the wrong way to do a crunch.

Pop-up ads. A proven revenue generator for websites around the world, companies using them have little concern about annoying people. Time reports that hundreds of angry Facebook groups (redundant, we know) have been created to blast these things.

Plastic grocery bags. Saved millions of trees; still causing incalculable damage to the environment and oceans. A study announced last year revealed that a plastic bag like the kind from grocery stores is now the deepest known piece of plastic trash—found at a depth of 36,000 feet inside the Mariana Trench, a remote location in the Pacific Ocean. Single-use plastics can take hundreds of years to break down in the wild.

Ford Pinto. Worst car of all time? Ford managed to one-up itself after the disastrous Edsel by making this early-Seventies bomb on wheels that was found to be prone to explosions in rear-end collisions. Maybe even worse was when the company’s internal “Pinto Memo” was revealed, suggesting it would be cheaper to pay settlements to victims than fix the problem.

Parachute jacket. This idea, an entry in Inventors Digest’s May 2026 “What Do You Know” quiz, would be laughable if not for its inevitable result. Designed in 1912 by inventor Franz Reichelt, it did not deploy during his fatal jump from the Eiffel Tower.

Asbestos. Many would be surprised that this versatile mineral fiber is not a product of modern American innovation but one that dates back thousands of years. Inhaling the toxic particles during remodeling or demolition was eventually found to cause a range of breathing and health issues, from chest pain to clubbing of fingers. Asbestos has largely been phased out in America but still exists in some industrial applications and older materials.

Phone Fingers. An Austrian company with nothing better to do figured people willing to spend $1,000 or more on an iPhone would also pay to wear latex finger condoms so they don’t leave pesky fingerprints on the screen. Sounds logical—except it can be a challenge to get the things off your fingers. The pretty designer colors apparently were not enough.

DDT. “Hey, farmer, farmer—put away the DDT. Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees. Please!” Joni Mitchell’s plea in her 1970 hit “Big Yellow Taxi” was heeded by the U.S. government two years later, when it banned the pesticide compound discovered in 1873 that caused fertility and neurological problems in humans and also poisoned birds.

Push-button cars. “An easier way to start your car than turning your wrist with a key ignition!” automakers claimed. (Still trying to figure that one out.) “No more frantically looking around for your car keys!” (Uh, so now you can frantically look around for your car fob.) “The paired fob makes it harder to steal your car!” (Nope; as ID’s March 2024 cover story explained, hackers are always ahead of the game there.) It’s all about as logical as—well, as logical as starting a car with your foot on the brake pedal.

What is your choice for worst invention(s)? Drop us a comment below to keep the conversation going.