Can Sweden tackle the throwaway society?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37419042

by thesumofall • 10 years ago

70 47 10 years 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• 10 years ago

Do these fees result in more appliances being repaired?

Create2• 10 years 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• 10 years ago

and do these fees result in more fly-tipping / illegal dumping?

zapu2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

Pirate-of-SV• 10 years 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-fo...

polack• 10 years 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• 10 years ago

If the disposal fees are punitive rather than set by the free market itself, then it's not a free market incentive.

bogomipz6• 10 years 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.

toomuchtodo2• 10 years ago

IKEA products are ideal for waste to energy programs based on the material used for manufacturing.

bogomipz6• 10 years 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?

ptaipale5• 10 years 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.

bogomipz6• 10 years ago

Both Ikea and H&M are Swedish companies that have exported a brand that is synonymous with disposable culture, which is the point in the original article.

Why does it matter that they source their cheap labor and manufacturing from elsewhere? Furthermore Ikea and H&M are not quality goods.

bogomipz6• 10 years ago

Down voted by a Swedish person no doubt.

willvarfar• 10 years 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.

ptaipale5• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years 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-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.

ptaipale5• 10 years ago

I admit the numbers are arbitrary, but I do claim they are realistic. Based on personal experience and some insight into the pricing of electronics and cost of labour (in a Sweden-like environment).

If you change the purchasing power parity figures a lot, then it will be different. Fixing a TV may make more sense in Russia, for instance, than Sweden, not to mention some third-world countries.

tfigment• 10 years ago

I disagree that the whole argument is moot but the yes those are made up numbers. The gist of the argument sounds about right to me. I had a vacuum cleaner break and I took it to a local fix-it man and he wanted $80 dollars to fix in parts, labor and tax and wanted it for the week. The vacuum is $130 dollars (MSRP) on amazon right now and $70 on sale. My used vacuum probably is only worth $30 working. I'm pretty sure that this is because there are not many stores of that type and he probably doesn't get much traffic so charges appropriately. I could shop around and find someone better but there are few options and that quote was already a waste of my time at this point.

I think that over time these costs could come down if there was demand as there would be competition and probably sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile. I would like to see more devotion to maintenance and repair but currently the numbers seem unfavorable at least for small appliances.

Create2• 10 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_capitalism

nixusg• 10 years ago

So to provide some real numbers I just did this with a dishwasher. The circulation pump broke on a 4 year old dishwasher and would cost around $180 to repair but a new one with a 5 year guarantee would cost $350. Given the repairs came with no such guarantee and the price different was not too crazy we just got the new one. FYI: Prices converted from South African Rand.

a3n• 10 years ago

Plus the new TV probably has more features than the old one.

That right there would kill the repair incentive for me. I keep my stuff for a long time, so a failure is partly welcome. Your new $300 TV in today's dollars is probably cheaper than my old and feature-poor TV. I'm almost like a small distance time traveler every time I buy something more complicated than a pair of socks.

J-dawg• 10 years ago

This is me as well. I keep stuff for as long as possible because of a mixture of tight-fistedness and anxiety about my environmental impact. So when something breaks there's always part of me that's delighted to be finally "allowed" to buy the latest product.

Johnny555• 10 years ago

Electronics improve so quickly that it may not make sense to repair an old TV. But other goods like washer/dryers, dishwashers, etc make sense to repair.

My 7 year old washing machine broke down twice in the past 2 years - one repair would have cost $150, the other would have been $300 - $400, but the part needed wasn't available any more so it wasn't repairable. Nearly all of those costs were labor. All for a $700 washing machine. I'm fortunate that I was able to fix it myself (I found a salvaged "impossible to buy" control board on eBay). For the other repair, a contact broke off of a temperature sensor, I suspect the repairman would have just replaced the $40 sensor, I soldered a new contact to it and saved the sensor.

There's not a whole lot of difference in features (at least not features that I want) for new washing machines -- I don't need (or want) one that's internet connected, I don't need a an expensive touch screen.

I don't even use 90% of the features on my current machine, I don't need a dozen cycles and a time delay down to the second, I just want a few basic cycles and a machine that's easy to repair.

cmurf2• 10 years ago

Yes the labor cost of manufacture is a) almost entirely automated and b) applied to a million count so the cost of that automation is subject to economies of scale. The human component of diagnosis and repair is not scalable, and isn't distributed. About the best way to approximate it is a $30 per year surcharge on all such products to pay for an extended warranty; that everyone would have to pay.

readme• 10 years ago

There will always be something newer and better but it's not sustainable for everyone to keep going out and buying it. I've only bought one TV in my entire life.

Sweden's move is definitely a step in the right direction but I really wish something like that would even have a chance of passing in the US.

Repair work creates jobs for regular people. This is a good thing. People buying less new TVs just means less corporate profits. This doesn't affect the little guy anyway.

This kind of law kills 2 birds with 1 stone. Pollution and income inequality. I really wish more people would think this way.

drallison• 10 years 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• 10 years ago

From approx two months ago: 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• 10 years ago

Does it make you happy?

remir2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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'

remir2• 10 years 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.

tjic• 10 years 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.

cmurf2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

Can Sweden tackle the throwaway society?

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