Waste AM

I must agree joddle ,I for one agree on most points above, I also agree packaging should be a lot more easily recognise from nonrecyclable products,
 in fact they shouldn’t even be any non-recyclable/ non-reusable products world wide, full-stop, but just think of the amount of money that all this is going to cost… (staggering), but one has to look at the implications if one doesn’t do something constructive about it…
Apartment facilities having shared laundry, will this save resources? because at the moment a washing machine for instance will
 have a limited lifespan designed into it,
 For instance 10,000 cycles is approximately the norm, so if several families use said machine, it’s usable life will be considerably shortened, so not really alleviating the waste in the end, and when we are talking about the repairing of these devices the mark up on spares is hundreds of times what manufacturing cost is originally, so in the end it becomes  uneconomic to repair, unless it’s a door seal, or something minor, if one buys a more expensive machine this scenario is still the same, a mele machine for instance, cost three times as much, but the built in obsolescence is at 30,000 cycles, and say for instance the electric motor for one of these machines cost up to almost £1000, so again becomes  uneconomic to repair, the same goes for cars, and all big cash items,
 In the industrial sector you always get parts catalogues etc, and are normally relatively easy to repair,
 the initial cost of these items are normally disproportionate to most peoples incomes at the moment, due to design and the resources going into these items, which has a knock on effect, that repairable parts are also very expensive, but I suppose if the manufactures wanted to, they could supply any piece of equipment that  had almost infinite lifespan,That only the very rich could afford,
 And also a modular approach to repair,! but again a fantastic amount of money for normal people, and one has to consider product efficiencies are going up all the time, so if a person could keep a piece of equipment for let’s say 20 years, one wouldn’t take advantage of product efficiencies over that time frame, I think it is education, of peoples wants and needs, sould be addressed, and things that we buy should be on a more practical level, and should be made to last  a lifetime, and the repair parts should have more realistic  pricing structures in place, instead of over pricing parts, so that we buy new,! should be abolished. 
The absolute number one question is do we need it,! if the answer is yes!
And people should think about saving up, and really looking into the ins and outs of an item, looking at the ethical side of where it’s made, is it supporting the local economy? what are the component parts of the equipment? can it be ultimately recycled? One needs to do a lot more research into buying anything…..
 Instead is going up the shops and deciding on an item because you like the colour of it, or because you got bored! and are going shopping because you want a little retail therapy,? which is not unusual nowadays? because items are relatively cheap, ( nasty) in the scheme of things.
One cannot really have their cake and eat it, as it were.

http://www.iseappliances.co.uk/index.php/aboutise
This is one manufacture that is bucking the trend with white goods( laundry equipment) and is actually producing washing machines etc, that actually can be repaired,! at a modest cost to the consumer, without costing the earth!…
 This firm started at a grass roots level, with a conglomerate of machine repairers, starting up their own business, fed up with Chuck away machines, mainly due to over pricing of parts, so had the machines made in Sweden ( commercial washing machine manufacture) to their specification they are so confident in their machines that they provide a 10 year guarantee, with labour, also all parts are easily and cheaply acquired after the guarantee period runs out, unlike the mainstream manufactures, I think we need to encourage more firms such as these to go down the green route, and not necessarily focusing on profit as their ultimate goal.

Sorry joddle you need to reduce the original postings figures on projected lifespans by a factor of 10 for the expensive machine and a factor of 20 for the least expensive machine

‘Implement sanctions for overpackaging and non-biodegradable packaging’ – I think this sort of tactic is really important, and would entail putting pressure on the government, at a local and national level, so that they in turn put pressure on the companies providing goods, from packaged food to cars. More widely though, I think it’s about changing people’s attitudes towards consuming, which would also mean changing provider attitudes to reflect long-term sustainability rather than short term profit. This is surely real economics! It’s the right thing to do, but I think it’s difficult at a time when capitalist thinking has got such a hold over so many of us, and when companies are amorally run to make the maximum amount of money. After all, who wants to make cars and laptops that last, when if they make them to break after a few years, they’ve got a guaranteed steady income as people keep going back for spare parts or even completely new products? …

On an even more fundamental level, look at the States, where the oil companies, who fund government presidential campaigns, are most likely repressing the production of electric cars to provide for their own short-term interests rather than the long-term interests of the planet, with the governments complicit. In order to change this, and to make things truly sustainable, I’ve been persuaded that we need to look at the monetary system itself. In the meantime, it’s about education, but also about pressure from governments, who are, after all, ultimately kept in power by us, and communities, in terms of economic sanctions from the former, and boycotts of non-ethical products from the latter.

Hi Kim
 I totally agree, and also governments need to put sanctions on companies that don’t comply with ethical standards, which should be implemented to cut out any product that cannot be recycled or made from a resource and will not damaged the environment 
and I suggest we go even further, The UK should not buy products from countries that abuse their workforce, and also do not comply with EC health and safety practices,  and pay a decent wage for the work done, and also not destroy their local environment, where the manufacturing process is orchestrated, and implemented,
 so all countries can work on a level playing field as it were, and all countries and consumers can rest assured that the products they are buying in the shops, are all from ethical sources, unlike the situation at the moment with China and India for instance, having  a totally unfair advantage, when competing with goods from the west, and there is simply no sanctions from our governments, at the moment,! all because people (consumers) want cheap goods, and simply are not prepared to pay an ethical fair price for goods from western countries, and especially if we tightened up our act on goods being more accountable, and made from more appropriate materials, as it would only add to the costs even more, and I simply do not think that the Far East etc would comply unless people simply just stopped buying the cheap rubbish in the first place.

The car situation is even worse, then first thought, when it comes to environmentally friendly cars, the car manufacturers are boycotting governments and lobbying MPs, to stop them imposing an even greater emission threshold level on them, and are also trying to have advertising campaigns to buy bigger vehicles?, because this is where they make most of their money, on the more luxury end of the market, and certainly not on the lower Eco end of the Market, where most people should be concentrating their efforts at the moment,
 it’s just 3% of the overall market in producing and buying new vehicles?…

Hi Kim, thanks for your insightful comments. I’m posting on built-in obsolescence tomorrow and suggesting ways to make manufacturers more accountable for the goods they produce, because you’re right, why would they currently want to make goods that last?

[...] Some people argue that built-in obsolescence is an inevitable part of the design process as it enables the consumer to buy the thing at its most economical price at which it will function within the limits the customer expects. If the thing had superior components that lasted longer, the cost of the superior components would be passed on to the consumer at the checkout. The question is, would customers be willing to pay more if they had reliable information about each product’s *guaranteed* longevity? With this information to hand people would be able to make informed decisions, ones not merely based on superficial qualities of its design, as Stephen notes. [...]