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Is it recycling that needs to be implemented or go ever deeper at the source and crack down on disposable, unfixable, ephemeral gadgets? Seems to be more of a g

Is it recycling that needs to be implemented or go ever deeper at the source and crack down on disposable, unfixable, ephemeral gadgets? Seems to be more of a greed rush problem, fix it in the future and make more money type of issue at the root of it. Recycling isn't necessarily not useful but attacking the wrong root cause of e-waste.

avgcorrection 3y ago
Passing off symptoms and branch effects as root causes is what the media does on many topics.
hx8 3y ago
The manufacturer needs to have a higher level of responsibility for proper disposal. I can imagine a world where computer vision scans trash and charges manufacturers a cost for proper disposal. End users could get rewarded with coupons or rebates if they prove proper disposal. Perhaps the same scanning technology can check the trash at time of pickup and offer discounts to customers that properly sort their recycling.
- NewJazz 3y ago
  What if your competitors copycat your items for cheap and throw a bunch of them in the trash?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- adonovan 3y ago
  Simpler to build it into the original cost. Manufactured goods are tomorrow's garbage. The price should reflect the cost of a sustainable system of disposal.
tivert 3y ago
> Is it recycling that needs to be implemented or go ever deeper at the source and crack down on disposable, unfixable, ephemeral gadgets? IMHO, the answer should be "crack down on disposable, unfixable, ephemeral gadgets" and quality decline in general. There are all kinds of apologetics defending disposablity and lack of repair-ability, but it's all bullshit to justify the enshittified status quo. Appliances should be designed to last 25 years. Even if that means the up-front cost is more expensive, it's better for everyone except appliance salesmen than buying 5 appliances that only last 5 years each. Large manufactures should be required to provide a stable supply of repair parts. Any tech that can be made reusable should be made reusable. And I'm personally fine with an unwieldy government bureaucracy to bully our fine corporations and their executives into compliance. They've shown they need it.
eternityforest 3y ago
USB-C and replaceable batteries will solve a lot of it. Gadgets are mostly just a battery, a computer, and an IO device. With the battery and charging made reliable, the computer already near indestructible, and the plastic case pretty low-resource-use, all that can fail is the IO device, and if you're gonna replace that, it's not much better than a whole new device, since the rest is an empty box with a tiny PCB. Real repairability would be nice, and we really need replaceable flash memory on phonelike stuff, but I think we're on the right track. A bigger issue is the same problem with furniture: the devices don't wear out, but a better one comes out. This could be mostly solved with OTA firmware updates in everything, since modern devices have close to perfected the IO device. I think the star trek utopia solution would be a set of standardized gadget modules. Then things could be fixed the same way we fixed stuff in the vacuum tube era. I think 95% of gadgets ever made, from guitar tuners to washing machines, could have all the electronics replaced with one universal common standard board and one of a set of maybe 15 or so different modules. Having spares of all of them would let you fix anything in minutes, for probably only a few extra dollars per product. Of course it would do nothing to solve mechanical failures which in my experience are like, 10 or 20 times more common, but it would allow upgrading electronics for new features.
- undersuit 3y ago
  >USB-C and replaceable batteries will solve a lot of it. Those weren't holding us back. What stops the tech companies from releasing a new model every year?
- xw3098 3y ago
  The top 5 accounted for ~70% of the items. 260 million disposable vapes 30 million LED, solar and decorative lights 26 million cables 10 million USB sticks 7 million cordless headphones Maybe USB-C helps with the cables, I’m guessing many of those are failed cables though. In any case, I don’t think it will address disposable vapes or decorative lights. Anyway, I dispute the 95% of gadgets number. I don’t think we can be too surprised disposable vapes ended up in the trash.
  - seanp2k2 3y ago
lozenge 3y ago
The article mentions handheld portable vacuums. Even if a £30 vacuum is repairable, who is going to repair it? How can replacement parts be stocked when their sales will be 99% lower than sales of the original product?
- seanp2k2 3y ago
  Or when Dyson screws their batteries in and makes them part of the handle on the older models, then offers batteries that sensibly slide in on newer models as an upgrade? Meanwhile, all my Milwaukee M18 batteries sit in a drawer in the garage while the stupid Dyson one that is a different voltage charges and only lasts about 7 minutes (not an exaggeration) due to age / high power draw. You can get adapters for M18 batteries that work on Dyson V8 models, but not the newer stuff that has >18v batteries. enter ebikes, stage right I really dislike owning a dozen products that have the same damn rechargable lithium cells inside that I cannot move batteries between in any realistic or practical fashion. Even laptops and Teslas used to use 18650s! It's infuriating that there is zero incentive for companies to develop any kind of modular interoperable rechargeable battery under our current economic system, leaving us with only the trite solution of "just don't buy any modern electronic device, then".
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    The incentive is that soon it will be illegal to sell them.
  - lozenge 3y ago
    Sounds like user error. Did you wash the Dyson's filter every week and leave it out 24 hours to air dry before reinsertion as advised in the manual? /j

avgcorrection 3y ago

Passing off symptoms and branch effects as root causes is what the media does on many topics.

hx8 3y ago

The manufacturer needs to have a higher level of responsibility for proper disposal. I can imagine a world where computer vision scans trash and charges manufacturers a cost for proper disposal. End users could get rewarded with coupons or rebates if they prove proper disposal. Perhaps the same scanning technology can check the trash at time of pickup and offer discounts to customers that properly sort their recycling.

NewJazz 3y ago
What if your competitors copycat your items for cheap and throw a bunch of them in the trash?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
adonovan 3y ago
Simpler to build it into the original cost. Manufactured goods are tomorrow's garbage. The price should reflect the cost of a sustainable system of disposal.

tivert 3y ago

> Is it recycling that needs to be implemented or go ever deeper at the source and crack down on disposable, unfixable, ephemeral gadgets? IMHO, the answer should be "crack down on disposable, unfixable, ephemeral gadgets" and quality decline in general. There are all kinds of apologetics defending disposablity and lack of repair-ability, but it's all bullshit to justify the enshittified status quo. Appliances should be designed to last 25 years. Even if that means the up-front cost is more expensive, it's better for everyone except appliance salesmen than buying 5 appliances that only last 5 years each. Large manufactures should be required to provide a stable supply of repair parts. Any tech that can be made reusable should be made reusable. And I'm personally fine with an unwieldy government bureaucracy to bully our fine corporations and their executives into compliance. They've shown they need it.

eternityforest 3y ago

USB-C and replaceable batteries will solve a lot of it. Gadgets are mostly just a battery, a computer, and an IO device. With the battery and charging made reliable, the computer already near indestructible, and the plastic case pretty low-resource-use, all that can fail is the IO device, and if you're gonna replace that, it's not much better than a whole new device, since the rest is an empty box with a tiny PCB. Real repairability would be nice, and we really need replaceable flash memory on phonelike stuff, but I think we're on the right track. A bigger issue is the same problem with furniture: the devices don't wear out, but a better one comes out. This could be mostly solved with OTA firmware updates in everything, since modern devices have close to perfected the IO device. I think the star trek utopia solution would be a set of standardized gadget modules. Then things could be fixed the same way we fixed stuff in the vacuum tube era. I think 95% of gadgets ever made, from guitar tuners to washing machines, could have all the electronics replaced with one universal common standard board and one of a set of maybe 15 or so different modules. Having spares of all of them would let you fix anything in minutes, for probably only a few extra dollars per product. Of course it would do nothing to solve mechanical failures which in my experience are like, 10 or 20 times more common, but it would allow upgrading electronics for new features.

undersuit 3y ago
>USB-C and replaceable batteries will solve a lot of it. Those weren't holding us back. What stops the tech companies from releasing a new model every year?
xw3098 3y ago
The top 5 accounted for ~70% of the items. 260 million disposable vapes 30 million LED, solar and decorative lights 26 million cables 10 million USB sticks 7 million cordless headphones Maybe USB-C helps with the cables, I’m guessing many of those are failed cables though. In any case, I don’t think it will address disposable vapes or decorative lights. Anyway, I dispute the 95% of gadgets number. I don’t think we can be too surprised disposable vapes ended up in the trash.
- seanp2k2 3y ago

lozenge 3y ago

The article mentions handheld portable vacuums. Even if a £30 vacuum is repairable, who is going to repair it? How can replacement parts be stocked when their sales will be 99% lower than sales of the original product?

seanp2k2 3y ago
Or when Dyson screws their batteries in and makes them part of the handle on the older models, then offers batteries that sensibly slide in on newer models as an upgrade? Meanwhile, all my Milwaukee M18 batteries sit in a drawer in the garage while the stupid Dyson one that is a different voltage charges and only lasts about 7 minutes (not an exaggeration) due to age / high power draw. You can get adapters for M18 batteries that work on Dyson V8 models, but not the newer stuff that has >18v batteries. enter ebikes, stage right I really dislike owning a dozen products that have the same damn rechargable lithium cells inside that I cannot move batteries between in any realistic or practical fashion. Even laptops and Teslas used to use 18650s! It's infuriating that there is zero incentive for companies to develop any kind of modular interoperable rechargeable battery under our current economic system, leaving us with only the trite solution of "just don't buy any modern electronic device, then".
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  The incentive is that soon it will be illegal to sell them.
- lozenge 3y ago
  Sounds like user error. Did you wash the Dyson's filter every week and leave it out 24 hours to air dry before reinsertion as advised in the manual? /j