12 ms·

Repair is a Radical Act

214 points by fisherjeff 11y ago

ghaff 11y ago
This tends not to work with electronics which tend to be at least somewhat obsolete by the time you'd repair them--and, frankly, is less economical than it used to be for many items. That said, I do tend to fix or have fixed clothing with a relatively minor issue that is otherwise still good.
- roflchoppa 11y ago
  im not expert in this, but is hardware able to be broken back down into the elements that they came from to be reused?
  - ghaff 11y ago
    There is recycling for various electronics components and, in some locales, certain components are legally supposed to be recycled (CRTs, lithium batteries). I don't know the details of what happens in the recycling process however.
    - Plasmoid 11y ago
      Sadly, the process is often to ship to Africa or China and just dump it. There might be some government paperwork that says this particular open-air debris garden is just the storage lot for a proper recycling operation, but often the closest thing to recycling is locals picking through the mounds of trash looking for anything of value.
      - adrianN 11y ago
        There is a free to watch documentary about the problem in Ghana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUCoToorc9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUCoToorc9M
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        In China they'll recycle it and sell it back to you. And it's fine, most re-used components aren't worse than the new ones.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    It can, and it is, but there's only few places on Earth where it makes sense on a larger scale. They do it in China, and I suspect that a lot of old components make their way into new phones, but haven't seen any numbers yet. Electronic components generally don't wear much, there's nothing that makes them unsuitable for use in new devices except that ordering new parts is probably cheaper thanks to economies of scale. Come to think of it, maybe it could be changed? Recycling electronic components is mostly about melting the elements off the PCB and then sorting them to correct bins; the latter part is what usually involves humans. With proper design and sufficient automation, maybe there could be a fully-automated recycler that takes random electronics junk as input, and gives out spools of components ready to be used by a pick&place machine?
- hudibras 11y ago
  A surprising amount of electronics can be fixed just by opening it up and looking for a blown fuse. Replace the fuse, turn the thing back on, and see what happens. About 20% of the time, the fuse will blow again (at which point you're in shopjimmy.com territory). But usually everything's good to go and you can chalk the blown fuse up to gremlins. [0]https://www.youtube.com/user/shopjimmy https://www.youtube.com/user/shopjimmy
- lips 11y ago
  Here in NYC we have a permanent "e-waste" collection center. Some items are patched up, tested, and sold: http://www.lesecologycenter.org/programs/ewaste/reuse-store/ http://www.lesecologycenter.org/programs/ewaste/reuse-store/
- csydas 11y ago
  I think this largely depends on the purpose of said electronic item. Laptops, especially within the last few years, can be considered fit for purpose despite the advancements made in computer technology and new releases. There is of course a point at which a repair becomes more impractical than a replacement, but with a good bit of patience and a steady hand, even an amateur repair tech and breath new life into a broken computer. The idea of "fit for purpose" is pretty important, especially with electronics, as it's easy to get lost in spec competitions when considering the repair or replace decision. When I did Tech Support for a University and would have students bring me broken machines, it was always a personal consultation to determine the best approach for the student. Often they had little or no money to put towards a new machine, and most of the time all they needed was something to write papers on and watch netflix/do facebook-ey things. A newer computer would certainly do all of the above better, but that doesn't mean that first machine couldn't also do it just fine. $80 and an hour of my time to replace a cracked screen beats the student having to spend $400+ on a new laptop. It's a weird, fine line with modern consumer electronics depending on what is broken - if you can clearly tell what the damaged part is and a replacement less than 1/3rd the cost of a new machine, I'd suggest it's worth investigating the repair option.
- nathancahill 11y ago
  I have a Macbook Pro that is 5 years old now. I've replaced and upgraded every single component as they failed (battery, SSD, RAM, trackpad and most recently the matte screen when a pixel went dead). It still benchmarks on par with current models. So I don't agree with your comment at all.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    I've made repairs and upgrades to a five year old MacBook as well. However, I eventually replaced it primarily for reasons of weight and battery life. I've also repaired an old iPod although I honestly didn't have a lot of use for it after I repaired it because I had newer iPhones. Certainly compared to clothing electronics do tend to become obsolete but it obviously depends a lot on the electronics and what they're being used for.
- BogusIKnow 11y ago
  My wife has a Nexus 5 which is cheap to repair and replace parts. She's so happy with the phone she doesn't want a new one (Shame Google stopped makeing excellent, upgradeable, repairable and cheap smart phones).
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    I am a huge Nexus 5 fan, I own one, but it is not cheap or easy to repair. Also, the Nexus 5X is out, almost identical, but based on the LG G4 instead of the G2, and has a small handful of niftier features, including better battery life.
    - BogusIKnow 11y ago
      Battery replacement $20, display cheap to repair also compared to all other phones I've owned.
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  My X1 Carbon appears to be almost wholly unrepairable, but it's not like any of the similar alternatives I could buy are any better.
  - scott_karana 11y ago
    The X200 series is thicker, and a bit heavier, but shockingly repairable. :)
mc32 11y ago
Maybe as the CEO of a clothing company I hope she can effect change in the seasonal nature of fashion, so that people aren't pushed to buy new clothes every year --and that clothes be made to last more then one season (via velocity of fashion, or via making compromised clothing fashionable (acid wash, tears, rips, etc...) People who darn and patch already do what she proposes. It may take off with others, but she can make the industry be less about churning fashion and making things more durable (quality-wise and trend-wise). I mean, what does it matter how durable you make something, physically, if things aren't durable, fashion-wise? PS. It wasn't "radical" before the 70s, as I understand it. It was typical.
- pcl 11y ago
  FWIW, I've got a pair of Patagonia ski pants that are about 12 years old, and they were a replacement for another pair that was maybe 15 years old by the time the ankles, knees and inseam were thoroughly trashed beyond further repair.
  - mc32 11y ago
    Some people are good like that, but many others just want to have whatever is in fashion that year or more modern that year (new and maybe marginally better materials, but perhaps not necessary for the purchaser's expected use). She has a good idea, I hope it catches on further and hope it permeates into the GAPs, UNIQLOs, ZARAs, Celios, Diesels, A&F, etc... but I'm not holding my breath.
    - nathancahill 11y ago
      > others just want to have whatever is in fashion that year or more modern that year Sounds like a problem with people and not with the apparel companies, no? I understand what you're saying about quality, durable clothing, it's the main thing I consider when occasionally buying new clothes (easy to check by tugging at the seams, looking for loose threads/inconsistent stitching). But ultimately it's up to people to choose that. Then, in theory, apparel companies would follow the market demand. Unfortunately, shirts like H&M's are so cheap that it's just as easy to buy new ones every year when they fall apart.
fernly 11y ago
Repair Cafe is a volunteer organization that applies exactly this insight by holding free "repair cafe" events in which volunteer fixers fix anything for free. There are many local branches, if you are a fixer, volunteer for the next one near you. Bikes, electronics, toys. At the Palo Alto one several women bring sewing machines and fix garments. Original organization is Dutch: http://repaircafe.org/ http://repaircafe.org/ Original in English: http://repaircafe.org/en/ http://repaircafe.org/en/ Belge: http://www.repaircafe.be/nl/ http://www.repaircafe.be/nl/ Palo Alto: http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org/ http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org/ Portland, OR: http://repairpdx.org/ http://repairpdx.org/ Pasadena, CA: https://www.facebook.com/RepairCafe https://www.facebook.com/RepairCafe
- pascalmahe 11y ago
  List of Repair Cafes: http://repaircafe.org/en/visit/ http://repaircafe.org/en/visit/ I was pleasantly surprised to find one in my current city of residence: http://repaircafe-lemans.org/ http://repaircafe-lemans.org/
- cstuder 11y ago
  Switzerland: https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/repaircafe/schweizer-repair-cafes/ https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/repaircafe/schweizer-repair...
snowwrestler 11y ago
For those not familiar with Patagonia, they are a clothing company with a long history of environmental consideration and action. Some of their famous decisions were to donate 1% of their revenues to environmental causes, and to shift their entire cotton clothing line to organic cotton. They did an audit of their entire supply chain and were surprised to find that cotton--not nylon or polyester--did the most environmental harm because of the heavy use of pesticides. Their founder's book is an entertaining business book: Let My People Go Surfing, by Yvon Chouinard.
chrissnell 11y ago
It's an interesting idea but as someone who owns dozens of their products, I'd love to see them take this a step further: I want to be able to order (for only the cost of shipping) repair parts and fabric for my repairs. For example, my Patagonia roll-aboard luggage is a decade old now and the veteran of hundreds of flights and trips around the world. The burly ripstop nylon is wearing through in spots and you can reach your fingers into the bag through the holes. I can't repair it because of the material thickness--you need a commercial sewing machine. I could take it to one of the local military gear repair places but they don't have matching fabric. What if Patagonia could sell me the long-since-discontinued fabric and replacement parts that I need to do the repairs correctly?
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  They have a repair wagon that was making the rounds of the USA, repairing your stuff in your town.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  There's a 99% chance you'll need to settle for a similar (or different) color Sew it on the inside and it becomes less noticeable But then again it's very old and probably reaching beyond the point of reparability
- mipapage 11y ago
  Have you asked them? They have some pretty crazy stores about reaching back to repair old gear.
  - calinet6 11y ago
    They'll be happy to help you out. Get ahold of their repair department and if they need to it'll get back to the quality department for the special request. They love that stuff.
mattnewport 11y ago
I appreciate companies making repairable products, providing repair manuals and avoiding proprietary screws etc. but I think it's overly simplistic to say repair is the default right choice. It makes sense to strive for efficiency. In some cases repair is the most efficient choice but in others it is not. There are always tradeoffs and sometimes durability and repairability are over-engineering for a particular use case. Individuals are not necessarily well placed to determine the most efficient choices directly. Prices act as a mechanism to incorporate information on efficiency of resource use and cheap disposable items are cheap in part because they take fewer resources to manufacture and transport. If they are sufficiently durable for their intended use then they may well be the efficient choice.
- kijin 11y ago
  The problem is that current market prices do not accurately reflect negative externalities such as pollution, exploitation of cheap labor, depletion of natural resources, and exacerbation of socioeconomic inequalities. We just dump our trash somewhere and hope that someone else will deal with it someday. If there's a reliable mechanism to make market prices better reflect such externalities, I'm all for it. But until we've found and implemented such a mechanism on a large scale, a bit of moralizing wouldn't hurt.
  - mattnewport 11y ago
    Even to the extent that may be true, it does not follow that "As individual consumers, the single best thing we can do for the planet is to keep our stuff in use longer." as the article claims. There are almost certainly better things most individuals could do. I think moralizing is actually pretty harmful in the context of environmental issues. It leads to things like wasted resources on inefficient recycling programs, ill advised programs like ethanol subsidies, biased evaluation of the merits of the best options for power generation and other examples of schemes that prioritize moralizing and making people feel that they're doing something over actual positive results.
    - annnnd 11y ago
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famousactress 11y ago
I want to add an anecdote to inject some reality into this discussion. I bought a wetsuit from Patagonia in 2009 (I think). They were super new to the wetsuit industry and I paid 300+$ during their "half price" sale. Full price was ~600$ and 300 was the price for the top of the line "money is no object" wetsuit. For someone who surfs a lot (me) wetsuits traditionally last about three years/seasons. Last year my patagonia wetsuit was showing it's age and I brought it to the store. They sent it to their repair shop and the repair folks re-taped every seam, put new knee patches in and installed a new car-key-loop (original suit lacked one) free of charge. The neoprene is starting to break down and the suit isn't as warm as it used to be. I anticipate I'll get this season out of it and maybe 1-2 more. The company is fanatical about the quality of the products they produce and even more fanatical about their support/repair for those products.
- jschwartzi 11y ago
  The cool thing about running a service center for your products is that you can learn all of their failure modes.
- gerbilly 11y ago
  Thanks for posting that! I wear an Xcel wetsuit right now, but based on your story I think my next one will be from Patagonia.
studentrob 11y ago
I live in Asia and can always find a shoe guy or garment lady to fix my stuff for $1-$5. They are found in market stalls or the side of the road somewhere. You can't find as many of these "tiny businesses" in developed countries, perhaps because licensing costs too much to make it profitable, licensing isn't permitted for street vendors, varying climate doesn't make it as easy year-round, or ... Anyway, I really like this about Asia in 2015 and wish it were more prevalent in the US
- gherkin0 11y ago
  > perhaps because licensing costs too much to make it profitable, licensing isn't permitted for street vendors, varying climate doesn't make it as easy year-round, or ... I'm not sure that someone would be able to make a living in the US repairing everyday imported clothing items. The few times I tried to get something repaired by a tailor stop in the US, the cost at US wages was a significant fraction of what it would cost to buy a brand new replacement (made overseas at much lower wages). Admittedly, those were complicated repairs, but everyday clothing is just so cheap (in price and quality) that repairing it doesn't make sense.
  - rukuu001 11y ago
    > the cost at US wages was a significant fraction of what it would cost to buy a brand new replacement This is why I get the highest-quality stuff I can and repair it. Instead of replacing mediocre things every year or two, I have a few superb things that I spend $100-$200 a year maintaining (total, not each).
    - lmm 11y ago
      I'd be surprised if that ends up cheaper once you take into account the inconvenience of arranging repairs.
      - Tepix 11y ago
        If you factor in the cost for the environment, absolutely!
Raphael 11y ago
The entire article appears in bold.
- dchest 11y ago
  Well, they are making a bold statement.
ak217 11y ago
Mentioned briefly in the article, but worth repeating here: iFixit (who Patagonia used to publish the repair guides) is a remarkable company. Their ethos matches the article exactly, and aside from the (economical and awesomely useful) electronics repair kits they sell, they are also dedicated to building an open access wiki platform with rich support for repair guide resources.
rajanchandi 11y ago
This is nothing new to someone in India. We've always been this radical.. now and forever. =)
quanticle 11y ago
While some companies, like Ricoh, DeWalt, Caterpillar and Lenovo have made repair and remanufacturing a staple of their business model, This is why I continue to buy Lenovo, even though it can be argued that overall quality and durability of a Thinkpad isn't what it used to be when IBM still owned the brand. When I buy a Thinkpad (like the T440s I bought last year), I am reasonably assured that if something breaks, I can take it apart by myself and replace or repair the individual broken component, rather than having to throw out the whole laptop and buy a new one. Lenovo publishes the bill-of-materials for its laptops online, as well as the repair manual, which makes things a lot easier when trying to match parts. Just this weekend, I "repaired" my laptop's inability to receive 5Ghz wifi signals by replacing the stock 802.11 b/g/n wireless card with a 802.11 ac part. If this had been a Mac or an ultrabook, I would have just had to deal with the limitations of the hardware as it was.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  On a T430 at this moment, and availability of replacement parts was the only reason I bought it over a few other models.
- pjc50 11y ago
  You're unconcerned about Superfish etc?
  - arnehormann 11y ago
    Superfish is a root certificate installed by crapware in the preinstalled windows version. It can be uninstalled or removed by a fresh OS install. I guess someone replacing hardware components in a notebook doesn't keep the preinstalled OS for long.
  - darkr 11y ago
    Yeah, that whole debacle does concern me, but I don't think I've ever used the stock OS that came with a machine. Even if Lenovo did have a Debian option, I would still wipe it and replace with my own trusted setup.
  - 11y ago
acd 11y ago
This brings be to the area of new cell phones. Not good for the environment global warming. Consumer electronics are designed to be replaced which is bad for the environment. See planned Obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence I do not buy that you cannot make a good looking cell phone that is sturdy and allows for component replacement. The Apple Macbook unibody 2009-2012 has metal screws, you can replace the battery, the memory the storage. Same aluminium metal design with Philips screws must be also be usable on cell phone designs. Here is a list of smart phone repairability scores. https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability Its also conscious to think about the electronic waste and that products we design today are not designed to be recycled. It should be easy for a robot to disassemble all the components of electronic devices and reuse most of the raw materials so that we have a closed loop where do pollute more as new and faster designs are out.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  > I do not buy that you cannot make a good looking cell phone that is sturdy and allows for component replacement. You absolutely can. And your competitor can build one that's a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter, a little bit more beautiful, and you'll be competing on sustainability while your competitor is competing on "new and cooler". Unfortunately, I'd bet on your competitor in that scenario.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > And your competitor can build one that's a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter, a little bit more beautiful People keep saying this because it's the excuse given by companies who do it (and who may have ulterior motives). But is there any technical reason why it should be true? How much "thickness" does a modular battery connector really add? More to the point, it assumes that all customers want exactly the same thing, which is pure bunkum. If all your competitors are solely selling tiny shiny delicate objects that lose 100% of their value upon battery ageing or collision with the ground then there will be some large minority of the market that will stand in line to get something which is 12% heavier because it's more modular and durable than that, and you would be able to claim that entire market segment by providing it.
Endurance1 11y ago
Hello for everyone! Here are new great gadgets!Would you please tell your opinion about them.Had you ever used some similar devices?Thanks for everyone! Lasers and engraving machines made by Endurance. https://youtu.be/GzUtTyspTgQ https://youtu.be/GzUtTyspTgQ Endurance SelfieBot. Smart gadget that connects hearts. https://youtu.be/ccFt0MII1uc https://youtu.be/ccFt0MII1uc Here the official wedsite of the greatest Russian American company that is specializing in development and sales of high technology production, mainly, lasers, diode laser engravers, telepresence robots and robotized systems declares the pre-seed round of investments attraction to the project closed. http://endurancerobots.com/about-endurance/ http://endurancerobots.com/about-endurance/
facepalm 11y ago
Anybody know what is the status for repairs in Europe/Germany? My jacket is falling apart and I really want to either have it repaired or if I get a new one, I want a company that offers repairs.
chris-at 11y ago
Also similar/interesting: Don't recycle! http://ifixit.org/blog/4546/happy-earth-day-dont-recycle/ http://ifixit.org/blog/4546/happy-earth-day-dont-recycle/
ggchappell 11y ago
Some nice thoughts. > All you need is a sewing kit and a set of repair instructions. Or, more practically for most of us, you pay some guy to repair your stuff. Look around. There are little shops all over offering services like zipper replacement. They often don't charge much. Make use of them. And when buying a product, consider how repairable it is.

214 points by fisherjeff 11y ago

ghaff 11y ago

This tends not to work with electronics which tend to be at least somewhat obsolete by the time you'd repair them--and, frankly, is less economical than it used to be for many items. That said, I do tend to fix or have fixed clothing with a relatively minor issue that is otherwise still good.

roflchoppa 11y ago
im not expert in this, but is hardware able to be broken back down into the elements that they came from to be reused?
- ghaff 11y ago
  There is recycling for various electronics components and, in some locales, certain components are legally supposed to be recycled (CRTs, lithium batteries). I don't know the details of what happens in the recycling process however.
  - Plasmoid 11y ago
    Sadly, the process is often to ship to Africa or China and just dump it. There might be some government paperwork that says this particular open-air debris garden is just the storage lot for a proper recycling operation, but often the closest thing to recycling is locals picking through the mounds of trash looking for anything of value.
    - adrianN 11y ago
      There is a free to watch documentary about the problem in Ghana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUCoToorc9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUCoToorc9M
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      In China they'll recycle it and sell it back to you. And it's fine, most re-used components aren't worse than the new ones.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  It can, and it is, but there's only few places on Earth where it makes sense on a larger scale. They do it in China, and I suspect that a lot of old components make their way into new phones, but haven't seen any numbers yet. Electronic components generally don't wear much, there's nothing that makes them unsuitable for use in new devices except that ordering new parts is probably cheaper thanks to economies of scale. Come to think of it, maybe it could be changed? Recycling electronic components is mostly about melting the elements off the PCB and then sorting them to correct bins; the latter part is what usually involves humans. With proper design and sufficient automation, maybe there could be a fully-automated recycler that takes random electronics junk as input, and gives out spools of components ready to be used by a pick&place machine?
hudibras 11y ago
A surprising amount of electronics can be fixed just by opening it up and looking for a blown fuse. Replace the fuse, turn the thing back on, and see what happens. About 20% of the time, the fuse will blow again (at which point you're in shopjimmy.com territory). But usually everything's good to go and you can chalk the blown fuse up to gremlins. [0]https://www.youtube.com/user/shopjimmy https://www.youtube.com/user/shopjimmy
lips 11y ago
Here in NYC we have a permanent "e-waste" collection center. Some items are patched up, tested, and sold: http://www.lesecologycenter.org/programs/ewaste/reuse-store/ http://www.lesecologycenter.org/programs/ewaste/reuse-store/
csydas 11y ago
I think this largely depends on the purpose of said electronic item. Laptops, especially within the last few years, can be considered fit for purpose despite the advancements made in computer technology and new releases. There is of course a point at which a repair becomes more impractical than a replacement, but with a good bit of patience and a steady hand, even an amateur repair tech and breath new life into a broken computer. The idea of "fit for purpose" is pretty important, especially with electronics, as it's easy to get lost in spec competitions when considering the repair or replace decision. When I did Tech Support for a University and would have students bring me broken machines, it was always a personal consultation to determine the best approach for the student. Often they had little or no money to put towards a new machine, and most of the time all they needed was something to write papers on and watch netflix/do facebook-ey things. A newer computer would certainly do all of the above better, but that doesn't mean that first machine couldn't also do it just fine. $80 and an hour of my time to replace a cracked screen beats the student having to spend $400+ on a new laptop. It's a weird, fine line with modern consumer electronics depending on what is broken - if you can clearly tell what the damaged part is and a replacement less than 1/3rd the cost of a new machine, I'd suggest it's worth investigating the repair option.
nathancahill 11y ago
I have a Macbook Pro that is 5 years old now. I've replaced and upgraded every single component as they failed (battery, SSD, RAM, trackpad and most recently the matte screen when a pixel went dead). It still benchmarks on par with current models. So I don't agree with your comment at all.
- ghaff 11y ago
  I've made repairs and upgrades to a five year old MacBook as well. However, I eventually replaced it primarily for reasons of weight and battery life. I've also repaired an old iPod although I honestly didn't have a lot of use for it after I repaired it because I had newer iPhones. Certainly compared to clothing electronics do tend to become obsolete but it obviously depends a lot on the electronics and what they're being used for.
BogusIKnow 11y ago
My wife has a Nexus 5 which is cheap to repair and replace parts. She's so happy with the phone she doesn't want a new one (Shame Google stopped makeing excellent, upgradeable, repairable and cheap smart phones).
- DiabloD3 11y ago
  I am a huge Nexus 5 fan, I own one, but it is not cheap or easy to repair. Also, the Nexus 5X is out, almost identical, but based on the LG G4 instead of the G2, and has a small handful of niftier features, including better battery life.
  - BogusIKnow 11y ago
    Battery replacement $20, display cheap to repair also compared to all other phones I've owned.
voltagex_ 11y ago
My X1 Carbon appears to be almost wholly unrepairable, but it's not like any of the similar alternatives I could buy are any better.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  The X200 series is thicker, and a bit heavier, but shockingly repairable. :)

mc32 11y ago

Maybe as the CEO of a clothing company I hope she can effect change in the seasonal nature of fashion, so that people aren't pushed to buy new clothes every year --and that clothes be made to last more then one season (via velocity of fashion, or via making compromised clothing fashionable (acid wash, tears, rips, etc...) People who darn and patch already do what she proposes. It may take off with others, but she can make the industry be less about churning fashion and making things more durable (quality-wise and trend-wise). I mean, what does it matter how durable you make something, physically, if things aren't durable, fashion-wise? PS. It wasn't "radical" before the 70s, as I understand it. It was typical.

pcl 11y ago
FWIW, I've got a pair of Patagonia ski pants that are about 12 years old, and they were a replacement for another pair that was maybe 15 years old by the time the ankles, knees and inseam were thoroughly trashed beyond further repair.
- mc32 11y ago
  Some people are good like that, but many others just want to have whatever is in fashion that year or more modern that year (new and maybe marginally better materials, but perhaps not necessary for the purchaser's expected use). She has a good idea, I hope it catches on further and hope it permeates into the GAPs, UNIQLOs, ZARAs, Celios, Diesels, A&F, etc... but I'm not holding my breath.
  - nathancahill 11y ago
    > others just want to have whatever is in fashion that year or more modern that year Sounds like a problem with people and not with the apparel companies, no? I understand what you're saying about quality, durable clothing, it's the main thing I consider when occasionally buying new clothes (easy to check by tugging at the seams, looking for loose threads/inconsistent stitching). But ultimately it's up to people to choose that. Then, in theory, apparel companies would follow the market demand. Unfortunately, shirts like H&M's are so cheap that it's just as easy to buy new ones every year when they fall apart.

fernly 11y ago

Repair Cafe is a volunteer organization that applies exactly this insight by holding free "repair cafe" events in which volunteer fixers fix anything for free. There are many local branches, if you are a fixer, volunteer for the next one near you. Bikes, electronics, toys. At the Palo Alto one several women bring sewing machines and fix garments. Original organization is Dutch: http://repaircafe.org/ http://repaircafe.org/ Original in English: http://repaircafe.org/en/ http://repaircafe.org/en/ Belge: http://www.repaircafe.be/nl/ http://www.repaircafe.be/nl/ Palo Alto: http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org/ http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org/ Portland, OR: http://repairpdx.org/ http://repairpdx.org/ Pasadena, CA: https://www.facebook.com/RepairCafe https://www.facebook.com/RepairCafe

pascalmahe 11y ago
List of Repair Cafes: http://repaircafe.org/en/visit/ http://repaircafe.org/en/visit/ I was pleasantly surprised to find one in my current city of residence: http://repaircafe-lemans.org/ http://repaircafe-lemans.org/
cstuder 11y ago
Switzerland: https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/repaircafe/schweizer-repair-cafes/ https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/repaircafe/schweizer-repair...

snowwrestler 11y ago

For those not familiar with Patagonia, they are a clothing company with a long history of environmental consideration and action. Some of their famous decisions were to donate 1% of their revenues to environmental causes, and to shift their entire cotton clothing line to organic cotton. They did an audit of their entire supply chain and were surprised to find that cotton--not nylon or polyester--did the most environmental harm because of the heavy use of pesticides. Their founder's book is an entertaining business book: Let My People Go Surfing, by Yvon Chouinard.

chrissnell 11y ago

It's an interesting idea but as someone who owns dozens of their products, I'd love to see them take this a step further: I want to be able to order (for only the cost of shipping) repair parts and fabric for my repairs. For example, my Patagonia roll-aboard luggage is a decade old now and the veteran of hundreds of flights and trips around the world. The burly ripstop nylon is wearing through in spots and you can reach your fingers into the bag through the holes. I can't repair it because of the material thickness--you need a commercial sewing machine. I could take it to one of the local military gear repair places but they don't have matching fabric. What if Patagonia could sell me the long-since-discontinued fabric and replacement parts that I need to do the repairs correctly?

sliverstorm 11y ago
They have a repair wagon that was making the rounds of the USA, repairing your stuff in your town.
raverbashing 11y ago
There's a 99% chance you'll need to settle for a similar (or different) color Sew it on the inside and it becomes less noticeable But then again it's very old and probably reaching beyond the point of reparability
mipapage 11y ago
Have you asked them? They have some pretty crazy stores about reaching back to repair old gear.
- calinet6 11y ago
  They'll be happy to help you out. Get ahold of their repair department and if they need to it'll get back to the quality department for the special request. They love that stuff.

mattnewport 11y ago

I appreciate companies making repairable products, providing repair manuals and avoiding proprietary screws etc. but I think it's overly simplistic to say repair is the default right choice. It makes sense to strive for efficiency. In some cases repair is the most efficient choice but in others it is not. There are always tradeoffs and sometimes durability and repairability are over-engineering for a particular use case. Individuals are not necessarily well placed to determine the most efficient choices directly. Prices act as a mechanism to incorporate information on efficiency of resource use and cheap disposable items are cheap in part because they take fewer resources to manufacture and transport. If they are sufficiently durable for their intended use then they may well be the efficient choice.

kijin 11y ago
The problem is that current market prices do not accurately reflect negative externalities such as pollution, exploitation of cheap labor, depletion of natural resources, and exacerbation of socioeconomic inequalities. We just dump our trash somewhere and hope that someone else will deal with it someday. If there's a reliable mechanism to make market prices better reflect such externalities, I'm all for it. But until we've found and implemented such a mechanism on a large scale, a bit of moralizing wouldn't hurt.
- mattnewport 11y ago
  Even to the extent that may be true, it does not follow that "As individual consumers, the single best thing we can do for the planet is to keep our stuff in use longer." as the article claims. There are almost certainly better things most individuals could do. I think moralizing is actually pretty harmful in the context of environmental issues. It leads to things like wasted resources on inefficient recycling programs, ill advised programs like ethanol subsidies, biased evaluation of the merits of the best options for power generation and other examples of schemes that prioritize moralizing and making people feel that they're doing something over actual positive results.
  - annnnd 11y ago

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famousactress 11y ago

I want to add an anecdote to inject some reality into this discussion. I bought a wetsuit from Patagonia in 2009 (I think). They were super new to the wetsuit industry and I paid 300+$ during their "half price" sale. Full price was ~600$ and 300 was the price for the top of the line "money is no object" wetsuit. For someone who surfs a lot (me) wetsuits traditionally last about three years/seasons. Last year my patagonia wetsuit was showing it's age and I brought it to the store. They sent it to their repair shop and the repair folks re-taped every seam, put new knee patches in and installed a new car-key-loop (original suit lacked one) free of charge. The neoprene is starting to break down and the suit isn't as warm as it used to be. I anticipate I'll get this season out of it and maybe 1-2 more. The company is fanatical about the quality of the products they produce and even more fanatical about their support/repair for those products.

jschwartzi 11y ago
The cool thing about running a service center for your products is that you can learn all of their failure modes.
gerbilly 11y ago
Thanks for posting that! I wear an Xcel wetsuit right now, but based on your story I think my next one will be from Patagonia.

studentrob 11y ago

I live in Asia and can always find a shoe guy or garment lady to fix my stuff for $1-$5. They are found in market stalls or the side of the road somewhere. You can't find as many of these "tiny businesses" in developed countries, perhaps because licensing costs too much to make it profitable, licensing isn't permitted for street vendors, varying climate doesn't make it as easy year-round, or ... Anyway, I really like this about Asia in 2015 and wish it were more prevalent in the US

gherkin0 11y ago
> perhaps because licensing costs too much to make it profitable, licensing isn't permitted for street vendors, varying climate doesn't make it as easy year-round, or ... I'm not sure that someone would be able to make a living in the US repairing everyday imported clothing items. The few times I tried to get something repaired by a tailor stop in the US, the cost at US wages was a significant fraction of what it would cost to buy a brand new replacement (made overseas at much lower wages). Admittedly, those were complicated repairs, but everyday clothing is just so cheap (in price and quality) that repairing it doesn't make sense.
- rukuu001 11y ago
  > the cost at US wages was a significant fraction of what it would cost to buy a brand new replacement This is why I get the highest-quality stuff I can and repair it. Instead of replacing mediocre things every year or two, I have a few superb things that I spend $100-$200 a year maintaining (total, not each).
  - lmm 11y ago
    I'd be surprised if that ends up cheaper once you take into account the inconvenience of arranging repairs.
    - Tepix 11y ago
      If you factor in the cost for the environment, absolutely!

Raphael 11y ago

The entire article appears in bold.

dchest 11y ago
Well, they are making a bold statement.

ak217 11y ago

Mentioned briefly in the article, but worth repeating here: iFixit (who Patagonia used to publish the repair guides) is a remarkable company. Their ethos matches the article exactly, and aside from the (economical and awesomely useful) electronics repair kits they sell, they are also dedicated to building an open access wiki platform with rich support for repair guide resources.

rajanchandi 11y ago

This is nothing new to someone in India. We've always been this radical.. now and forever. =)

quanticle 11y ago

While some companies, like Ricoh, DeWalt, Caterpillar and Lenovo have made repair and remanufacturing a staple of their business model, This is why I continue to buy Lenovo, even though it can be argued that overall quality and durability of a Thinkpad isn't what it used to be when IBM still owned the brand. When I buy a Thinkpad (like the T440s I bought last year), I am reasonably assured that if something breaks, I can take it apart by myself and replace or repair the individual broken component, rather than having to throw out the whole laptop and buy a new one. Lenovo publishes the bill-of-materials for its laptops online, as well as the repair manual, which makes things a lot easier when trying to match parts. Just this weekend, I "repaired" my laptop's inability to receive 5Ghz wifi signals by replacing the stock 802.11 b/g/n wireless card with a 802.11 ac part. If this had been a Mac or an ultrabook, I would have just had to deal with the limitations of the hardware as it was.

pessimizer 11y ago
On a T430 at this moment, and availability of replacement parts was the only reason I bought it over a few other models.
pjc50 11y ago
You're unconcerned about Superfish etc?
- arnehormann 11y ago
  Superfish is a root certificate installed by crapware in the preinstalled windows version. It can be uninstalled or removed by a fresh OS install. I guess someone replacing hardware components in a notebook doesn't keep the preinstalled OS for long.
- darkr 11y ago
  Yeah, that whole debacle does concern me, but I don't think I've ever used the stock OS that came with a machine. Even if Lenovo did have a Debian option, I would still wipe it and replace with my own trusted setup.
- 11y ago

acd 11y ago

This brings be to the area of new cell phones. Not good for the environment global warming. Consumer electronics are designed to be replaced which is bad for the environment. See planned Obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence I do not buy that you cannot make a good looking cell phone that is sturdy and allows for component replacement. The Apple Macbook unibody 2009-2012 has metal screws, you can replace the battery, the memory the storage. Same aluminium metal design with Philips screws must be also be usable on cell phone designs. Here is a list of smart phone repairability scores. https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability Its also conscious to think about the electronic waste and that products we design today are not designed to be recycled. It should be easy for a robot to disassemble all the components of electronic devices and reuse most of the raw materials so that we have a closed loop where do pollute more as new and faster designs are out.

sokoloff 11y ago
> I do not buy that you cannot make a good looking cell phone that is sturdy and allows for component replacement. You absolutely can. And your competitor can build one that's a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter, a little bit more beautiful, and you'll be competing on sustainability while your competitor is competing on "new and cooler". Unfortunately, I'd bet on your competitor in that scenario.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > And your competitor can build one that's a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter, a little bit more beautiful People keep saying this because it's the excuse given by companies who do it (and who may have ulterior motives). But is there any technical reason why it should be true? How much "thickness" does a modular battery connector really add? More to the point, it assumes that all customers want exactly the same thing, which is pure bunkum. If all your competitors are solely selling tiny shiny delicate objects that lose 100% of their value upon battery ageing or collision with the ground then there will be some large minority of the market that will stand in line to get something which is 12% heavier because it's more modular and durable than that, and you would be able to claim that entire market segment by providing it.

Endurance1 11y ago

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facepalm 11y ago

Anybody know what is the status for repairs in Europe/Germany? My jacket is falling apart and I really want to either have it repaired or if I get a new one, I want a company that offers repairs.

chris-at 11y ago

Also similar/interesting: Don't recycle! http://ifixit.org/blog/4546/happy-earth-day-dont-recycle/ http://ifixit.org/blog/4546/happy-earth-day-dont-recycle/

ggchappell 11y ago

Some nice thoughts. > All you need is a sewing kit and a set of repair instructions. Or, more practically for most of us, you pay some guy to repair your stuff. Look around. There are little shops all over offering services like zipper replacement. They often don't charge much. Make use of them. And when buying a product, consider how repairable it is.