91–100 of 336 posts
I was happy to see that the author did pause to note the irony of this policy being implemented by the same country that brought the world IKEA.
I fail to understand why Scandinavian politics always manage to make sense. Is that cultural, historical, economical, or does the tough climate force people to think a little bit more about how they manage their society?
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).
That does not mean an investor has any chance of winning in this instance under a hypothetical TTIP suit. TTIP includes a provision protecting regulations enacted for public good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm in two minds about biodegradable plastics. Where I'm from, plastic bags are no longer the norm for supermarkets to pack groceries in, and so most people carry their own re-usable bags to the store, or get goods packed in biodegradable plastics. While this is anecdotal, it is common amongst my peers for the biodegradable bags to be used as general household garbage bags. I think this feels much better than using t…
This used to be the case here as well (Slovenia), until supermarkets started introducing the self-service check-out machines. Those can't be used with re-usable bags (or sometimes can be, but with significant annoyance to everyone present, since an employee must manually check your bag).
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…
On the other hand, I've repaired my Bosch washing machine twice in the last year. Once to replace the pump (somehow it ate a pair of tweezers - still not sure how!), and once when one of the mounting brackets for the main drum suspension springs failed. Both were remarkably easy repairs, though the design of the mounting bracket seemed like it was designed to eventually fail after a certain amount of use (or perhaps…
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…
It's not "only" to screw consumers over. IMEstimation, vanishingly few consumers would repair a washer with a bearing failure, most because they assume the service call and repair would be $400+ and the new machine only about double that, so might as well just buy a new one. 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 on…
Whilst the first consumer saves €20, or whatever, the item can't be repaired by an onward buyer either making its second-hand cost approach zero. They save €20 off the purchase and lose €100 of the sale at the end of their ownership.
Moreover the societal cost is vastly increased as the machine gets dumped (or possibly stripped for reusable parts but less likely as there are fewer machines that are repairable; maybe parts will be recycled for the metal).
Also as there's no second-hand market pressure to reduce prices is removed. Good news for launderettes! Meaning the original saving probably just gets shifted in to profits for the company owners.
Probably if the seal and washer are a common failure mode then the company need to spend a few more pence on the washer or accurately torquing the screws -- there's a good chance this fault mode has been designed in. IME of trawling for second-hand machines bearings are a more common failure (machine overloading?). The most common appear to be "computers" and other control modules; then it seems to be pumps and motors (eg brushes).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Funny story about new "more efficient" machines... a neighbor bought a new BEKO machine (before that she had a CANDY I think). She says the new machine uses so little water you cannot even see the actual water inside. All you see is soaked clothes.
She says that the results are worse compared to the old CANDY and that the clothes get damaged more easily.
Due to EU regulations there is no more "add extra water" feature like in older machines.
So what she does is she waits for the machine to pump water inside then she pours 6L of water through the detergent dispenser. Now that's progress :)
Back in the bad old days people used refrigerants such as HCFCs that were bad for the ozone layer. Now they use straight HFCs (no chlorine) but those are potent global warming gases. At some point there is going to a push to replace those with fluoroketones.
So repairing old air conditioners, refrigerators and such may not be such a great idea.
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…
What exactly is a repair? Are parts covered, or only labour? Think ship of Theseus. Is an upgrade a repair, can I put a better compressor, rather than like-for-like in my refrigerator when it's failed? Can I have my TV repaired by replacing all the parts, except the power cord? How broken must something be before it can be repaired? Totally failed, failure imminent, or just worn? (Unintended consequence: people have their things fixed long before it's strictly necessary, leading to greater waste than if they'd just let the thing fail and bought a new one. Another one: appliances are only upgraded to newer, much more energy efficient ones much later than otherwise).
And for labour, where is the line drawn? Is the labour cost of diagnosing a problem covered? What if the problem is bigger than expected, and it isn't economical to carry out the repair? What if I have you upgrade the Foo (not a repair), which is trivial, while you've taken the widget apart anyway to fix the Bar (a repair)? What about repairing something, pocketing the tax break, then selling it (perhaps outside of the country)?
Once you have considered all of these questions, you either have a lot of loopholes which will make the tax break much more expensive, or have a very long body of legal texts, and some very exited lawyers and auditors which will impose an indirect cost on society broadly.
Sure, it's pessimistic, but I'm essentially working backwards from an attempt to impose a tax on dietary fat (for health reasons) in Denmark. Sounds great, right? Hilarity ensued over mixed nuts (the accountants had a field day with that one, and IIRC all kinds of meat being taxed at the same level, and the tax was repealed after only 15 months.
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…
That is utterly infuriating. Stuff like this really shakes my faith in capitalism. To think that someone in charge at Bosch has actively decided to 1. Screw over the customer 2. Impose a massive external cost on society and the ecosystem. I honestly wonder how they sleep at night. The market clearly can't fix this issue, so regulation must be the only option.
> 1. Screw over the customer 2. Impose a massive external cost on society and the ecosystem.
Those are both tremendously effective ways of making money in a capitalist system. That's why so much is spent on lobbying against regulation.