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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

#111
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?

Here's the thing - the more disposable and non-serviceable the stuff becomes, the less likely it is you'll find someone to pay that $50 - instead of going to the repair shop down the street, you have to find the Licensed Repair Shop of the vendor, pay $200 and hope it'll be done before next month. And a new bike will cost you $199 anyway.

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

#112
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 somehow proves this, or is in any way a long period.

AFAIK washing machines used to have 10 year warranties, but they cost more along the lines of £800. Now we have £250 washing machines with 2 year warranties. One way of reducing costs is to reduce the number of parts. Sealed tanks, as mentioned below, are one such example. This directly impairs the repairability of the product.

I suspect also that models are released at greater frequency, possibly due to a need to take advantage of price fluctuations in wholesale parts markets (if you can make a washing machine using Part A or Part B, and one month A is more expensive than B, and then this inverts, this creates pressure to constantly design new models to minimise pricing). Though this is just a suspicion, it would make sense: I do know that the (monolithic) spare parts are stocked for a particular model for less time, which means that the prices of the spares which are available are very high.

Water efficiency regulations also appear to have forced modern washing machines to use inadequate water for rinsing. There are numerous stories of hypoallergenic people who find that their new washing machine leaves significant detergent in clothing. Some people have even tracked down old (and for that matter better made) washing machines just to get one which will rinse properly. At other times the actual temperature of the water on the '60 degree' setting has been tested and found to be rather on the low side. (Supposedly all of this efficiency regulation, rather pathetically, only tests the 60 degree programme in the first place, putting a certain degree of competitive pressure on energy efficiency for this setting.) This is particularly insane given that the environmental cost of these quasi-disposable 2-year-warranty washing machines must be much higher than the environmental cost of their resource consumption.

I think consumer goods legislation should recognise that different minimum warranty periods are appropriate for different kinds of product. A legally required minimum warranty period of 6 or 8 years for washing machines, for example, would instantly create pressure on manufacturers to increase the longevity and repairability of their machines.

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

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It depends on your definition of opportunity cost. Recently my ~20 year old fridge stopped working and I spent the better part of the day diagnosing the issue, getting a replacement part and fixing it. Sure, I could have spent that time doing wage labor, call someone to fix it or even get a new fridge and I would have ended up with a net profit. But to me personally, the bigger opportunity cost would have been missin…

The flip side is so the math Old units are much less efficient. I think last time I did the math my old fridge is rasing my power bill by $50 a year over a new one. So over 10 years that's $500 burned up in smoke and global warming.

So then it's buy a new fridge for $900 vs fix old one for $100 plus $500 in burned coal over 10 years.

Now if power rates doubled then it would always win to buy the new fridge even if nothing to repair.

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

#114

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).

In the US, I can sue you just for making this hacker news comment. Doesn't mean I'll make it past the first hearing.

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

#115
post #114

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).

In the US, I can sue you just for making this hacker news comment. Doesn't mean I'll make it past the first hearing.

What if this comment hurt you and you had millions of dollars in a legal department?

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

#116
post #59

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.

Besides the category error of conflating corporate and state implementations - complaining about the existence of IKEA is a bit like complaining about the existence of fast food. Clearly there is massive demand for both, so lobbing darts at the most successful producers of same avoids all of the interesting questions.

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

#117
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that? Tax breaks on repairs would not adversely and unfairly impact companies possibility to sell in Sweden.

It would advsersely affect profits and the argument would be that it's unfair

But not to the detriment of any one specific company.

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

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also lots of things wrong in Scandinavia. There's segregation between the "native" population and the immigrants/their descendants. Suspects for crime, including children are put into isolation by default. Strict drug laws, strict alcohol laws that lead to binge drinking instead of a normal enjoyment of beer/wine. A strong sense that they're the best in the world which they often actively carry outwards. Stil…

This reminds me of my time in Stockholm. I was there for a few months and saw quite a few homeless people. I don't remember a single one of them being a white "native" Swede. They all appeared to be immigrants. Swedes might brag about their good social welfare (and it's great if you can get it) but it doesn't seem to be applied evenly.

Those are migrants, not immigrants. They are allowed to stay for 3 months without a job (but there is no checks on how long they stay) and they do get a lot of free healthcare and other "benefits" they don't have in their originating countries. Scandinavia cannot help everyone. There is rules and an order in who to help first, and unfortunately for the migrants they are not at the top.

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

#119
post #70

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…

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.

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on your definition of opportunity cost. Recently my ~20 year old fridge stopped working and I spent the better part of the day diagnosing the issue, getting a replacement part and fixing it. Sure, I could have spent that time doing wage labor, call someone to fix it or even get a new fridge and I would have ended up with a net profit. But to me personally, the bigger opportunity cost would have been missin…

The flip side is so the math Old units are much less efficient. I think last time I did the math my old fridge is rasing my power bill by $50 a year over a new one. So over 10 years that's $500 burned up in smoke and global warming. So then it's buy a new fridge for $900 vs fix old one for $100 plus $500 in burned coal over 10 years. Now if power rates doubled then it would always win to buy the new fridge even if no…

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 it.

And lastly, it's not my fault we're still burning coal :/ I'm planning to invest in personal solar...

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