8 ms·

I think this is bad. Sometimes I want a cheap Chinese piece of crap that breaks in 3 months because I only need to use it one or two times. I shouldn't be force

• purplethinking 9y ago
  This type of legislation is not about you, it's about the environment. Buying cheap products that break in 3 months that you then throw away IS the type of behaviour they want to reduce, even if it was exactly what you expected and wanted.
  • wyager 9y ago
    If you think cheap Chinese gizmos are even worth our consideration over environmental concerns, you're looking in entirely ways the wrong place. Heavy industry, food production, and transport are vastly more significant targets.
    • TeMPOraL 9y ago
      I'd love to see some numbers. Given that cheap Chinese gizmos seem to form most of non-food purchases people make, and that they require intercontinental transport, I'd say their footprint is not insignificant.
      • shoo 9y ago
        From the late David JC MacKay's book "sustainable energy: without the hot air" [1] we have the following estimates for per-capita energy consumption in the UK: all units are kWh/d * "defence": 4 * transporting stuff: 12 * stuff: 48+ * food, farming, fertilizer: 15 * gadgets: 5 * light: 4 * heating, cooling: 37 * jet flights: 30 * car: 40 the "stuff" category is the energy required to manufacture stuff, including gadgets, houses, cars, roads, washing machines, newspapers, drink containers, computers, etc. note that the energy cost of house construction is estimated at 1 kWh/d per person, while the cost of a new car with a 15 year lifespan is 14 kWh/d, the ignoring energy to run it. The combined energy cost of stuff and stuff transports is the biggest impact on the list. although arguably the car is the worst offender if you account for the energy cost of the stuff lifecycle and the energy costs to oeprate it. The estimated energy cost of manufacturing a car with a 15 year lifespan accounts for 14kWh/day of the 48+ kWh/day "stuff" estimate, so if the use of a car was replaced with a magical transport device that required no energy to manufacture or run or dispose of, that would eliminate 14kWh/day from "stuff" and also eliminate the 40 kWh/day car operational energy cost too. [1] - https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.com/
      • wyager 9y ago
        Shoo posted some hard figures, but I'd like to add that intercontinental product transport by boat is incredibly efficient.
        • icebraining 9y ago
          Efficient in what terms? AFAIK, not in ecological terms, due to the use of low-grade ship bunker fuel: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping...
          • TeMPOraL 9y ago
            That's something I could never reconcile. On the one hand, I hear that container ships are the most energy-efficient way we have of moving cargo across long distances. On the other hand, we have those issues with crappy fuel. I wonder: - What's the total ecological impact of container ships vs. alternative forms of transport using better fuel? - Would container ships be a Good Thing if we could somehow make them use clean energy? (I just imagined a dream future of fully autonomous, nuclear-powered container ships.) - If so, why are they still using that shit fuel?
            • emn13 9y ago
              It's probably simply a question of the "lawless" open seas permitting absurdly excessive tragedy of the commons-style tradeoffs. You don't need to go all the way to nuke-carriers; plain old combustion can be much, much cleaner than some ships at negligible (but non-zero) cost - witness similar engines/powerplants on land. But in an extremely competitive market, what sane operator would do that?
            • kuschku 9y ago
              > I just imagined a dream future of fully autonomous, nuclear-powered container ships. You might want to read about these then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn_(ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn_(ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(nuclear_ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(nuclear_ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• pjc50 9y ago
  And what do you do with the broken thing once you're done with it? What quantity of conflict minerals and questionable labour went into the disposable thing? Longer-lived more durable products might also be amenable to app-based rental ""sharing economy"", for people who don't want to keep the thing.
  • wyager 9y ago
    > What quantity of conflict minerals and questionable labour went into the disposable thing? What quantity went into the more expensive version I'm forced to buy so some upper-class do-gooder can satisfy their sense of moral superiority? If you think that "questionable labour" is a problem, fix that directly instead of making vaguely related warranty regulations. I'd be perfectly happy with efforts to make the price of items more closely match their total cost including externalities, but piecemeal regulation of warranty policy is not the way to do that.
    • yesbabyyes 9y ago
      Likely about the same amount, don't you think? Obviously, over the product's lifetime one could imagine there's a big difference, which is likely the point. It may well be worse for the cheaper one, as they have to cut costs somewhere - e.g. Apple recently announced they would move to use recycled rare-earth minerals only, and stop buying from war zones. Which is obviously the way it should be, right? It's just that there are things we still haven't solved when it comes to conflicts, business, government and industry, leading to all of us here walking around with minerals mined by hand, by children, at gunpoint. Now, if we want to change this, regulation has proved to be a workable way. As you hint, there are surely others and I hope we can pursue them as soon as possible! With the current regime in the US, change likely won't come from that way in a while, so I'm glad to see the EU making progress. (Also, you're coming across as slightly entitled with the aggressive tone when saying you want the world to keep an unworkable production system just because it's convenient to you.)
      • wyager 9y ago
        Movement in the wrong direction just for the sake of movement isn't "progress". Mandatory warranty periods are simply bad economics, and it's not hard to see that this will go wrong for the reasons I mentioned (and more). Please expound on how disposable goods are "unworkable". If I'm coming across as entitled, it's because I'm very tired of people directly and noticeably harming my quality of life for the sake of trivial (and often counterproductive) environmental benefits. I shouldn't have to break the law (but I do have to) to have a good shower, a well-functioning toilet, a working gas can on my car, really clean clothes, or effective and safe home sanitation. If you aren't familiar with the ways "progressive" little environmental regulations in the US have fucked up all of those things to negligible environmental benefit, I'd be happy to explain any of them.
• danielostling 9y ago
  Mother Earth just cried a bit there.
  • icebraining 9y ago
    Nope, Mother Earth doesn't care. She's not going anywhere. We are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
• skrause 9y ago
  Did you know that you can sell products you no longer need instead of throwing them into the trash? Or just rent it if you only need it one or two times?
  • wyager 9y ago
    If that were worth my time, I would do it. The environmental cost of a Chinese gizmo is negligible compared to the loss of utility associated with having to rent a USB stick or some nail clippers. We don't have to live like we're in the Middle Ages.
    • TeMPOraL 9y ago
      You can work around that disutility in various ways; meanwhile, environmental costs are additive and will come back to bite us hard. Personally, I'd be much more in favour of "disposable economy" (because of those utility costs you mention) if I could trust that all of the trash actually gets recycled into further products.
    • m_eiman 9y ago
      Instead of throwing the things away you could donate them to charity. Let someone else use or sell the stuff.
      • wyager 9y ago
        I do, if it's convenient. Traveling 60 miles to Goodwill also has a cost (direct and environmental).
        • LeifCarrotson 9y ago
          Where could you possibly live that it's 60 miles to the nearest secondhand store (or rather, what's the fraction of people that live similarly far from them)? I have four Goodwills within 25 miles of me, plus a bunch of secondhand clothing botiques, flea markets, a couple Salvation Armies and a Habitat ReStore.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• jrimbault 9y ago
  Makes me think of the late Terry Pratchett's "Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice". FYI and TLDR: you're spending more money than you should by using this method. (and wasting resources, but that doesn't seem to hold weight against you) (edit: yes i'm aware this from a fantasy book, but there's also actual evidence behind it as well, even if presented in a humoristic way)
  • wyager 9y ago
    You do realize that the disc world books aren't actually economics research papers, yes? Perhaps this is the level of economic background I should expect from internet commenters. The quoted theory might be relevant if I were using my e.g. USB drives to exhaustion (and sometimes I do, and I buy the nice SSD drives), but sometimes I only need to use them once or twice, and buying a high-quality drive would be a waste.
    • mason240 9y ago
      >You do realize that the disc world books aren't actually economics research papers, yes? Based on your downvotes, it seems that people on HN think that fiction can prove economic theory.
      • soundwave106 9y ago
        I personally consider Terry Pratchett's quote as a rather elegant way of explaining one aspect of a "poverty trap", a concept which is well known in economics.
  • Dylan16807 9y ago
    The whole point of that theory was that it was based around a product you use a lot, and have to replace sooner. If you use something 20 times, you don't care whether it breaks after 100 uses or 1000 uses.