131–140 of 366 posts
I strongly prefer to repair devices and am reluctant to throw any broken manufactured good out, even when I have poor prospects of repairing them. Instead, I just hold on to them. Phones, stereos, vacuum cleaners, clocks, computers. My shelves are full of broken items, and good intentions, frozen in amber. Why do I think like this? I think it is a psychological condition. It isn't a rational choice. If I apply my edu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there is no light in the fridge (but it still works) I normally find these types of appliances make parts readily available. I just replaced the locking mechanism on my washing machine for example, it was cheap and easy to order the parts I needed.
Sometimes the manufacturer makes it difficult. Replaced the light bulb in my parents' oven last week. The manufacturer only sold the bulb with the entire (expensive) housing as well. A bulb! We managed to find a supplier with a compatible bulb (which meant a quick swap). I'd like to think there was a reason the manufacturer wanted the entire housing replaced?
Products are having shorter lifespans with ever decreasing levels of repairability. Like what others have said here, our expectations have become so low that it is commonly expected that the things we buy will only last a year or two before we end up throwing them away. This can be easily resolved if people simply paid more money for better quality products and brands that ensure repairability and longevity. But, of…
Products are having shorter lifespans with ever decreasing levels of repairability. Like what others have said here, our expectations have become so low that it is commonly expected that the things we buy will only last a year or two before we end up throwing them away. This can be easily resolved if people simply paid more money for better quality products and brands that ensure repairability and longevity. But, of…
The other thing is that nothing lasts forever, so eventually you'd need to repair. Most things you can't repair by yourself, so if the repair costs more than new, and the suggested increase for disposal, I'd still end up buying new to save the hassle.
My wishlist is:
- For consumers, incentivize repair over disposal and buying.
- For companies, incentivize manufacturing quality and design for repairability.
But the question still stands how to do either?
Products are having shorter lifespans with ever decreasing levels of repairability. Like what others have said here, our expectations have become so low that it is commonly expected that the things we buy will only last a year or two before we end up throwing them away. This can be easily resolved if people simply paid more money for better quality products and brands that ensure repairability and longevity. But, of…
The idea of repairing a washing machine is great. But our world is growing more complex by the day. The average individual is going to lose any hope of having even enough shallow expertise to crack into these devices without endangering themselves and others. If you pursue this fight, I'd put money in the industries developing "needed" technologies that pack toxic gas in vacuum parts to further increase the expertise needed to touch their internals.
Products are having shorter lifespans with ever decreasing levels of repairability. Like what others have said here, our expectations have become so low that it is commonly expected that the things we buy will only last a year or two before we end up throwing them away. This can be easily resolved if people simply paid more money for better quality products and brands that ensure repairability and longevity. But, of…
There was a simple system for this with bottles: There is a premium which you pay, that is returned when you correctly dispose of the bottle. Perhaps a similar mechanism could be applied. The “cost” of disposing is then the time to get the money back, not the premium itself.
A big issue with paying for disposal is the motivation to avoid payment. It's hard to get people to dispose of trash responsibly. If they had to pay, we'd be surrounded by illegal dumps.
I think there should be disposal fees, but they must be paid upfront. EU actually has recycling fees on purchase, but they seem to be laughably small (like < 1 EUR for a vacuum cleaner).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My phone today is completely usable but the carrier has decided to stop issuing updates to the phone.... This is the worst kind of planned obsolesces
Creating those updates costs money. At what point is the cost no longer worth it? It is not realistic for companies to support every phone forever; I think that's something we can all agree on. Would you be willing to pay whatever your share is of how much generating the update would cost, in order to get it? With a clear indicator when you buy the phone that you automatically get a subscription to 3 years worth of s…
I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or helping the environment - devices will likely become more expensive and bulkier as a result, supply chain of replacement parts is generating heaps of waste too. I simply am surrounded by tens and hundreds of sort-of-broken devices that don't force me to replace yet, but are not fixable eit…
> there is no light in the fridge (but it still works) I normally find these types of appliances make parts readily available. I just replaced the locking mechanism on my washing machine for example, it was cheap and easy to order the parts I needed.
- no service/troubleshooting manual/videos available online
- no way to identify what replacement part to buy unless you're in the know already
- getting access to locking mechanism looked like it would lead to washing machine completely falling apart structurally (there was a somewhat hidden "safety" screw that looked like a last defense against people removing the front panel just by removing the apparent screws and hurting themselves)
So I bailed on this without a proper guide on safe disassembly procedure.
Thankfully wiggling the connector to the locking switch made the lock and thus the washing machine work again, after a first failure since 15 years ago or whatever. It looked just fine inside (surprisingly). Vibrations probably don't allow much dirt to accumulate. No obvious rusting/leakage. I was surprised.
I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or helping the environment - devices will likely become more expensive and bulkier as a result, supply chain of replacement parts is generating heaps of waste too. I simply am surrounded by tens and hundreds of sort-of-broken devices that don't force me to replace yet, but are not fixable eit…
Common things that existed 20, 30, or even 40 years like refrigerators, coffee machines, dishwashers, washers, and dryers, often lasted 10 or 20 years in some cases, and could be repaired. We have witnessed the steep decline of device reliability in my lifetime, and our expectations are so low that the latest appliance we buy we consider lucky if no problems develop in 2-3 years. Anything serious requires you to usua…
That's a key aspect of the market here: People tend to compare on purchase price. If manufacturers have to compete on price, of course something has to give in order to make cheaper appliances...
The market tends to give consumers what they want.
It's not all bad, though, because this also puts pressure on manufacturers to optimise, including by using less material. Appliances tend not to be that bad either unless perhaps if you buy really cheap cr*p.