Stop buying new stuff, says government advisor

Graham_Devon

Interesting piece this one.

The governments energy department senior advisor has suggested we should make more of an effort to repair stuff when it goes wrong, instead of simply buying new.

This would reduce carbon emissions, energy usage and create a new "repair sector" worth £1bn to the economy.

Reducing waste would also save british business £17bn a year in waste costs.

However, his biggest "enemy" as it were, it just that, our economy, which is based on continually buying and throwing away.

Asked about the “major challenges” of his role advising the Government, Prof Mackay told a Department of Energy and Climate Change newsletter: “One difficult challenge is the way in which economic activity and growth currently is coupled to buying lots of stuff and then throwing it away.

“When a fridge, clothes-washer, or microwave develops a fault we throw it away instead of repairing it. Car manufacturers love us to buy a new car every few years.”

It's a compelling argument. Go back a few decades and indeed, you had the TV repair man who'd come to your house in his van etc. There used to be electronics repair shops etc etc. The price of buying new was often more costly than repairing.

However, our economy has changed and become far more reliant on consumption. Indeed, someone speaking about the motor industry the other day stated that the new car sales are excellent as you are locking in consumers to the 4 year cycle.

So could our economy now cope with less consumption, but an increase in repairs?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10557236/Stop-buying-new-appliances-and-cars-and-repair-them-instead-Government-adviser-says.html

[Deleted User]

I think the big problem is price,the last washing machine we bought (5 years ago?)cost less than the first one we bought 32 years ago,a decent size tv can cost less than £200 i wonder how much it would cost to repair?the call out would probably be £50
but that said its a good idea in principal

gazter

Labour is so expensive that it is cheaper for some chinese people to make some new ones, ship them over, and sell them in the UK than it is to repair them.

Graham_Devon

woodbine wrote: »

I think the big problem is price,the last washing machine we bought (5 years ago?)cost less than the first one we bought 32 years ago,a decent size tv can cost less than £200 i wonder how much it would cost to repair?the call out would probably be £50
but that said its a good idea in principal

Yes, design is a problem. Though the professor does suggest that if this were to work, items should be designed to last (or be repairable in the first place I'd guess). So it's a two stage process.

This wouldn't just take thought at the consumer end, but at the manufavcturer end too.

Sure, the end result would be more expensive goods.

But it would also mean repairable goods, making the repair worth it, which quite simply on most items, it isn't at the moment. It would also use less of the worlds resources.

BUT, the big problem here is it means us all buying less, which means companies suffer.

Hotpoint are good at making it almost impossible to repair as they only have a 2-3 year parts life. They then redesign the parts, almost needlessly and stop making any old parts. The only chance you realistically have after that is ebay, but as most are simply chucking items, theres not much chance on there either. Often the redesign of the parts is simply the shape of the circuit board, though everything else on it is the same. Change the shape and you make it impossible to use in the old machine.

Many items are built to price instead of built to a standard now. I've thrown goods away before now that I didn't want to. I do try to repair stuff, it's in my nature to tinker, but many things are now built with sealed units or specialised batteries etc. You can get some things open, but often you have no chance of putting them back together!

[Deleted User]

i have no idea if this story is/was true but i remember being told 40 years ago that the reason they stopped making morris minors was because of the design they didnt rust easily and the engine was to easy to work on
compare that to todays cars with their computer systems etc

grizzly1911

How often does stuff fail before it has outlived it's service life these days.

I can remember (just) dad replacing individual valves (transistors? of which "millions" are now embedded in computer chips) in a black and white TV. You could by them like lightbulbs from electrical shops.

The first colour TV my parents had was always packing up. It had state of the art touch buttons, basically you joined the circuit when you touched the two metallic sides.The repair shop was next to useless.

I did replace motor brushes in our first washing machine and that lasted 17 years. The motor was conveniently mounted on top. These days they are buried or parts are non serviceable. I am told by those little labels that my most recent one is much more efficient so keeping old stuff is more costly to run using more energy etc.

IME once one thing fails quite often a number of other things do too.

As woodbine says great in principal but practically doubt the idea will fly.

Anyway having v1 when v5 is available is just, well, embarrassing.

Graham_Devon

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Anyway having v1 when v5 is available is just, well, embarrassing.

Indeed!

And seems we, as a nation, are quite happy to drive around cocooned in shiny new metal, on finance, and then run to Lidls to get 7p off the price of a tin of beans

I guess a lot of it is values. As in our values and what we see as important in society today.

I wasn't alive, but can't imagine that "keeping up with the Jones" was quite as much of an issue back in say the 60's?

I know someone who bought a 1.5k Imac for their living room, but ALWAYS uses their very old laptop. The Imac they find "fiddly" and invasive (guess they mean the screen size), but next door had one.

wotsthat

I tend to fix things but stuff is so cheap it tends to be as a hobby only. Bearings have gone on washing machine - just not worth the effort - the parts aren't cheap, it'll take an afternoon, newer models are cheap and use less energy.

Loughton_Monkey

What brilliant minds these tree-huggers have.

Having just decided to offload my (admittedly perfectly good) XJS [Emissions 249 g/km] and buy a brand new BMW 730 [Emissions 180 g/km] I can only assume I need to go down the dealer tomorrow and cancel the order?

Can't see what's wrong with the 'old days'. For the first 10 years of our married life, when we wanted things like a washing machine, spin dryer, fridge.... we would go down to the local electrical second-hand store and buy a reconditioned one.

When that went wrong, we would go down and 'upgrade' to a newer second-hand one. He would take the old one back (maybe for a fiver) and recycle it yet again, or more likely use it for spare parts.....

These days, Charity shops don't take such stuff. You can only really recycle them by taking them down to the local tip where (as far as I know) they just get recycled into scrap metal rather than into reconditioned working goods.

A far better idea is to abolish the Department of Energy and so-called Climate Change for ever. I hope they all freeze when the next ice age comes! Then in 100,000 years, our descendants can dig them up and see what a real idiot of the past looks like without a brain.

Also, I'm sitting on a £400+ Laser Printer which works perfectly well but needs a new devloper cartridge (£170), so I bought a more modern Samsung for £120. Arguably a better printer for far less money. The old one is going down the tip.

However, I'm not aware of the 'Carbon Emissions' consequence of buying a new laser printer.... probably the equivalent of about three farts!

kabayiri

Are we at all surprised? The whole consumer revolution is based on massive levels of consumption.

There are iProducts being sold which score 1 out of 10 for repairability. That isn't by accident.

Ads on the radio tell you to buy a new PC or laptop because your old one is getting slow. They fail to mention that giving Windows a bit of a spring clean will be just as good.

Repair costs are mostly labour, and British labour is just too dear.

Graham_Devon

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Having just decided to offload my (admittedly perfectly good) XJS [Emissions 249 g/km] and buy a brand new BMW 730 [Emissions 180 g/km] I can only assume I need to go down the dealer tomorrow and cancel the order?

Emissions that the car puts out once driving is just one small side of the story.

The emissions created to build and ship the car is the other side.

Theres a huge fallacy when it comes to taxing the older cars off the road based on emissions, only to encourage you to go and buy a new one that, just the manufacturing and shipping of, will cost the same emissions as driving round your old one for another 3 years.

Then they create even more emissions pramturely scrapping the older one as no one can any longer justify taxing the damn thing. Even worse now with all the emission reducing stuff bolted on. The cost of replacing some of these systems has seen 6 year old cars scrapped and crushed...all because they had a part that reduced emissions bolted on that cost you a small mortgage to replace. It's crazy.

I bet Cuba has one of the best emissions usages on record if you count the manufacturing of the cars (or lack of in this case).... and those old beasts will be chucking out some huge numbers!

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Also, I'm sitting on a £400+ Laser Printer which works perfectly well but needs a new devloper cartridge (£170), so I bought a more modern Samsung for £120. Arguably a better printer for far less money. The old one is going down the tip.

Stick it on ebay. Someone time warped from the good old days will buy it and and pop in a £30 reman unit. Put the sale price towards a chair.