I, Backpack

If you’re thinking about sustainability policy, one idea might be to require warranties like this one for all material objects. This would force companies to internalize the cost of goods that wear out quickly and incentivize them to create more durable products.

It may sound radical, but I’m convinced that’s the general direction we need. If you sell a non consumable/perishable object, you should be required at the very least to accept the good back from the customer at no cost to them, and recycle/reuse/dispose of it properly. Requiring 5-10 year warranties or more is also something we should consider. I’m not sure what the exact answer would look like, but those directions seem like the right way to get ourselves out of the huge landfill/electronic waste hills we’ve buried ourselves under.

For those who care, however, it's not too hard to learn to fix things ourselves with a little practice. Especially for non-tech products.

I wrote to the company afterwards to thank them for a product that still works better than I could imagine, and in fact is better than any product they make today (at least for the purposes of a 17 day backcountry trip with almost no resupply).

Sadly, one of the reasons I bought the Arcteryx at the time was that they were still manufactured in north American (BC). This is no longer the case, and from my inspection of their current products, while they are still superb in comparison to the competition, they don't really do well in comparison to the late 90's versions.

It's still in fantastic condition. Never had to repair it, except for one time when one of the strap clips got crushed by my car's door.

Imagine that: a backpack, almost daily heavy use, carrying all kinds of stuff in it, and it almost never required repair.

I'm 100% sure they don't make them like that anymore.