From Frequent Commentor Frank Eggers: Our Throw-away Culture
Today I had to have the condenser fan motor for my air conditioning replaced. The reason? There was no provision to re-oil the bearings.
I have run into several situations where motors lacked provision for re-oiling the idea being that when the bearings fail, the motor should be replaced. This is most common on fans, but it is a problem with other appliances too. Sometimes, when a bearing freezes, instead of scrapping the device, it is possible to take it apart, oil the bearings, put it back together, and put it back into service. But usually, in such situations, the device gets scrapped. That makes no sense from either the economic or environmental standpoint.
I had to replace an entire washing machine because a pair of points in the timer failed. Designing something so that it cannot be fixed makes no sense when it could be designed to make fixing it easy.
We already have federal energy efficiency laws for many things including refrigerators, air conditioners, light bulbs, etc., etc. It seems to me that there should be laws requiring that devices be made so that they would not need to be scrapped if repairing them could be made simple.
Frank: Craig here. I have bad news for you: Our entire economy works on the basis that things are built specifically to fall apart, get outdated (e.g., electronics), go out of fashion, or need replacement for some other reason. As loathsome a practice as this is, it would be impossible to legislate against it.
When you write, “That makes no sense from an economic standpoint.” you mean your economic standpoint. It makes plenty of sense for everybody in the supply chain except you. It’s the bread and butter of the raw materials providers, the manufacturers, the transportation companies, distributors, and retailers.
If there is ever to be any change here, and I do believe it will happen, it will come when enough consumers get a grasp on this subject, as expressed so ably in The Story of Stuff, and simply refuse to play the game.
I know some of our more vociferous commenters, e.g., MarcoPolo, disagrees with this, and, in truth, there’s no way to prove I’m right or wrong here; we’ll just have to wait and see. Here’s my bet: when the Earth experiences catastrophes that are clearly climate change-related (wild fires, food shortages, island nations disappearing, etc.) occurring in greater number and frequency, the people of the world will jump on the environmental bandwagon en masse and make wholesale changes to their priorities. At that point, it will become seriously uncool to be extravagant with environmental resources–a change that can’t happen soon enough, IMO.
Craig,
Not all manufacturers are like that.
Recently my Onkyo receiveR failed; there was no sound and it was out of warranty. I phoned the manufacturer or distributer and was told that the problem was the result of a defective part and that they would replace the part at no charge. They even sent me a box with packing material, tape, and a shipping label to make it easy for me to send it to them. There was no charge; they even paid for the shipping. I got the repaired receiver back in less than two weeks.
You’re right about this.
Nice Concept Frank yes the throw away supply chain is a big barrier issue.
Your replacement part story was refreshing for a change some one delivers real Value Cool
Craig,
There has been considerable success in getting manufactures to improve energy efficiency. That has been done with vehicles, air conditioning, refrigeration, washing machines, water heaters, furnaces, etc. etc. Considering that it was possible to overcome corporation pressure and successfully push for increasing energy efficiency, I see no reason for not being able to achieve similar success in getting manufacturers to make products which are easy to maintain when doing so would require only minimal changes. For example, it would not require a major redesign to make it convenient to re-lubricate motor bearings instead of throwing away the entire motor and perhaps the appliance using it.
Might be hard to legislate every detail of all the parts that go in every manufactured item.
Craig,
There is no need to legislate every detail. I have no doubt that the legal profession would be able to write legislation which, if followed, would do the job.
There are devices that are engineered poorly and a marketing philosophy that says we will make more money on supplies and maintenance (laser printers and traditional cars.) One of the reasons to favor electric vehicles is because they are relatively maintenance free. Unfortunately like most vehicles today there is not as much an owner can do if something does go wrong.
However, Western, throw away, goods don’t necessarily have the same life experience in the 3ed world. Perhaps we have all heard of very old cars in Cuba or other places in Central America. The same is true for many other goods in many other places.
One difference is that in those places the balance between labor and material tips so that labor is cheap while goods are relatively expensive. There it makes more economic sense for someone to spend idle time taking apart a device, figuring out how it works and why it doesn’t and then creating a solution to make it work. It tends to create some very clever people.
“Western societies” have a different balance. We get devices that have been largely manufactured in the third world in the cheapest possible way. Here the labor to repair is more expensive. Few owners are going to take the time or trouble to repair a device when a replacement is easily available and at a reasonable cost. This kind of environment tends to produce a different kind of person.