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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

#151

This is a very nice move to see. Other people have discussed washing machines below, but there's even more to say on them. Washing machines used to have long warranty periods. Nowadays they tend to be sold with a 2 year warranty, which I believe in the EU is the required minimum. And these manufacturers (Bosch, for example) even have the gall to claim that their products are high quality and that this warranty period…

Buy MIELE, those survive for decades.

Probably the least worst option unless you want to buy (very expensive) commercial/industrial models.

The main downside to Miele that I'm aware of is that unlike other manufacturers they monopolise repairs, i.e. only Miele repairmen can repair Miele machines, AFAIK.

Also while Miele machines are better built they still use short warranties. Here Miele claims to test their machines to 20 years equivalent use: http://www.miele.co.uk/domestic/washing-machines-1566.htm?ma...

Yet they still only offer 2 years warranty as standard. IIRC they occasionally offer free 10 year warranties for brief periods for promotional purposes. So they sometimes put their money where their mouth is, but only occasionally.

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

#152
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pessimistic too. However, the labour cost is so huge that it will offset some of your points and only give a slight edge to repair and second hand shops. If you don't have a top of the range, almost new fridge or TV, even phone, repair will almost always come close to replacement cost. And replacement give you back a 2 years guarantee with faster turnaround.

Right, but the point of this legislation is to adjust the incentives so that repair becomes possible/economical in a greater number of cases.

Aren't we about to be abounding with mechanical inclined labor? Like aren't all truck drivers and car drivers about to be automated?

This seems like a nobrainer.

Relocating that labor surplus towards supporting a repairable mechanical/technological industry and commercial future seems really plausible.

That sounds like a decent job, troubleshooting and repairing the machines, designing machines to be repaired. Better than driving trucks.

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

#154

This is a very nice move to see. Other people have discussed washing machines below, but there's even more to say on them. Washing machines used to have long warranty periods. Nowadays they tend to be sold with a 2 year warranty, which I believe in the EU is the required minimum. And these manufacturers (Bosch, for example) even have the gall to claim that their products are high quality and that this warranty period…

>just to get one which will rinse properly Much easier to do what I do - run the rinse cycle a 2nd time.

It might be better to run a wash cycle with an empty detergent drawer. Repeating the same rinse cycle with inadequate water won't necessarily help. (Though it wouldn't surprise me if the standalone 'rinse' programme used more water than rinsing as part of a wash programme...)

Supposedly the 'extra rinse' or 'rinse plus' buttons which you see on washing machines only started appearing at the same time they stopped rinsing properly, which is pretty telling.

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

#155
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is great. The problems will be with the implementation, how it will change incentives, any loopholes introduced, cost of enforcement and unintended consequences. 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…

A alternative approach could be taxing garbage. Perhaps inevitable once sensors become pervasive and cheap enough. Too some extent this is already done and enforced for disposing of blatantly dangerous things. In some cases you could end up in prison in addition to fines, if caught. The more subtle things that add up to a big problem have been given a lot of leeway. Right now it is profitable for many parties to extr…

Currently companies externalize the cost of disposing their products. You and I having to pay a bigger garbage bill is not going to change the behavior of the companies making all of this trash. If it were possible to query everything that went into a landfill, and bill the entire value chain proportionally for its disposal cost, THEN we might start to have a fair system and see changes. Current incentives are to produce the cheapest thing that will barely work for long enough that someone will buy it.

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

#157
post #119
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 meta…

What if it's actually tremendously efficient to do it this way, in a way that is not inutitive to the layperson? There are many many other uses for oil and polymer and shipping capacity, and the plastic cutlery industry can leverage these incredible economies of scale.

A problem I have with systems of such complexity is that it feels basically unknowable whether or not this is true. It totally may be. On the otherhand, it might just be that we're basically subsidizing an incredibly expansive practice by creating enormous and complex upstream costs that we ignore in our current accounting.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-petroleum based plastics are a thing, but lag behind in many areas like strength, injection molding quality, UV resistance etc. Recently Lego decided on moving to plant-based plastics, but they expect to need more than a decade of R&D by a team of 100 people, costing $150 million, before these materials are up to Lego's quality standards. http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i26/Lego-Replace-Oil-Based-Pl...

If they can figure out how to make the stuff out of bamboo, then we have ourselves a carbon sequestration method. No more global warming.

Bamboo is made of cellulose, which is not what you would want to use for making plastics.

The problem with cellulose is that, because it is fibrous, there aren't really any efficient ways of breaking it down.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I did some math on that too but it's a bit more complicated than that. First of all, I don't trust a new fridge these days to last 10 years but I can easily see this one purring for another 20 with minor repairs. Secondly, this is a combo fridge+freezer unit, with 2 compressors. New ones only seem to have one compressor, which makes them somewhat more efficient but if it dies, both my freezer and fridge die with…

Perhaps.. but lets say in 10 years efficiency goes up another 30%. So yes even if your current fridge COULD last 20 more years, with efficiency gains the best thing for the environment COULD be to melt it down for scrap and get a newer model. To me this is the really interesting part in all of this. If there was no efficiency gains generation to generation.. say a piece of clothing.. seems pretty obvious to make slig…

On the other hand, clean energy is getting cheaper and more widespread globally so power efficiency probably matters less for electric appliances. At the same time, I'm not sure how efficiently humanity is dealing with waste and if we can expect any significant improvement any time soon.

But yeah, it's definitely an interesting balance to think about.

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

#160

This is a very nice move to see. Other people have discussed washing machines below, but there's even more to say on them. Washing machines used to have long warranty periods. Nowadays they tend to be sold with a 2 year warranty, which I believe in the EU is the required minimum. And these manufacturers (Bosch, for example) even have the gall to claim that their products are high quality and that this warranty period…

I am only aware of one brand of washing machine that explicitly claims to be designed to be repairable by the end-user--Staber. I have never actually owned or used one before, so I'm not sure how fit for purpose it may be otherwise.

I have successfully repaired other brands of washing machine, dryer, and refrigerator, though. It isn't that difficult, but obtaining the replacement parts is absolutely ridiculous. The first-party site for ordering replacement parts often charges 50-80% of the MSRP of a complete new appliance for just one replacement part.

If any country wanted to encourage repair over replacement, tax incentives are probably not the best way to do it. Publish national standards for appliance form factors, such as case dimensions, screw hole placement, subassembly dimensions, connectors, drive belts, elastic ring sizes, etc. Then phase in requirements that all new appliances must conform to the standard by 20xx.

If all washing machines conform to standard WM-S, WM-M, WM-L, WM-I, or WM-X, and those standards only have three different sizes of drive motor and one kind of power connector and one control connector, then manufacturing third-party replacement motors becomes more economically possible than the current situation, where a Brand X replacement motor might not even fit correctly in two different Brand X models.

The chassis, outer panels, and drum of a washing machine just don't really need to be replaced, unless the paint chips and they rust out. Bearings, seals, motors, belts, control electronics, and knobs, on the other hand, those wear out.

Perhaps I have just been spoiled by ATX standards for computer parts, and connector standards for ISA, PCI, AGP, PCIe, ATA, SATA, SCSI, M.2, and USB. All those standards mean that third-party manufacturers don't have to maintain separate silos for Apple, Dell, HP, Compaq, Tandy, Amstrad, etc. The third-party motherboard manufacturers can just conform to Intel + ATX to sell a product, and maybe also micro-ATX and mini-ITX to cater to small-system builders. It is not difficult at all to assemble a working computer where the CPU + chipset, motherboard, case, power supply, system memory, SSD, hard drive, removable disk drive, graphics card, monitor(s), keyboard, mouse, speakers, wi-fi, and Bluetooth are all made by different companies.

But if you try to replace a single-phase AC 120V 60Hz 5A 0.5hp motor in an appliance with another of a different brand with exactly the same power rating, it probably won't work. The taxes are not the problem--it's getting the parts. As long as the only reliable source of usable replacement parts is the original manufacturer, of course repairing won't be viable. They would much rather sell you an entirely new product!

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