7 ms·

Can Sweden tackle the throwaway society?

70 points by thesumofall 10y ago

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
Where I live we have big disposal fees for tires, dishwashers, etc. Isn't that just the free market form of an incentive? Does Sweden not have garbage disposal fees?
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  Do these fees result in more appliances being repaired?
  - Create 10y ago
    Not directly. They are more often than not replaced by brand new AAAAA (or whatever) efficient products. Throwaway society stuff is generally dumped on Eastern European outlets (prime example are used cars, white goods, even clothes etc.).
  - markmontymark 10y ago
    and do these fees result in more fly-tipping / illegal dumping?
- zapu 10y ago
  Where I live, there is a disposal fee for tires as well. It's about 2$ per tire, though ;) With tires, however, it's not like you buy a new one because you got bored with your old tire. You change them to maintain road safety. Recently I managed to repair an old iPod Video - it's about 25$ if you want to buy used, working one. I managed to order the parts from AliExpress for about 10$ total. I make enough money to buy myself a new music player if I wanted to, but the fact that there will be one less potentially toxic piece of garbage somewhere in a landfill feels really good.
  - peatmoss 10y ago
    > Recently I managed to repair an old iPod Video Wow, I just went down the iFixit rabbit hole of seeing what that entails. My hat is off to you on repairing yours. Had I been you, I feel like I would have spent the $10 on parts, destroyed the iPod while trying to repair it, then still bought the replacement item--probably something new for $100+ that gets good marks for hackability, and then failed to make full use of it.
    - zapu 10y ago
      Thank you. I don't think I would be able to touch anything newer than that, honestly. Especially with current-generation devices, where everything is literally glued together, to a point where disassembling it and assembling back is next to impossible unless you have the specific tools (and skills) already. I have iPhone 5S and the battery is kind of giving up. Still going to try to find a shop (too bad it won't be Apple official one) where they'd do a battery replacement before buying a new one.
- Pirate-of-SV 10y ago
  > Does Sweden not have garbage disposal fees? We do but for the kind of garbage like tires and dishwashers the importing/producing/selling party is required to also take care of the costs related to the product after its life-cycle. Effectively this trickles down to the consumer of course so you've already paid for the disposal indirectly. http://www.swedishepa.se/Guidance/Guidance/Waste/Guidance-for-producers/Producers-electrical-and-electronic-equipment/ http://www.swedishepa.se/Guidance/Guidance/Waste/Guidance-fo...
- polack 10y ago
  No, there is no garbage disposal fees for private individuals (companies have to pay) when disposing those kind of things. I think the reasoning is that people would throw away environmentally damaging stuff in the normal trash or dump it in nature if there was a cost attached to leaving it at the "environment station" where they can properly take care of it.
- ferongr 10y ago
  If the disposal fees are punitive rather than set by the free market itself, then it's not a free market incentive.
bogomipz 10y ago
Perhaps they could start by talking to Ikea and H&M as part of this initiative? These are two of their largest exports, both of which have flooded the global retail market with cheap and disposable goods. The fact that both of these companies produce more "stylish" designs of throwaway goods does not diminish their impact on the environment or lessen their very sizable contribution to and promotion of disposable culture.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  IKEA products are ideal for waste to energy programs based on the material used for manufacturing.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    Perhaps Sweden has many such "waste to energy" facilities but they aren't as common as land fills and garbage dumps in most of the international markets that Ikea operates in. At any rate wouldn't it still be better to not produce the waste in the first place? Also how much how much energy is consumed turning that waste into energy?
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      First, I agree with you. Reuse and recycling should be the primary waste diversion methods whenever possible. With that said, if you can't reuse or recycle something, it's better that it's turned into energy (if done cleanly) than landfilled.
      - bogomipz 10y ago
        What is hypothetically possible - i.e something can be used to green-wash a crappy brand in marketing materials and what is actually done in practical terms are two very different things.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Practically none of Ikea or H&M stuff is manufactured in Sweden and exported, though. Sweden is the hub for brand management and such, but the manufacturing is distributed to where the contractors do it cheapest: China, Russia, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam. So the disposable goods are not exported from Sweden, they're imported to Sweden and other Western nations. And typically a part of the brand management is quality control that makes this cheap stuff slightly better, quality-wise, than the generic imports from same countries.
willvarfar 10y ago
There are similar systems in Sweden for renovation and house cleaning, so this can be implemented very straightforwardly. The invoice will contain the deduction and the repairer will report it to the tax authority. Works really well.
ptaipale 10y ago
I like the idea in principle, but the cost of repairing something is so huge - due to direct labour costs and related social expenditures - that it is very difficult to change this balance with just VAT rate adjustments. Fixing a five-year-old TV might cost 200$ (but you don't know, there's no guarantee). A new TV costs 300$. Now, if you reduce the VAT for fixing work from 25% to 12 %, the repair cost goes down to 180$. Is that big enough difference to change the way people act? Mostly not. We still realise that the fixed TV might break at another point next week, and there is no warranty. If I just throw away the old thing and buy a new TV, it'll have 6 or 12 month warranty and 2 year defect liability. So it's still a better buy to get a new one. Plus the new TV probably has more features than the old one.
- SonicSoul 10y ago
  you just came up with arbitrary cost to arbitrary appliance with arbitrary lengths of time. Unless these figures are based on some statistical relevance this whole argument is moot.
  - jerf 10y ago
    It's less arbitrary than you might think. I've been half-heartedly shopping for a new TV in the past couple of days and it's amazing what you can get now. Here's a 49-inch 4K LED TV for $350: https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-U508CV-UMK-49-Inch-Ultra-Model/dp/B00S4HI7CO/ref=sr_1_18?s=tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1480280634&sr=1-18&refinements=p_n_size_browse-bin%3A3578042011 https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-U508CV-UMK-49-Inch-Ultra-Mode... Sure, it may not be exactly what people here would want, but it's not necessarily a bad TV, if we hypothesize someone who is choosing between repairing something 5 years old or buying a new one. With what the TV industry has done lately, it's almost certainly better than what they're replacing. And at the very least, you're risking $200 for a repair. Labor may not cost that much out of the gate, but repair parts can get expensive fast simply because stocking obsolete panels for several years before someone finally buys one has a certain cost associated with it. Factor in the risk of expensive parts, factor in the risk that the repair won't actually work for one reason or another (misdiagnosis, the repair fixes one worn part but there's a dozen others ready to break), and it doesn't take much before replacing the TV is the better choice for the consumer. That said, TVs are also the worst-case scenario, because TV prices have plunged lately in a way that even the computer industry would be a bit jealous of. It makes the case for repair pathologically poor. Many other things have much better cases to be made; appliances haven't plunged in price, and have large landfill footprints. Bicycles can last a long time if you care for them, and bicycle shops have the ability to repair most things quickly enough that they don't have to charge "by the hour" but can just charge flat fees for various tasks. etc.
drallison 10y ago
Providing an incentive to repair through the tax system may have a limited but positive effect. A better choice would be to mandate long lifetime design and manufacture with penalties to the manufacturer for early failures.
eth0up 10y ago
From approx two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579879 - "Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff" One way or another, something ought to be done.
known 10y ago
Does it make you happy?
remir 10y ago
A change in mentality is needed, that's for sure. I was browsing Kijiji the other day and was shocked to see how many people sell their perfectly working appliances just because they are tired of how they look (white) and prefer the newer trend of "stainless steel"...
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  But ... selling them means somebody else will use them. Its not the same as throwing them away. Its called 'reuse' which is actually much better than 'recycle'
  - remir 10y ago
    Sure, they're not throwing them away. They sell their appliances to buy new models, but new appliances obviously take resources and energy to build and transport. Same for cars, TVs, gadgets, etc.
    - detaro 10y ago
      And presumably someone is buying the old appliance and uses it, instead of buying a new one: one appliance more bought new on one side, one less on the other. There is of course the factor that through this people can afford appliances that otherwise wouldn't have them, but that at least has a clear benefit for them.
- tjic 10y ago
  So these people have different preferences than you do. That's hardly a compelling case for "they need to change their mentality". Tolerate diversity, please.
cmurf 10y ago
Repair labor is a huge percent of the repair cost, and includes no warranty, and hence the incentive to just buy new. If the government is going to intervene, maybe what they ought to do is a.) reduce the VAT on repairs, b.) require a 90-180 day whole device warranty, c.) increase the VAT on new products. a) and b) would approximately cancel each other cost wise to the consumer, but give them more confidence in the repair process, which a) alone doesn't do; and c) increases the spread in cost between repair vs new which was the point of a). Of course the ideal would be to make it just as easy to disassemble consumer devices as it is to assemble them. i.e. if the cost of disassembly were equal to or less the value of physical materials in the product.
nipunn1313 10y ago
This is anecdotal for sure, but I've noticed in travels that poorer countries tend to value repairs and older appliances more. Presumably, this is because labor is cheaper. Perhaps a more streamlined way to sell (or even donate) old stuff to poorer countries could combat the wastefulness in a productive way.

70 points by thesumofall 10y ago

Where I live we have big disposal fees for tires, dishwashers, etc. Isn't that just the free market form of an incentive? Does Sweden not have garbage disposal fees?

kwhitefoot 10y ago
Do these fees result in more appliances being repaired?
- Create 10y ago
  Not directly. They are more often than not replaced by brand new AAAAA (or whatever) efficient products. Throwaway society stuff is generally dumped on Eastern European outlets (prime example are used cars, white goods, even clothes etc.).
- markmontymark 10y ago
  and do these fees result in more fly-tipping / illegal dumping?
zapu 10y ago
Where I live, there is a disposal fee for tires as well. It's about 2$ per tire, though ;) With tires, however, it's not like you buy a new one because you got bored with your old tire. You change them to maintain road safety. Recently I managed to repair an old iPod Video - it's about 25$ if you want to buy used, working one. I managed to order the parts from AliExpress for about 10$ total. I make enough money to buy myself a new music player if I wanted to, but the fact that there will be one less potentially toxic piece of garbage somewhere in a landfill feels really good.
- peatmoss 10y ago
  > Recently I managed to repair an old iPod Video Wow, I just went down the iFixit rabbit hole of seeing what that entails. My hat is off to you on repairing yours. Had I been you, I feel like I would have spent the $10 on parts, destroyed the iPod while trying to repair it, then still bought the replacement item--probably something new for $100+ that gets good marks for hackability, and then failed to make full use of it.
  - zapu 10y ago
    Thank you. I don't think I would be able to touch anything newer than that, honestly. Especially with current-generation devices, where everything is literally glued together, to a point where disassembling it and assembling back is next to impossible unless you have the specific tools (and skills) already. I have iPhone 5S and the battery is kind of giving up. Still going to try to find a shop (too bad it won't be Apple official one) where they'd do a battery replacement before buying a new one.
Pirate-of-SV 10y ago
> Does Sweden not have garbage disposal fees? We do but for the kind of garbage like tires and dishwashers the importing/producing/selling party is required to also take care of the costs related to the product after its life-cycle. Effectively this trickles down to the consumer of course so you've already paid for the disposal indirectly. http://www.swedishepa.se/Guidance/Guidance/Waste/Guidance-for-producers/Producers-electrical-and-electronic-equipment/ http://www.swedishepa.se/Guidance/Guidance/Waste/Guidance-fo...
polack 10y ago
No, there is no garbage disposal fees for private individuals (companies have to pay) when disposing those kind of things. I think the reasoning is that people would throw away environmentally damaging stuff in the normal trash or dump it in nature if there was a cost attached to leaving it at the "environment station" where they can properly take care of it.
ferongr 10y ago
If the disposal fees are punitive rather than set by the free market itself, then it's not a free market incentive.

bogomipz 10y ago

Perhaps they could start by talking to Ikea and H&M as part of this initiative? These are two of their largest exports, both of which have flooded the global retail market with cheap and disposable goods. The fact that both of these companies produce more "stylish" designs of throwaway goods does not diminish their impact on the environment or lessen their very sizable contribution to and promotion of disposable culture.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
IKEA products are ideal for waste to energy programs based on the material used for manufacturing.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  Perhaps Sweden has many such "waste to energy" facilities but they aren't as common as land fills and garbage dumps in most of the international markets that Ikea operates in. At any rate wouldn't it still be better to not produce the waste in the first place? Also how much how much energy is consumed turning that waste into energy?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    First, I agree with you. Reuse and recycling should be the primary waste diversion methods whenever possible. With that said, if you can't reuse or recycle something, it's better that it's turned into energy (if done cleanly) than landfilled.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      What is hypothetically possible - i.e something can be used to green-wash a crappy brand in marketing materials and what is actually done in practical terms are two very different things.
ptaipale 10y ago
Practically none of Ikea or H&M stuff is manufactured in Sweden and exported, though. Sweden is the hub for brand management and such, but the manufacturing is distributed to where the contractors do it cheapest: China, Russia, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam. So the disposable goods are not exported from Sweden, they're imported to Sweden and other Western nations. And typically a part of the brand management is quality control that makes this cheap stuff slightly better, quality-wise, than the generic imports from same countries.

willvarfar 10y ago

There are similar systems in Sweden for renovation and house cleaning, so this can be implemented very straightforwardly. The invoice will contain the deduction and the repairer will report it to the tax authority. Works really well.

ptaipale 10y ago

I like the idea in principle, but the cost of repairing something is so huge - due to direct labour costs and related social expenditures - that it is very difficult to change this balance with just VAT rate adjustments. Fixing a five-year-old TV might cost 200$ (but you don't know, there's no guarantee). A new TV costs 300$. Now, if you reduce the VAT for fixing work from 25% to 12 %, the repair cost goes down to 180$. Is that big enough difference to change the way people act? Mostly not. We still realise that the fixed TV might break at another point next week, and there is no warranty. If I just throw away the old thing and buy a new TV, it'll have 6 or 12 month warranty and 2 year defect liability. So it's still a better buy to get a new one. Plus the new TV probably has more features than the old one.

SonicSoul 10y ago
you just came up with arbitrary cost to arbitrary appliance with arbitrary lengths of time. Unless these figures are based on some statistical relevance this whole argument is moot.
- jerf 10y ago
  It's less arbitrary than you might think. I've been half-heartedly shopping for a new TV in the past couple of days and it's amazing what you can get now. Here's a 49-inch 4K LED TV for $350: https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-U508CV-UMK-49-Inch-Ultra-Model/dp/B00S4HI7CO/ref=sr_1_18?s=tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1480280634&sr=1-18&refinements=p_n_size_browse-bin%3A3578042011 https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-U508CV-UMK-49-Inch-Ultra-Mode... Sure, it may not be exactly what people here would want, but it's not necessarily a bad TV, if we hypothesize someone who is choosing between repairing something 5 years old or buying a new one. With what the TV industry has done lately, it's almost certainly better than what they're replacing. And at the very least, you're risking $200 for a repair. Labor may not cost that much out of the gate, but repair parts can get expensive fast simply because stocking obsolete panels for several years before someone finally buys one has a certain cost associated with it. Factor in the risk of expensive parts, factor in the risk that the repair won't actually work for one reason or another (misdiagnosis, the repair fixes one worn part but there's a dozen others ready to break), and it doesn't take much before replacing the TV is the better choice for the consumer. That said, TVs are also the worst-case scenario, because TV prices have plunged lately in a way that even the computer industry would be a bit jealous of. It makes the case for repair pathologically poor. Many other things have much better cases to be made; appliances haven't plunged in price, and have large landfill footprints. Bicycles can last a long time if you care for them, and bicycle shops have the ability to repair most things quickly enough that they don't have to charge "by the hour" but can just charge flat fees for various tasks. etc.

drallison 10y ago

Providing an incentive to repair through the tax system may have a limited but positive effect. A better choice would be to mandate long lifetime design and manufacture with penalties to the manufacturer for early failures.

eth0up 10y ago

From approx two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579879 - "Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff" One way or another, something ought to be done.

known 10y ago

Does it make you happy?

remir 10y ago

A change in mentality is needed, that's for sure. I was browsing Kijiji the other day and was shocked to see how many people sell their perfectly working appliances just because they are tired of how they look (white) and prefer the newer trend of "stainless steel"...

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
But ... selling them means somebody else will use them. Its not the same as throwing them away. Its called 'reuse' which is actually much better than 'recycle'
- remir 10y ago
  Sure, they're not throwing them away. They sell their appliances to buy new models, but new appliances obviously take resources and energy to build and transport. Same for cars, TVs, gadgets, etc.
  - detaro 10y ago
    And presumably someone is buying the old appliance and uses it, instead of buying a new one: one appliance more bought new on one side, one less on the other. There is of course the factor that through this people can afford appliances that otherwise wouldn't have them, but that at least has a clear benefit for them.
tjic 10y ago
So these people have different preferences than you do. That's hardly a compelling case for "they need to change their mentality". Tolerate diversity, please.

cmurf 10y ago

Repair labor is a huge percent of the repair cost, and includes no warranty, and hence the incentive to just buy new. If the government is going to intervene, maybe what they ought to do is a.) reduce the VAT on repairs, b.) require a 90-180 day whole device warranty, c.) increase the VAT on new products. a) and b) would approximately cancel each other cost wise to the consumer, but give them more confidence in the repair process, which a) alone doesn't do; and c) increases the spread in cost between repair vs new which was the point of a). Of course the ideal would be to make it just as easy to disassemble consumer devices as it is to assemble them. i.e. if the cost of disassembly were equal to or less the value of physical materials in the product.

nipunn1313 10y ago

This is anecdotal for sure, but I've noticed in travels that poorer countries tend to value repairs and older appliances more. Presumably, this is because labor is cheaper. Perhaps a more streamlined way to sell (or even donate) old stuff to poorer countries could combat the wastefulness in a productive way.