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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

#181

Post by dclowd9901 »

ryandrake wrote: post #155
AJ007 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

Actually, they do. I believe at least electronics companies pay a small fee for every device to pay for its disposal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Waste_Recycling_Fee

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

#182

Post by hx87 »

hlandau wrote: post #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…

> There are numerous stories of hypoallergenic people who find that their new washing machine leaves significant detergent in clothing.

In 99.9% percent of those cases, the problem is that they're used to the quantities of detergent the old non-HE washers take and refuse to reduce the amount, or (in the case of horizontal axis washers) are confused by the lack of suds in modern detergents and overload the machine with detergent. The latter is an especially common problem in laundromats serving low-income areas. Sometimes the machines were so caked with old detergent that I could run a load with plain water and it would come our perfectly clean.

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

#183

Post by ryandrake »

Roboprog wrote: post #175
ryandrake wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I tend to repair everything, and let me say that's not true for the vast majority of my possessions, including cars, appliances, electronics, etc. It highly depends on the nature of the failure, but generally parts are cheaper than replacement. Here are a list of things I've recently…

I suspect I will do much more of that after I retire. It's hard to motivate myself to spend much time on most such activities now. Now saying you don't have a point, just how the day flows sometimes.

Each of these repairs consisted of: an hour or so of diagnosis/research + order the parts online + go on with your life until delivered + a few hours or so to do the repair.

I spent more time finding the cheapest (+shipping) online source of garage door opener parts than I spent on actually repairing it.

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

#184

Post by zdkl »

Kadin wrote: post #124
lukas099 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing with you, but this system does employ a lot of people in the Middle East, India, China, and the West.

If that's the goal, we might as well just pay people to dig a hole and then fill it back in again repeatedly, and it wouldn't produce as much CO2 in the end. Or, you know, pay them to wash reusable silverware.

Yeah, but nobody in the west wants to do that?

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

#185

Post by brianwawok »

barnacs wrote: post #159
brianwawok wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the other other other hand, there is no such thing as "clean" power.

Wind power takes up land that could be better used for nature or growing food, and kills birds. The turbines are made out of materials that have the same problems as other things. Clearly reducing demand for power is still a good thing, even if we got to 100% renewable power. (And at current low renewable power levels, 1 extra KW of electricity is directly coming from oil or coal or something nasty)

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

#186

Post by hx87 »

gambiting wrote: post #28

The only problem with repairing devices is labour cost, nothing else. I've had a broken subwoofer that I took to a small electronics shop(in UK), and was quoted 60 pounds to even have it looked at. Not repaired - looked at. The subwoofer cost me 80 pounds on ebay. So predictably, it went straight to the bin. Same with washing machines, dryers, etc - I bought a Hotpoint washing machine for 220 pounds, but a standard c…

If cheap labor is the problem then it is also the solution. Ship the subwoofer to the country that produced it for cheap, and have the cheap labor there repair it.

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

#189

Post by ryandrake »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #181
ryandrake wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

Actually, they do. I believe at least electronics companies pay a small fee for every device to pay for its disposal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Waste_Recycling_Fee

That's a pretty blunt instrument though. It looks like it just hits retailers, not manufacturers, and the fee is assessed regardless of whether the device ends up disposed. Seems like such a fee would serve only to make everything more expensive, instead of actually incentivizing the production of longer-lasting goods.

Another idea (probably full of holes, I'm sure): Tax manufacturers based on the length of their products' warranties, say 100 minus YEARS. So no warranty means company pays 100% of the product's sale price in tax. 5 year warranty means company pays 95% of the product's sale price, etc. down to no tax if the company offers a 100 year or more warranty.

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

#190

Post by jernfrost »

This is beginning in the wrong end IMHO. One of the big problems today is that products are:

1) Not made to be repaired. 2) Not made to last 3) Repair manuals are not easily and widely available 4) Manufacturer have monopoly on replacement parts making them extremely expensive.

I would instead create tax incentives which encourage manufacturers to make repairable and durable items, and pass laws which makes it easier for the competition to make compatible replacement parts so they are cheaper.

How many products don't we have where one stupid little plastic thing breaks and it becomes useless. Getting the part is difficult, expensive or hard to install.

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