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Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

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Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#61

Post by juliango »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #5

What we really need is financial penalties on companies that make stuff deliberately hard to repair. Set up a department of the Consumer Rights Bureau (or whatever it's called) where people can report devices the've been unable to fix due to deliberate obfuscation/etc., and that forces manufacturers to refund the consumer the entire purchase sum of that device no matter how old it is. Anecdote: my washing machine rec…

France recently passed a law that makes it illegal for companies to take deliberate steps to reduce the shelf life of a product in order to increase its replacement rate. Of course in practice it will be difficult to prove, but still having a law is a good start.

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#62

Post by ab5tract »

Correct me if I am wrong, but under ISDS rules (a la TPP/TTIP), companies could now sue Sweden for potential lost profits as a result of this legislation, right? (Assuming Sweden is signed onto an ISDS treaty, which it probably is not).

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#63

Post by jamesblonde »

moogly wrote: post #60
jamesblonde wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's from the 1920s when the social democrats convinced the working person to ditch religion for a more 'rational' form of politics. Despite the other negative comments (nobody thinks their govt is doing good), politicans are held to account and policy is primarily driven by rational debate. For example, there was a strong rumour that a recent prime minister (Goran Persson) was religious. Being religious would obviou…

Not a rumour. When asked what profession he would have had he not gone into politics, he answered "priest".

That's true. Just proves the point that it was controversial that somebody with religious tendencies has the lever of power. I should also add Swedish newspapers are somewhat more responsible/rational than Anglo Saxon newspapers (Expressen/Aftonbladet excluded, of course). DN, DI, Dagbladet are all pretty fair to the 'other side'.

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#64

Post by kaybe »

gmac wrote: post #34
gambiting wrote: post #28

The only problem with repairing devices is labour cost, nothing else. I've had a broken subwoofer that I took to a small electronics shop(in UK), and was quoted 60 pounds to even have it looked at. Not repaired - looked at. The subwoofer cost me 80 pounds on ebay. So predictably, it went straight to the bin. Same with washing machines, dryers, etc - I bought a Hotpoint washing machine for 220 pounds, but a standard c…

On your subwoofer, you can try listing that kind of thing on Freecycle/Freegle. Commonly someone technically competetent will pick it up to see if they can fix it.

Some cities also have repair cafes, where skilled idealistic people hang out with tools and help you try to fix it yourself.

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#65

Post by afsina »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #5

What we really need is financial penalties on companies that make stuff deliberately hard to repair. Set up a department of the Consumer Rights Bureau (or whatever it's called) where people can report devices the've been unable to fix due to deliberate obfuscation/etc., and that forces manufacturers to refund the consumer the entire purchase sum of that device no matter how old it is. Anecdote: my washing machine rec…

No. Just do not buy stuff from companies that make hard to repair goods. Or make campaigns about it.

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#66

Post by pyvpx »

pingec wrote: post #46
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #5

What we really need is financial penalties on companies that make stuff deliberately hard to repair. Set up a department of the Consumer Rights Bureau (or whatever it's called) where people can report devices the've been unable to fix due to deliberate obfuscation/etc., and that forces manufacturers to refund the consumer the entire purchase sum of that device no matter how old it is. Anecdote: my washing machine rec…

I inherited a 35 years old washing machine, it is used about once a week. Every 10 years the bearing needs replacing and I had to replace the water pump one time. Still going strong... That's about 20€ in spare parts every 10 years. The savings in electricity and water with a new machine are tiny compared to savings by not having to buy a new machine in the first place and then replace it every 5 years...

are they, though? I have an older (less than 10 year old) Panasonic washing machine and if the ratings of newer machines are to be believed, when comparing with the dedicated water meter I have connected to the current one, a new one might pay for itself in water savings in about 4 years.

I'm just not sure I believe the newer models ratings. mine is much more efficient in water use on paper than what the water meter clearly states.

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#67

Post by Teever »

yodsanklai wrote: post #56
tmptmp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>And the failure mode either sounds dramatic (like a jet engine coming apart in the spin cycle) and/or the machine starts putting brown grease onto the clothes, making people believe the problem is not a simple one. Great insight. I wonder how far we (as in general society) have come from the science/technology aspects of our day to day life. Even repairing simple machines like a washing machine is almost beyond the…

It's not only a matter of ability, but also of opportunity cost. For instance, when I was a teenager, I always fixed my bicycle by myself. Nowadays, I guess I could do it if I had too, but I prefer to pay $50 and have somebody else do it for me. Same goes for washing machines or similar appliance, I'm sure many people could manage to fix them by themselves by spending enough time, but is it worth it?

I agree but I think it is worth considering what the opportunity cost of letting those skills atrophy.

Can you still fix your bicycle? Like if you had no money or were stuck somewhere distant could you still do it?

Is it just because you're older now and have income that you pay someone to do it or is it something society in general does? Do children's parents just get someone to fix their bike or throw it away and get a new one?

What does it cost us as a society when a generation loses those skills?

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#69

Post by dTal »

gambiting wrote: post #28

The only problem with repairing devices is labour cost, nothing else. I've had a broken subwoofer that I took to a small electronics shop(in UK), and was quoted 60 pounds to even have it looked at. Not repaired - looked at. The subwoofer cost me 80 pounds on ebay. So predictably, it went straight to the bin. Same with washing machines, dryers, etc - I bought a Hotpoint washing machine for 220 pounds, but a standard c…

Part of the problem is globalisation. Things are made in places with cheap labour, and sold in places with expensive labour.

But it seems to me like the problem is equally that new goods are too cheap, rendering labour unable to compete.

There are many externalised costs to a new product not reflected in the price (or we wouldn't even be having this discussion) - the environmental cost of manufacture, the environmental cost of disposing of the thing it replaced, the raw materials we unsustainably mined.

Fixing this directly is politically untenable because we'd have to drastically raise the price of everything. This Swedish tax break scheme is actually sort of an underhanded way of doing just that - to compensate for the lost revenue other taxes will go up (or the currency will inflate - either way everything costs more).

Re: Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff

#70

Post by qubex »

userbinator wrote: post #40
J-dawg wrote: post #6

This idea seems so sensible it's a no-brainer. (I'm almost dreading the comments explaining why I'm wrong!) The human race is producing unprecedented quantities of non-recyclable "stuff". It's pumped out of the ground as oil, converted into plastics, and after a short life, buried in the ground again. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if much of it didn't also end up floating in the ocean, being eaten by animals and cont…

It's pumped out of the ground as oil, converted into plastics, and after a short life, buried in the ground again. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if much of it didn't also end up floating in the ocean, being eaten by animals and contaminating the human food chain. What I think is most sad about this is that we've come up with a material that can last nearly forever and is relatively easy to reuse and recycle (at least…

There's something profoundly wrong when it makes sense to us to extract oil from the ground in the Middle East, ship it to India, convert it into polymer, ship it to China, mould it into knives and forks, ship it to the West, use it once, and then bury it forever underground (or expend energy to smelt it down into lower grade polymer for use in something that will end up in the ground), all to avoid rinsing some metallic cutlery.
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