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Meditations on an inexpensive laundry basket
- woodruffw 4y agoAs a counterpoint: Sterilite has been going strong for decades (while still manufacturing in the US), and I think I paid $3.99 for my laundry basket in 2021. It looks like it can be had online (from Target) for about $5. Plastic manufacturing is shockingly cheap, especially when the design never changes. Maybe it shouldn’t be that cheap (since it’s probably being externalized somewhere), but lots of companies are surviving (and thriving) at these price points.
- mjhay 4y agoItems that actually get reused a lot (e.g., not reusable shopping bags) aren't as bad waste-wise, for the simple reason less of them need to get made. Personally, I'd like to see plastics restricted to areas where they have major advantages over wood, steel, etc. Many consumer items like this would hold up well enough using bioplastics.
- PopAlongKid 4y ago> I'd like to see plastics restricted to areas where they have major advantages over wood, steel, etc. I suppose you could make a cheap laundry basket out of chicken wire, but there would have to be some way to protect from rust caused by damp clothes.
- mjhay 4y agoLike I alluded to, some low-cost consumer products that aren't really meant to last forever (like a laundry basket) would be good candidates for bioplastics (some of which do fine with water).
- pvillano 4y agoAlternatively, make a laundry basket that is meant to last forever.
- mjhay 4y agoThat would be ideal, but a lot more difficult to market. Most people just don't care enough when they buy items like this, and/or they don't want to pay a premium because they'll probably be moving soon/etc. Crap, if people just spotaneously started buying qualty, durable things, and companies actually made them, that would go an enormous way to help the global environmental collapse.
- 13of40 4y agoYou can actually just look to what people were using before plastic became ubiquitous: wicker, cotton, burlap Unfortunately if you live in the US you're starting out at about $50 instead of $5. I think that's a little bit of a HCOL price point, though. I picked up a burlap shopping bag in India earlier this year for about the equivalent of five cents, that any store here would have charged a couple of bucks for.
- convolvatron 4y agoI'm still using the reed clothes baskets I bought 30 years ago...then they were around $10-20 ea
- pvillano 4y agoA plastic laundry basket can be made to last forever. That's the point of this post.
- SoftTalker 4y agoBut they aren't. This guy got very lucky. Mine never last more than a few years. Most of them inevitably crack somewhere in less than a year. They are made so that you need to keep buying them. I probably buy 3 a year just to replace the ones that break.
- moloch-hai 4y agoYou are failing to drill out the ends of the cracks, as the author did, failing to glue, and failing to buy a better quality product, slightly more expensive, that would not demand you return to the dollar store so frequently. You have anyway lots of company. That should not be reassuring. (I use "you", here, to denote all readers in the same boat, not any particular individual.)
- teg4n_ 4y agowhat the heck are you doing to your laundry baskets that you break 3 a year??? I don’t think i’ve _ever_ broken a laundry basket.
- quesera 4y agoAvoid hard plastics and square edges/sharp corners. Notice that the basket from the article has rounded edges, and rounded cutouts. The plastic appears to be thickish and should be very slightly flexible/rubbery (bending because the material is flexible, not merely because it is thin). These products should (and definitely can) last decades.
- jessaustin 4y agoReed/grass baskets are really old technology. Like, prehistoric. There's no need for newfangled materials developed only in the last several thousand years.
- tonyarkles 4y ago> Maybe it shouldn’t be that cheap (since it’s probably being externalized somewhere) I mean, there's four main pieces to this: - Injection moulding machine - Mould itself - Raw materials - Disposal The moulding machine is quite expensive until you amortize across the number of produced pieces. Most of the time these aren't custom-built and can be used to make multiple patterns. The mould is also quite expensive and is made for one specific part. To your point, this is why things get cheap when the design doesn't change. They will eventually wear out, but from a high quality mould you should be able to get roughly a bazillion of these consumer plastic parts. The materials are ridiculously cheap. Polyethylene, as an example, is $1200/metric ton: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171074/price-high-density-polyethylene-forecast-globally/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171074/price-high-densi.... I don't know exactly what a laundry basket weighs, but I'd guess somewhere in the 500-1000g range, so somewhere between $0.60-$1.20 worth of plastic. The recycling at the end is the part that isn't really baked into the price. A quick search didn't reveal much as far as the costs for recycling/kg, but did suggest that recycled PET seems to sell for more like $0.20-0.30/kg. This, to me, suggests that either it needs a fair bit more processing to make it into "useful PET" or that whatever recycling process they use requires minimal energy & processing compared to the initial chemical inputs that made the plastic in the first place.
- jrochkind1 4y agoPlastic recycling is basically more expensive than creating new plastic, still. Very little plastic actually gets recycled. (Most of what you put in your household bin does not). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/single-use-plastic-chemical-recycling-disposal/661141/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/single-use...
- seventytwo 4y agoBecause new plastic creation doesn’t include the cost of disposal, as the poster above mentioned. In theory, the cost of manufacture a new piece of plastic should pay for the recycling of that same piece of plastic.
- blamazon 4y agoOn negative externalities - if we don't change our course, practically every facet of our daily lives will continue to be dependent on petrochemical solids for long after we switch completely to electric vehicles and renewable energy. Plastic in my eyes is basically petro byproducts 'blitzscaled' to all layers of the economy, all the way down to the literal bloodstreams of all living organisms.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoI’ve had the fortune of working in industries that most people don’t see the back end of… Like it or not; we will use every drop of oil there is, one way or another. I wouldn’t bet against oil companies even if all cars were electric by means of a genie.
- Gare 4y agoIt seems only 4% of the World oil/gas production is used for plastics. https://www.bpf.co.uk/press/Oil_Consumption.aspx https://www.bpf.co.uk/press/Oil_Consumption.aspx
- blamazon 4y agoGood lord, all the plastic in the world being four percent of oil and gas production is terrifying. Implying the rest basically ends up combusted into the atmosphere? The fact that increasing the percentage of oil and gas used for plastic looks like a good option by comparison turns my stomach.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoThe wonder composites that make electric cars possible are all oil. Carbon fiber is hilariously not-green to produce. Make a tube out of oil and burn it over and over. Now make a car out of it with zero chance to recycle and talk about how green it is. Two things to your post though. Yes, making things out of oil is probably better than burning it. But don’t mistake how much oil is used in the side-processes. We will burn the oil one way or another. Until there is a better source of energy with better safety and density than hydrocarbons, we’ll use it all. If not in cars, in power plants, if not there in military, if not there in 3rd world, etc.
- ssivark 4y agoI know nothing about these companies, but it's worth keeping in mind that this is the period after China joined the WTO and integrated deeper into the global economy for manufacturing -- so it's possible that these NJ manufacturers couldn't compete on cost with the Chinese ones, or even that these bankruptcies might have been part of an offshoring reorientation (either within the organization, or in the sector at large, which happened to asphyxiate certain suppliers). It's even possible that bankruptcies were strategically engineered by private equity to sequester profitable modules and discharge obligations, opportunistically exploiting macro trends. Ultimately, I think the takeaways might be far more nuanced and interesting than "pricing by value" -- there's no reason customers will pay more if your competition can make and sell good products costing less :-)
- pydry 4y ago>Given all these bankruptcies, I’m beginning to think that even back in 2001, this product was underpriced. $3.99 was simply too low to charge for a product which would go on to serve me well and faithfully for 20+ years and counting. In life, you have to know your value, and charge accordingly. He's mixing up use value and exchange value.
- thenerdhead 4y ago> In life, you have to know your value, and charge accordingly. Dollar stores existed that sold $1 laundry baskets. Is this supposed to be satire?
- thewebcount 4y agoThat doesn’t mean that the laundry baskets at the dollar store didn’t cost more than $1 to make. The inventory of dollar stores sometimes comes from bartering rather than buying inventory. My brother worked in this industry for a few years and it was really bizarre. You’d have one company with several thousand cell phones that didn’t meet FCC standards, so they couldn’t sell them in the US, and they didn’t have the infrastructure to sell them overseas themselves. You’d have another company that had several thousand packs of last year’s baseball cards, but that also has some overseas brands that sell electronics. They’d come up with some sort of trade. The baseball cards would end up in a dollar store, and the cell phones would end up in Africa. Problem solved, no money changed hands.
- ollybee 4y agoI have a laundry basket I took form my parents, I think it's from at least the 70's, it seems to be made of a thicker plastic, that's a little rubbery and so does not crack. I've newer washing baskets the plastic seems more brittle and has cracked over time. I wondered if the 70's basket had some additive that is no longer allowed, or that the economics if making a quality product dont make sense, I've certainly no been able to find and that seem robust like my 70's one in the UK.
- jimmaswell 4y agoDid the floor of general product quality used to be higher, or was there always an abundance of cheap crap that broke fast and we just see the survivors?
- tristor 4y agoBoth. One thing most people discount is how much better materials science has gotten since the 60s/70s. We now understand the limitations and constraints of the materials we are working with much better and can design in a cost-optimized fashion for a targeted life span. Computers aid this a lot with techniques like Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and similar. Things in the past were greatly overbuilt for their purpose because we didn’t fully understand the material properties. We now have a lot of lighter, thinner, more functional products and in a cost-optimized way.
- jimmaswell 4y agoI often feel like we might have been better off as a society with the overbuilt products that could take more abuse and were more reusable and adaptable. Like a heavy phone you could dramatically hang up or beat a robber with, full of recyclable metal and reusable electronics.
- tristor 4y agoI definitely feel this way about hand tools. There’s still a few good options left for new stuff, but most of it is junk compared to tools from the 60s. Because hand tools are pretty much all metals, it’s simple to compare weight. I have a new and vintage Snap-On 3/8” drive ratchet that are of identical model numbers, new one is 30% lighter. Never broken either ratchet, but I have broken ratcheting wrenches and many sockets. Vintage impact sockets are much less likely to crack but sometimes won’t fit in the cut-outs for lug nuts on modern wheels, due to the expectation of thinner walled sockets. I definitely miss slamming a phone when you hang up after a bad call, not quite the same tapping end on a touchscreen.
- pipeline_peak 4y agoWhat a weird, boring post, I swear half this site is on some LSD flashback. Go outside, get laid, stop writing musings of injection mould baskets…
- hammock 4y agoYou are probably being rightfully downvoted (I’m only halfway through my morning coffee) but I found your comment hilarious and also relevant in a meta sort of way, and in my opinion worth keeping around as a contrarian point of view
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- humanistbot 4y agoI can't believe this got to the front page and that you're being downvoted.
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- pipeline_peak 4y agoThe state of “Hacker” “News”
- jstanley 4y agoIf you want to prevent the crack from spreading, you can drill a larger hole at the end of the crack, like this: http://www.flight-mechanic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/7-93.jpg http://www.flight-mechanic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/7-... Also, if you want to hold the crack together, you can drill holes either side and "stitch" it together with cable ties, like this: https://i2.wp.com/handycrowd.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/trim-off-cable-ties-640x297.jpg?resize=640%2C297&ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/handycrowd.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/... May your inexpensive laundry basket continue to serve you for a long time!
- pvillano 4y ago"reduce, repair, reuse, recycle" Plastics are some of the most long-lasting materials. It's kind of insane that we treat them as disposable.
- dopidopHN 4y agoMy mantra exactly. Plastic is such an exceptionally resistant material. And we decided to use it for the worst use case possible of “single, short use” I lived in places where plastic bag have been banned. You know what happened ? Nothing. Society did not crumble. People still carry things in bags. Be it paper bag and re-usable fabric bag. ( or even still plastic, but the strong-strong kind )
- Abishek_Muthian 4y agoCaptain Planet thought me that when I was a kid and I had no idea about the environmental disaster we were heading into. Perhaps there should have been shows like that 60 years ago to make some impression on the people in power today around the world.
- hoseja 4y agoCouldn't he weld the, presumable, thermoplastic too?
- jaclaz 4y ago
- amelius 4y agoNo piece of plastic forged in one pressing beats the Monobloc in reputation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monobloc_(chair) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monobloc_(chair)
- pvillano 4y ago> The chairs cost approximately $3.50 to produce
- seltzered_ 4y agoAnyone else remember the Walmart checkout area lined up with boxes of 'Yaffa Blocks' around the late 90s?
- JoeDaDude 4y agoAs an aside, that's a way cool design! Love the bubbles pattern. If I could get one today, I would.
- reilly3000 4y agoAlmost nobody who gets a business up and running will go out of business by charging too much. The majority of businesses fail because of cashflow and profit margin issues. Show your product's worth and charge enough to be perpetually sustainable- or let it die.
- gidorah 4y agoI have a laundry basket that I've had since new in around 2005. Though I'm not sure. There is fluff in the handles that it probably older than my children. We joke that the basket will always be a part of our lives.
- topspin 4y agoI have a couple Rubbermaid baskets from the early 90's. I've wondered if they're still as well made now.
- danielodievich 4y agoWe bought a really large storage box with wheels to use as a laundry basket, in dark green with red covers from The Container Store a while ago, when we moved to a new house and our kids were just toddlers. They were very curious about what that big thing was and since it was right before holidays, we called the box "Merry Christmas"! They rode around in it quite a bit, fun to be on top of clothes and be pushed by your sibling. It's been 13 years and it is still going strong, even after heavy riding sessions of yesteryears. And to put something in laundry in our house is pronounced as "go put your dirty clothes into merry christmas"
- smcl 4y ago> it’s a vessel for transporting toasty warm clothes approximately 50 feet This is odd - surely a laundry basket is a vessel for heavy, damp and lukewarm clothes edit: downvoted for forgetting about tumbledryers, the shame :)
- elliottkember 4y agoNot in my house. Dirty clothes go into a hamper, the bag comes out of the hamper to the laundry, and then the basket is for carrying them back to the bedroom to fold.
- aussieshibe 4y agoIt depends how you do your laundry I guess. I have a washer-dryer combo (and enough solar power to not worry too much about the environmental impact of using it). My wash involves chucking everything in the machine at the end of the week, waiting six hours, carrying the now completely dry clothes to the bedroom.
- Ladyady 4y agoNot if you've also got a tumble dryer