New UK plan "could spell end of throwaway culture" (BBC News)

[MyHeadHz]

New plan for rules in the UK aim to spell the end of "throwaway culture."



https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51825089

[MK14]

New plan for rules in the UK aim to spell the end of "throwaway culture."



https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51825089

Are you sure about that ?

It seems to be talking about, possible new EU rules, NOT the UK, who have left the EU.

It is true, that to some extent, we will still end up with goods, manufactured, to EU standards. But, technically speaking, we will be free (as Brexit becomes increasingly implemented). To buy anything we like, regardless of any future EU rules and regulations.

tl;dr
The UK is NOT making these new rules, as we left the EU. Also, we DON'T need to listen to them (old rules, will remain in our law books, unless/until officially removed, if we want), either.

[MyHeadHz]

New plan for rules in the UK aim to spell the end of "throwaway culture."



https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51825089

Are you sure about that ?

It seems to be talking about, possible new EU rules, NOT the UK, who have left the EU.

It is true, that to some extent, we will still end up with goods, manufactured, to EU standards. But, technically speaking, we will be free (as Brexit becomes increasingly implemented). To buy anything we like, regardless of any future EU rules and regulations.

tl;dr
The UK is NOT making these new rules, as we left the EU. Also, we DON'T need to listen to them (old rules, will remain in our law books, unless/until officially removed, if we want), either.

From the article (their justification for the quotes): "The plan is being presented by the European Commission. It's likely to create standards for the UK, too - even after Brexit. That's because it probably won't be worthwhile for manufacturers to make lower-grade models that can only be sold in Britain."

Whether that will necessarily be true is debatable, but it does look likely.  But the specifics of that aside, these laws tend to make big waves everywhere (maybe even the US). It's analogous to how California state emissions standards affect vehicles in other states simply because it doesn't make financial sense to design and support two different models.

[MK14]

But the specifics of that aside, these laws tend to make big waves everywhere (maybe even the US). It's analogous to how California state emissions standards affect vehicles in other states simply because it doesn't make financial sense to design and support two different models.

Absolutely. Yes, I agree, it would tend to have a big, worldwide influence.

Louis Rossmann will be pleased   
Along with a whole pile of other people.

The extent (in practice) to which the UK follows future EU rules and regulations, is not certain.
In theory we don't need to follow them, but practice (governments and their politics) and theory, can easily differ, here.

[station240]

Hopefully this will put an end to companies 'bricking' IoT devices because they cannot be bothered running the server, or because the newer firmware doesn't fit as they nickel and dimed the amount of flash in the micro to the bare minimum.

[Stray Electron]

New plan for rules in the UK aim to spell the end of "throwaway culture."



https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51825089

 Good!  I hope it works.  I just hope that the drive to increase reliability and maintainability doesn't get sidetracked into using all "green" (recycled) material.  Most of that stuff lasts about as long as a sheet of toilet tissue in the rain!

[MK14]

I prefer, things like cars, washing machines, Microwaves, TVs. To last a reasonably long time. But these days, they can have rather short life expectancies. Which I am disappointed by.

E.g. I am led to believe modern (cheap) washing machines are only good for a few years, but I would prefer them to last at least 10 years and be repairable/maintainable (under reasonable usage, NOT commercial or other, high usage, which wears it out faster).

Ironically, some of the EU rules, seems to have caused the short product life situation, in the first place.
E.g. Lead free solder, can contribute to unreliability of the soldering.
Excessive regulations, make the product uneconomically expensive, to make a long life, durable version.
E.g. Rules insisting on having tyre pressure monitoring in cars, means each tyre sensor has a battery (4, one for each wheel), which can cost a small fortune, to get replaced, every e.g. 5 years.

[Bud]

in order to achieve this they would need to ban chinese made products, since they fall appart before you take them out if the box.

[james_s]

The Chinese are fully capable of building excellent quality long lasting goods, but the funny thing is they want you to pay more for it. It isn't China's fault that the average consumer shops by price and buys the cheapest thing they can find even if it will cost them far more in the long run. It's a positive feedback loop where most people buy the cheapest model of something, then all the companies making good stuff have to choose between cutting corners to compete and stay afloat or going out of business. Pretty soon all you can buy is cheap stuff or in some cases *crazy* expensive professional/industrial stuff but the middle is just gone, kind of like we're seeing the middle class vanish leaving only the super weathy and the poor but that's another matter.

I would love to see a return of quality, but there is going to be some serious sticker shock involved. I'm not a senior but I am old enough to remember when something like a modest TV set was a substantial investment. I still remember my grandfather taking delivery of a brand new 25" console TV that cost him $600 in around 1984, that was several weeks wages at his middle class job and quite a lot of money back then. When it broke down several years later he paid someone to come repair it because it was economical to do so. Now you can buy a HUGE TV for peanuts and when it breaks in 2 years it's cheaper to just go buy a new one than to have someone repair it. Even as recenly as the late 90s I remember 50"+ TVs costing thousands, people had a lot less stuff in general and paid a lot more for it, I don't see how we can return to that without a major uproar, we are full on addicted to cheap toys.

[bd139]

I hope they hit the toy market with this. Particularly things that are really poorly designed and manufactured that come in eggs and piles of packaging and end up in land fill within a month. There are so many companies pushing crap like that at the moment.

[Ranayna]

in order to achieve this they would need to ban chinese made products, since they fall appart before you take them out if the box.

Have you seen Dave's latest teardown video?
Chinese stuff does not need to be shit, but when you only want to pay for shit...

[Psi]

The best advice i can give anyone when buying china goods.

Search for a specific item you want.
Order by price lowest to highest.
Ignore the lowest grouping of prices entirely,
Seriously consider ignoring the 2nd to lowest grouping too.
Buy one of the listings in the 3rd price grouping

[tom66]

Excessive regulations, make the product uneconomically expensive, to make a long life, durable version.
E.g. Rules insisting on having tyre pressure monitoring in cars, means each tyre sensor has a battery (4, one for each wheel), which can cost a small fortune, to get replaced, every e.g. 5 years.

Not necessarily. My Golf has TPMS which uses the existing ABS sensors to monitor for potential deflation. (I guess a wheel will start dragging more as it loses pressure.) The biggest pain is that these systems tend to require recalibration if you reinflate any tyres, or if you change the tyres, as they "learn" the behaviour of your tyres over time. 

But this is an example of something that is essentially software only (as all modern cars have ABS) that can provide an additional safety benefit and need not reduce reliability.

[MK14]

Excessive regulations, make the product uneconomically expensive, to make a long life, durable version.
E.g. Rules insisting on having tyre pressure monitoring in cars, means each tyre sensor has a battery (4, one for each wheel), which can cost a small fortune, to get replaced, every e.g. 5 years.

Not necessarily. My Golf has TPMS which uses the existing ABS sensors to monitor for potential deflation. (I guess a wheel will start dragging more as it loses pressure.) The biggest pain is that these systems tend to require recalibration if you reinflate any tyres, or if you change the tyres, as they "learn" the behaviour of your tyres over time. 

But this is an example of something that is essentially software only (as all modern cars have ABS) that can provide an additional safety benefit and need not reduce reliability.

You're right about the TPMS systems. I did not give the best of examples (some do use the ABS speed sensors, but I believe most, use battery powered wheel pressure sensors), there. They probably improve safety, which is a good thing.

But, what I really meant was. That the huge amount of electronics (and other stuff), which you have on modern cars, these days. A lot of which is due to regulations, such as emission controls, engine start/stop systems, etc.
Can mean that cars are uneconomical to keep for long periods of time.

Examples...

A long time ago e.g. 1960s/70s etc. Cars had simple metal bumpers, which eventually got covered by plastic (and later still, replaced by plastic bumpers).

So, if you had a minor car parking **BUMP**, at low speed. Either there was no damage to anything (the earlier plastic bumpers were like that), or it could be repaired (banged back in shape), or if necessary replaced. For a few hundred pounds (or less if you did it yourself).

These days, you have a tiny knock on your bumper, and it costs lots of money (thousands of pounds ?, or so I've heard), to get it replaced/repaired.
Because of all the parking sensors, driver aid sensors, fog/indicator lights, temperature sensor, daylight sensor, 'radar' vehicle distance sensor (for autonomous cruise control), accident impact absorbing structures (they deform, but then need replacing), and any other stuff, that I've forgotten. Such as cameras (they can be in other places).

ECUs (Electronic Control Units), use to be absent, or there were very few of them, on older cars. Maybe transistorised electronic ignition systems, on a 1970s (I could be wrong in the dating of this) car.

These days, almost everything, has (or connects to), some kind of ECU.
It makes, even small/cheap, cars, fairly interesting these days (i.e. well equipped). But can cost a small fortune, as the vehicle gets older and older, if you want to keep it for a long time.

[thinkfat]

That's a reason to push for 'Right to Repair' legislation, not reducing the amount of electronics. Most of the regulation makes sense as it pushed manufacturers towards safer, cleaner and more efficient cars.

[MK14]

That's a reason to push for 'Right to Repair' legislation, not reducing the amount of electronics. Most of the regulation makes sense as it pushed manufacturers towards safer, cleaner and more efficient cars.

You can say that, and you can believe it. But ...



You can't have (I don't want to say it is impossible, but it can get very, very hard) huge functionality (Electronics), very long life, great reliability, fully repairable by someone with zero skills, is 100% safe under all circumstances, meets all the EU regulations, is liked by all drivers etc etc.
Then sells for an affordable amount of money.

[MK14]

(I've seen some stuff about this so would expect that) There are many articles/videos and explanations on what has happened over the years.

tl;dr
The combination of rules (e.g. EU), public desires for ever increasing functionality in cars, and many other factors. Has meant that the latest cars, can "almost" be considered as disposable items, now.

However, with replacement parts for modern cars becoming ever more high tech, expensive and proprietary and therefore difficult to obtain (due to OEM copyright), many critical components are no longer available at low cost from third party aftermarket suppliers. Due to this fact, most modern cars can no longer be maintained once repair cost of the car exceed resale value. This trend has led to the modern cars being labeled as the first ever "disposable" cars.

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity

[SilverSolder]

[...] most modern cars can no longer be maintained once repair cost of the car exceed resale value. [...]

This has always been true...   if the transmission fails in your 20 year old beater, it is going to the auto wreckers, not the repair shop.

[MK14]

[...] most modern cars can no longer be maintained once repair cost of the car exceed resale value. [...]

This has always been true...   if the transmission fails in your 20 year old beater, it is going to the auto wreckers, not the repair shop.

Actually, 20 years, is pretty good, before the car ends up on the scrap yard.
But the latest goods, cars, washing machines, TVs etc. Don't seem to last a long time, like they use to.

In the 1990s, you could have bought, those items and others, and they last 20 years, just like you just said (for the car).
But these days, the same items, can easily break, fail and be uneconomic to repair, in less than 10 years, in some cases, a lot less than 10 years.

[rstofer]

The EU is somewhere around the 3rd largest economy while the UK is around 6th (behind California) so the UK doesn't necessarily have to follow the EU down a rabbit hole.  There are other places to trade.  This is going to be the case with the US vs EU on an increasing level.  We, the US, are not going to legislate the curvature of bananas.

As to "Right To Repair", well, sure, as long as it doesn't mean "Give away our IP".  In other words, the manufacturers might sell you a pre-programmed chip (for significant money) but they darn sure aren't going to give away the contents.  The other thing about "Right To Repair" is "Cost To Repair".  I don't get out of bed in the morning for less than $100/hour.  How much time can I spend on an obsolete cell phone before it becomes uneconomical.

First I have to diagnose the problem.  I probably can't bill separately for that but I have time, and hence money, tied up in the repair before the customer even agrees to pay something.  Assume they do...  Then I have to order the parts (assuming I don't stock every chip on the market) and then I wait.  Maybe in a month or so, I get the parts and then in a day or two I can fix the widget.  Does the customer want to be out of the widget using business for a long period of time or do they just walk away.  There's a lot of huffing and puffing about "Right To Repair" (primarily by Rossman) but, in the end, it doesn't make financial sense.  There aren't any radio repair shops around and there hasn't been in around 50 years.  TV repair shops have been gone for nearly as long.  I remember being able to buy schematics for the old tube type sets but once transistors came around the schematics became fewer and fewer.  With application specific integrated circuits, I don't know if they are available at all these days.

What if the parts are no longer obtainable - like some Tektronix specific chips?  It doesn't matter what you want to do about "Right To Repair" if the parts are obsolete.  I  guess you could mandate that manufacturers had to stock repair parts as long as their product is in use, or 50 years, whichever came first.  Sure, that's going to work!

It's going to be interesting when the UK is outside the Common Market.  The EU will still try to throw their weight around but sooner or later, they're going to run up against real economies.  They're sellers, not buyers and they should keep that in mind.

[james_s]

As to "Right To Repair", well, sure, as long as it doesn't mean "Give away our IP".  In other words, the manufacturers might sell you a pre-programmed chip (for significant money) but they darn sure aren't going to give away the contents.  The other thing about "Right To Repair" is "Cost To Repair".  I don't get out of bed in the morning for less than $100/hour.  How much time can I spend on an obsolete cell phone before it becomes uneconomical.

It's not really about you though, less than $100/hr may not motivate you, but for the vast majority of the people the planet that is considerably more than they will ever earn and it may be economical to expend far more effort.

I don't really expect companies to give away their IP, but for the vast majority of consumer electronics I'm not sure the IP is really all that valuable. Much of the heavy lifting is done by open source stuff anyway and a lot of the firmware in simpler devices is something that any number of engineers could replicate if they wanted. Making programmed devices available is probably sufficient though, and even just having a schematic would enable a lot of repairs. My experience has been that the expensive, unobtainable and difficult to test custom part is rarely the problem.

[CatalinaWOW]

Some alternate economics.  That twenty year old beater may only be worth $1500.  And a new transmission might cost $2000 or more.  So many will say it isn't worth it to put a new transmission in.  And I agree if you are a re-seller.  You will never recover your costs.  But if you are a user of transportation you already own a vehicle, which unfortunately doesn't work right now.  So your choices are to buy a new (presently working) beater for about $1500 which will have an unknown service life.  Or put $2000 into your beater and have a known good transmission and perhaps reason to believe other parts are working well.  Or put $25,000 into a new vehicle (which will also have higher insurance, licensing and other costs).  With this analysis it might well make sense to put that transmission in.

Seems like the "throwaway" moniker needs to be used with some care and precision.  From the 1970's to the 1990's personal computers made no sense to repair.  Because technology was moving so fast that by the time something broke you didn't want it anyway.  As performance growth slowed repairing/upgrading made more sense.  Improved efficiency in freezers and air-conditioners has reduced operating costs enough to make replacement make economic sense.  Adding costs to the disposal chain (which I believe is the mechanism for these attacks on throw away culture) may actually make sense.  But it puts you in the uncomfortable position of forcing continued use old, inefficient devices because it costs too much to dispose of them.  Dumping CO2 into the atmosphere to avoid dumping plastic in the landfills.

[John B]

Cars are bad examples, as there is an incentive to replace and renew them in order to meet emissions standards. I can think of better examples of throwaway items:

Retrofit LED bulbs.
Single use battery banks for recharging phones.
Coffee pods.

[MK14]

Cars are bad examples, as there is an incentive to replace and renew them in order to meet emissions standards. I can think of better examples of throwaway items:

Retrofit LED bulbs.
Single use battery banks for recharging phones.
Coffee pods.

The problem is, getting rid of such items, needs a huge world wide culture change. Getting that to occur, especially in the free world. Is not going to be easy.

In the UK, we were using/consuming and throwing away, far too many shopping, one time use (typically), plastic carrier bags. So, not too long ago, our government, introduced a 5p per bag, forced charge, especially in supermarkets. (The bags use to be free, in most supermarkets).
So, at least some people, bring long life, multi-use heavy duty bags, with them, to the supermarket, these days, in the UK.

This has reduced the consumption of plastic bags, very dramatically.

But the thing is, to "save planet Earth". We in all likelihood need to take considerably more dramatic action, across the board. This is not likely to be too popular, with the voting public. I'm not sure exactly what the solution is going to be.

Maybe we need to go back to living in caves, and use DNA engineering, to reintroduce dinosaurs. Then the next coronavirus, will only affect one of the (approx) 200 villager population communities, just like it would have. Back in the stone age, before jetting off to foreign countries was an everyday occurrence.
We can then ride the dinosaurs, instead of using cars. They would probably make great prehistoric war fighting machines as well. You can charge into battle riding your tamed dinosaurs, and crush your enemies, while using your zero emissions (ok, a bit of natural CO2, will be breathed out) dinosaurs 'tank' like battle machine.

Edit: typo corrected

[james_s]

I don't see the issue with retrofit LED bulbs. I retrofitted my entire house from 2011-2013 and can count on one hand the bulbs I've replaced since then. Even the ones that have run dusk till dawn every night in my porch lights and other outside lights are still going strong. I bought quality bulbs from Philips and Cree and they have served me very well, and I didn't have to throw away all my nice fixtures. Additionally since they all use standard sockets, changing the light output, color temperature, or other characteristics is as simple as changing a bulb.