A Paper Alloy To Replace Plastic Cases 182
xwwt writes "In response to a paper by Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, PEGA Design & Engineering has developed a new product that is intended to replace plastic shell material in computer equipment and electronics. The product contains a combination of paper and polypropylene (PP) which aids in recycling efforts and is intended to keep non-recyclable materials out of landfills. The PP should break down in sunlight and can be reclaimed. There is concern that polypropylene cannot be separated from the paper fiber and brings into question how the material will be recycled. As poster Paul Davis points out, it might have been better to use polylactic acid. Ultimately, it raises the question: is this truly a recyclable material?"
Will this laptop ... (Score:4, Funny)
The PP should break down in sunlight and can be reclaimed.
Well, it did for a while.
Won't degrade well in the landfill? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will this laptop have a sunlight readable screen?
The PP should break down in sunlight and can be reclaimed.
Well, it did for a while.
And it won't have any sunlight in the landfill so it won't degrade very well? I thought one problem with landfills is that things that should degrade do not due to a lack of sunlight, oxygen, etc. IIRC some researchers have dug around in landfills from the 40s and 50s and found well preserved newspapers and other theoretical degradables. On the other hand some landfills are producing enough methane to make capture economical. Is it a soil thing? Breathable/permeable vs something more impenetrable?
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Re:Won't degrade well in the landfill? (Score:5, Informative)
Methane is generated by anaerobic processes. You wouldn't pump air in to generate methane; you'd just collect it as it built up as bacteria turned solid and liquid waste into the gas.
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You wouldn't pump air in to generate methane
Yes, I would.
Err - sorry. For a moment there, I thought this was one of those silly RIAA anti-piracy commercials.
Well, whatever. Maybe I wouldn't pump air in to generate methane, but I'd still download a car, given the opportunity. :p
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The "new" thinking and practice on landfills is not to hermetically seal the thing, but to keep it moist and bio-reactive. They basically put a big impermeable mat down, throw garbage and dirt on top, and then pour water on it. They suck methane out and run generators with it locally if they can, and they pump the nasty water out of the bottom and pour it right back on top. They keep doing this until the water that comes out the bottom isn't quite as nasty and the methane production tapers off. Then they ad
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Everything is recyclable in a billion year time frame. Every dead species will arise again. How many times has Atlantis sank? How many secrets lost?
Even if we sterilize the planet, life will most likely be found on it later. It's not an optimal solution but no one said this universe is fair just very persistent at trying.
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Damn it! Why didn't I think of this?
Oh yeah, I'm a tech who just fixes things.
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Sony and Apple will be thrilled!
Want recyclable? Go stylish... (Score:2)
(disclaimer: not affiliated in any way with datamancer, just love the designs)
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That's more steampunk than cyberpunk, but still impressive.
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That's more steampunk than cyberpunk, ....
You're right, I stand corrected, thank you.
New warning on products (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:New warning on products (Score:5, Funny)
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is this truly a recyclable material? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Stop relying on recycling. Seriously. Hamilton, Ontario has a steel mill that has an arc furnace to recycle steel. They don't run it during the day since it has the power draw of all of Burlington(a near by town). People need to start think more about the other 2 Rs. Reduce and Reuse.
Knowing Greenpeace (Score:4, Funny)
They will just protest even more claiming that those electronics are "made of dead trees".
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"http://kleercut.net/en/ResponsetoKC"
Forestry in large old growth forests is sometimes the most responsible thing. The boreal forest is massive, and it used to burn at (long) intervals. We've done our best to stop the burning for economic, safety and potentially misguided environmental reasons. Logging those forests responsibly and at long intervals can be good for the forest and better than intensely "farming" smaller areas.
Cutting old growth forests isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's not as if forest
Wau...wait a tick... (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't greenpeace like whine and cry over the amount of paper products we use? And let's not forget we have more forest here in north america, and we grow trees for pulping and lumbering just for that purpose anyway. But, considering the amount of anti-industrial, anti-progress, lets move society back in time crap that comes out of them anymore. People should just ignore them as the special interest group that they are.
Besides, the only real reason why we use plastic is because it's durable, lightweight and cheap. If we had a metal that was durable and light and cheap we'd use that too.
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The idea behind this is that is can be manufactured from recycled materials more effectively, it doesn't mention how recyclable the product is itself.
Compared to plastic, the materials needed to make Paper PP Alloy are easy to retrieve.
The mixture of different plastics causes the major issues for effective plastic recycling. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wau...wait a tick... (Score:5, Insightful)
And let's not forget we have more forest here in north america
More than what? North America has less than 9% of the original old growth forest it had before mankind landed here. And the land being used for lumber and pulping is being degraded, so that they have to move on to other forest areas over time. Heaven forbid someone point out the dangerous and destructive practices that are destroying our world at an alarming and increasing rate. Let's just call them a special interest group and keep plowing on.
Since 1900 (Score:2)
The number of trees and the amount of forest has increased.
The suburbs has been fairly effective in turning farmland into urban forests.
Mind you, it does not answer the question about old growth forests, etc. but still....
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If I remember right. 40% of north america was still in an moderate to heavy ice age period when "man landed here" so really the only increase you're going to see in forest is up. Then again, living in Canada and all that we've been doing this for nearly 100 years without too much of a problem. And again, the only places where forests are degrading is where we've stopped natural burn and clear cycles from happening from forest fires. Allowing invasive species to take hold like pine beetles.
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North America has less than 9% of the original old growth forest it had before mankind landed here.
I can't imagine that many of the forests from 14,000 years ago would resemble their old selves by now, man or no man.
I don't know, so I'm being honest with this question: Does a forest still count as "old growth" if it is wiped out by a natural fire?
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The ecology of the Americas before European settlement was heavily dependent upon human intervention.
A good introductory text on the subject (albeit for a limited geographical area) is Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England by William Cronon.
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Use Polylactic acid instead? (Score:3)
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Having a laptop case that will start deforming at temperatures quite plausibly reached
Why not just make the cases out of paper-mache? (Score:2)
Made from 100% post-consumer waste, of course.
sounds like.. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not a chemist, but this sounds like one of those substances that'll degrade before it should, causing premature failure. plastic has gotten cheap and unreliable enough these days that I wonder if any increased recyclability is being offset by more products being thrown away due to premature breakage. perhaps it's anecdotal, but around the early 1990s, I noticed plastics getting lighter and more brittle, and larger products made with them had structural problems compared with their predecessors. examples coming to mind include kids toys, household appliances, automotive components, and personal electronics.
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It's all about matching the product to it's expected life cycle. Why over-engineer a product if it's expected to only last x number of (years, cycles, uses, etc) Anything more is a waste of raw materials.
Older products had to be over-engineered because we didn't have computers and software sophisticated enough to run simulations to predict stresses within their structure. It was easier to just make it thick enough and leave it at that. Plus there's advances in chemistry and production processes. Injection m
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or perhaps quality could be pushed as a means of limiting pollution..ie make the product once instead of 3 times per customer, and encourage a repair rather than replace culture.
Re:sounds like.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all about matching the product to it's expected life cycle. Why over-engineer a product if it's expected to only last x number of (years, cycles, uses, etc) Anything more is a waste of raw materials.
Because when a man builds a machine, it is a sacred thing. It's what separates us from lower forms of life and is the physical manifestation of our God-given intellect. To build a shoddy machine that can't be relied upon to perform its stated function when you had the choice to build a good one is an abomination against nature.
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It doesn't work that way. There are thousands of different kinds of plastic. Different plastics are being used in different applications. Nylon is nylon is nylon. It's a chemical compound. It doesn't change over time.
Umm, solving the wrong problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Case plastics aren't made of bunnies and happy thoughts, true, and mixed plastics are often not recycled(and if they are, issues like the difficulty of getting the color of the recycled material right out of an already-pigmented feedstock often consign the recycled material to low-value applications); but much of the really nasty stuff is happening on the circuit boards, and in their manufacture, not in the case. Particularly for a portable, where the case is vital to protecting the guts, and keeping the machine from creaking and generally falling to bits, the durability of the case is a major factor in how many years of use you get from the device. It seems like compromising on the case, to make it incrementally less unpleasant, is a bit of a false economy if it decreases the service life of the nastier(and more expensive) components inside.
Re:Umm, solving the wrong problem? (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. Being in the recycling business I can give you some additional comments.
Currently computer cases are made of ABS or PC/ABS (a blend of PC and ABS). Usually light grey or beige colour, occasionally black, and sometimes laden with flame retardants. Under the European RoHS this has to be a bromine-free FR for new products, but of course in the recycling you get lots of pre-RoHS materials as well. The main problem here is that the recycled material has limited applications, it can not be used for products to be sold within Europe for example.
Computer cases are being recycled big time, this is quite valuable material in the recycling world. The computer recyclers will collect and bale those cases for sale to plastic recyclers, China is a major market for this material. Here the material is sorted by type, washed, and repelletised for use in new products.
Regarding colouring: you can not remove pigments from a plastic, if it's in, it's in forever. Same accounts for other additives and fillers. You can only dye the plastic to a darker colour; in practice most coloured plastic is dyed black when it's reprocessed. This as the end user will always want a very specific colour (there are thousands of shades of red, for example), all colours can be dyed to black, and black is one of the most commonly used colours.
The PCBs is another matter: they contain many precious metals such as gold, and are also recycled. Working ICs are often reused (no idea what for but I know they're doing it), the precious metals are recovered. The latter in particular is a very nasty process, as it requires all kinds of poisonous chemicals. And it's often causing a lot of pollution, because these chemicals are often allowed to leak in the soil.
Back to the proposed material. It may or may not be recycled, I don't know. New technologies may have to be developed. It sounds a bit similar to the more common wood-plastic-composite, which is a blend of wood flour with plastics such as HDPE, PP or PVC. This is often used as replacement for wood.
PP does degrade in sunlight: I live in a subtropical area, near the tropic, so especially in summer we have very strong sunlight. Leave a PP product out in the sun and in a year it's become brittle and loses all strength. But it must be exposed to sunlight (specifically the UV part of course), as otherwise nothing happens. So any material covered by other material is well protected. And the flip side is also that the PP is really degraded, and has become useless. No recycling can regain any strength in the material, it's lost and has become total waste. Degenerating until something that can not be seen anymore takes a lot longer, and again requires exposure to direct sunlight.
Wonderful (Score:2)
So products are going to get even cheaper and less reliable than they already are. Why the hell would anyone buy a computer case that is designed to fail?
Re:Wonderful (Score:4, Insightful)
> ...designed to fail?
That was "planned obsiolescence"[1]. It was evil. This is "biodegradeability". It is "Green". You are supposed to want your things to rot and fall apart. Creates jobs, you see. Buying stuff that is durable and using it until it wears out is what old people do. After all, you have to throw your 'pod away and buy the new model ever six months anyway, right?
[1] Not really, but that's what the popular press redfined it as.
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Yup. And what it is is yet another idea sold to us using guilt and shame. Our inventions are ruining the environment, poisoning the earth, bringing us ever closer to disaster---and we're horrible, horrible people for it, they say. In order to feel good about ourselves and atone for our sins we need to be ashamed of ourselves and what we create, they say. And by sacrificing our worldly creations and making our lives more difficult we can make things better, they say. And who are "they"? Businessmen peddling
Dreams of the future past (Score:4, Interesting)
A long time ago, during a more optimistic time when we dreamt of jet packs and lunar colonies (no,not by sacrifing the rest of the economy Newt Gingrich style) recycling wasn't going to be a problem.
Just drop waste into a plasma torch; everything would be reduced to "indivisible" atoms (yes I know that's what the word atom means).
I guess that particular dream vanished with the electric power from nuclear reactors that would be "too cheap to meter".
Anyway, not complaining too much. The past didn't see our future filled with fun handheld gadgets and the Internet. And who knows, maybe Siri will have a baby with Watson. (We should name him HAL). We also don't have nukes in low earth orbit ready to finish off the human race in a few minutes. Still, even though renewables will probably keep us warm in the winter and cool in the hotter summers, it's not clear that we'll have really high intensity power sources to squander, I mean use, anytime soon. I mean nuclear fusion is 20 years away and power from satellites even further.
Let's just hope it doesn't get as bad as in "The Windup Girl".
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afaik the current limitations with plasma torch garbage disposal is not the power, but the plasma degrades the materials making up the furnace too quickly. If the input is general waste then the process produces as much energy as it takes. It needs energy to start or if the input doesn't have enough hydrocarbons.
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Flammable? (Score:3)
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Gives a whole new meaning to "crotch burn" doesn't it ;)
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IIRC, paper's ignition point is 451 degrees Farenheight (about 233 degrees C). If things get that hot in your computer, you have bigger things to worry about than the case catching fire. Then again, a bit of water cooling and you have a cofffe maker.
make it out of chocolate (Score:4, Funny)
make it out of chocolate and everyone will want it and have to buy new ones regularly.
"should break down in sunlight" (Score:2)
A minuscule percentage of the "break down in sunlight" bags actually do as they mostly get buried. In fact once buried deep enough nothing breaks down as no bacteria survive. They dug up a chicken bone meat and all after 50 years from a landfill.
This goes right next to these heavy green bags that replace the cheap disposable bags. The reality is that disposable bags get used again at least to hold rubbish. The reusable often do not and even they are 28 bags worth o
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Well there's your problem. Around here the reusable bags cost several dollars and they de
is this truly a recyclable material?" (Score:3)
OTOH Most of what we know about ancient people is by digging through their trash.
Fire? (Score:2)
Any guesses how well this does in a standard UL fire resistance test? My guess is it's not going to be the kind of case you want when your Li-ion cells do the Sony thing.
Does it turn mushy when you pour water on it?
It'll probably do fine if it's only a low percentage of paper (IE, it's just greenwashing), but if it's actually a substantial amount I would expect it to light off like a fire log.
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A pity that the most promising candidates are a collection of somewhat sinister organohalogens and organophosphates, research on which generally hasn't led to smiles among the world's toxicologists...
How is this an alloy? (Score:2)
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Who would have thought? (Score:4, Insightful)
Deliberate fracture of language to make something sound like something else is to sign of a scam artist (or the marketing people for the composite in the article).
What about things we actually want to keep? (Score:2)
What about things we actually intend to NOT throw away or get rid of as soon as the next fad hits? It's already hard to enough to combat plastic yellowing due from UV exposure because of the bromine flame retardants.... now we have to keep it from disintegrating too? DO NOT WANT. At least with the yellowing issue, you can use 40vol cream peroxide gel and UV to reverse the process.
Why does everyone insist "green" means disposable? That mentality creates more waste as truly "green" electronics are a pipe
If you would recycle, use more metal. (Score:2)
Metal has been recycled for hundreds of years, and is a fine material for PC and laptop cases. Cast alloy Toughbooks and other rugged machines are some examples.
Everything degrades in sunlight (Score:3)
On Recycling (Score:2)
On Recycling I defer to the expertise of Penn and Teller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzLebC0mjCQ [youtube.com]
Re:"Trully recyclable" ? (Score:5, Informative)
What does that even mean?
"Trully recyclable" is a typo, what they mean is that some materials can be reused, infinitely and economically for the same purpose. Examples would be copper or aluminum. Many materials are not recyclable, but they are downcyclable which means that every time you reclaim them the end product is a raw material for a lower grade product. Water Bottles for example get downcycled into lower grade packaging which in turn gets downcycled into garden furniture which gets downcycled into concrete supplements. Plastic is probably one of the most serious and damaging pollutants in the modern world. The oceans are full of it and it clogs up beaches around the world in enormous quantities. Finding a substitute that is either biodegradable or truly recyclable would be very important. But then of course you already knew that, you just couldn't resist letting out your inner spelling nazi. Nevertheless, thank you for this opportunity, it's been fun treating you like an idiot.
Re:"Trully recyclable" ? (Score:4, Funny)
It is our God-given right to throw plastic away. What kind of America would this be if I couldn't just chuck my non-biodegradable products into the nearest ditch!
Quit your social engineering. What are you, some sort of communist?
Sorry, "Polypropylene" just aint bio-degradable ! (Score:2)
I am sorry, but polypropylene isn't something that is bio-degradable !!
Wikipedia's page on polypropylene ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropylene [wikipedia.org] ) has this to say ---
" ... it is rugged and unusually resistant to many chemical solvents, bases and acids"
Read what you wanted, huh? (Score:3)
But when I went to that article, I found, "Polypropylene is liable to chain degradation from exposure to heat and UV radiation such as that present in sunlight."
Wait a minute...did you recently write an article for 16 concerned scientists?
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But when I went to that article, I found, "Polypropylene is liable to chain degradation from exposure to heat and UV radiation such as that present in sunlight."
Above highlight mine
May I know what percentage of the garbage inside a landfill got the chance to be present in sunlight?
If you can use your brain, I humbly suggest that you use it
Wait a minute...did you recently write an article for 16 concerned scientists?
Yep
Difference between you and me is that I use the brain the God has giventh but you ain't using yours
What do landfills have to do with it? (Score:2)
You only said, "Polypropylene isn't something that is bio-degradable." You didn't say anything about biodegradation in landfills. Perhaps you were confused between anaerobic degradation and biodegradation in general. Perhaps you thought all landfills functioned under Subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, but this is not the nineties. Everything from bio-reactors to surface churning is used regularly in many modernly operated landfills in hopes of capitalizing biodegradable materials
Re:"Trully recyclable" ? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it's my 'God Given Right', to buy stuff that doesn't break, not ever. Buy it once, last a lifetime.
Fuck recyclable, give me government mandated, cut the testicles off the manufacturing executives, life time warranties.
Let's see evolution in action, want shoddy products out of the market, let's remove the evolutionary opportunities of people who make shoddy products.
Last a lifetime, don't need no recycling, we'll have a whole lot less rubbish to deal with. For you recyclers I will accept the compulsory recycling of packaging of life time warranty products. Now that's from the gut grump old man thinking ;D.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Trully recyclable" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
You hit the nail on the head. That Sunbeam toaster is still useful, but don't use mom's refrigerator, even if it is still in new condition... a brand new refrigerator would pay for itself in very short order due to the energy savings. Computers, phones, and other modern electronics progress so quickly that "durability" need only be measured in years. Who the hell would still be walking around with a brick phone, even if it still worked and the analog network were still running? For that matter, who would use a Star Tac, which was the iPhone of 1998? Who wants my 1980 23" cabinet Zenith TV?
A kitchen should last 30 years, not a piece of electronics.
And some things are built far better than they were in ye olden days - cars being the best example. Show me a car from the 50s, 60s, or 70s that could go 100,000 miles with just oil changes and brake pads. Show me a 5 year, 50,000 mile warranty from back then.
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The Multisyncs still work. But they are not nearly as sharp, nor would they work as a TV, and a heckuva lot heaver. I am still wondering what to do with the multisyncs.. I will probably take them apart for their high-voltage video and deflection transistors, as well as a handful of high voltage diodes, capacitors, and various magnetics. Their 20 year old CRT's are all sufferin
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Pretty cool that you have a half-million-mile car! You are either being modest in your claims for care of the car or you are one lucky SOB :)
RE: planned obsolescense (Score:5, Informative)
And some things are built far better than they were in ye olden days - cars being the best example. Show me a car from the 50s, 60s, or 70s that could go 100,000 miles with just oil changes and brake pads. Show me a 5 year, 50,000 mile warranty from back then.
Perhaps cars aren't the best example. At least in the US, for a time cars were used to be specifically designed for planned obsolescense. For example, the Ford model T [wikicars.org] was a highly reliable rugged car that used advanced technology and materials and manufacturing techniques of the era to achieve that reliability. Unfortunatly the US car makers eventually decided that a consumption business model would be more profitable than a manufacturing based business model. US car makers then designed cars to wear out and seeded extensive dealer and parts distribution networks to capitalize on this business model.
When the Japanese decided they wanted to enter the US market in the '60s they didn't have all the parts distributors and repair resources that the incumbant US manufacturers had, they also had tax and distribution expenses to deliver products to the US, so they had to design their cars to last longer and be more reliable to justify higher initial product prices and repair prices to penetrate the market. The consumers eventually caught on to the value proposition for this business model and this led to the Japanese car manufacturers caputuring a larger part of the market in the '70s and '80s (the oil prices spiking during that time favoring the smaller Japanese cars didn't hurt either). After suffering major market declines, the US manufacturers essentially had to up their quality game to remain competitive which is why you see all the high quality cars from all manufacturers today.
It wasn't because the car manufacturers couldn't do the high reliability before (they started out that way), it's because they thought the planned obsolescence business model allowed them to make more money (sell, it cheaper, make spare parts, and encourage them to replace the product sooner). It's only after the Japanese car companies forced the US manufacturers away from that model that we get to where we are today.
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The consumers eventually caught on to the value proposition for this business model and this led to the Japanese car manufacturers caputuring a larger part of the market in the '70s and '80s (the oil prices spiking during that time favoring the smaller Japanese cars didn't hurt either).
I totally buy into your thesis, but even Japanese cars of the 70s were a pile of steaming dung compared to even American cars of the 2010s. You get better reliability, much much much much better performance (just try getting a 70s Civic up to highway speed with a full load!), and much less maintenance (no points to set, no carburetor to mess with). And the most amazing thing is that you can still get something like a Versa for $11,000. The little tiny 1971 Honda 600 was about $1500 ($8000 in today's dollars
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Good point! I never actually thought about that, but it is a serious case of selection bias.
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Let's get real here, I'm talking grumpy old man, stuff dies within one month of the warranty expiring and your talking ninety day warranties. I basically gave up on coffee makers, bought a manual grinder and a french press, fuck em, I wasn't going back to the store to buy another locally branded, manufactured in China coffee maker every bloody quarter ;P.
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a manual grinder and a french press
My grinder is electric, but no press here: just a cone with coffee paper and a boiler. That's it.
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If nobody ever bought anything, there would be no economy.
The people in charge of producing this would build enough of your infinitely-lasting deviced to last a few generations and be sacked. I suppose there would be some work for repairment or something, but with such durability
The only way this would work is if you paid 50 times more money to have something last 50 years.
Besides, what exactly do you own that is so crappy?
My laptop is 6 years old. Its only problem is that it's only got 512 megs of RAM, and
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While that does make a lot of sense, it would just never work under the current economic system...
If they can't sell you new products or charge you for repairing the ones you have, how will the companies continue making a profit? It's in their interest to sell you an unreliable product, then charge you again for repairs and replacement parts before selling you a completely new product once the original one is judged beyond repair.
Also some markets are moving fast, for instance i have an old VAX built in the
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In a world with limited resources and billions of people already missing out, do you really know how deeply disturbingly insane it is to mass produce products that will purposefully breakdown because it is more profitable. Truly psychotically insane.
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Well yes, welcome to capitalism...
A system that encourages business to think only about their own short term profits, and not about long term sustainability.
A system that encourages exactly what you describe, because there is more profit in selling more products and having working reliable products in the hands of consumers reduces demand for new ones.
A system that encourages improving the efficiency of your supply chain, so that ultimately all your goods will be mass produced by robots and the minimum of e
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Fuck recyclable, give me government mandated, cut the testicles off the manufacturing executives, life time warranties.
Actually Paul Hawken, one of the founders of Smith and Hawken, had a somewhat similar idea, only it was a bit more self-regulating. He suggested that many things we buy then throw into the waste stream could instead be leased, ultimately from the manufacturer.
Take a laptop. A typical laptop lasts about three years, maybe five. But suppose you didn't buy the laptop, you leased it under an arrangement where the manufacturer is obligated to take the actual physical laptop back and pay for its disposal. This
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YES! This plan sounds like Planned obsolescence to me..In five years,your computer's case starts to fall apart.
Yes, and if you complain, you'll get a terse reply saying "don't put it into the sun, then".
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First they came for the styrofoam...
Re:"Trully recyclable" ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It is our God-given right to throw plastic away. What kind of America would this be if I couldn't just chuck my non-biodegradable products into the nearest ditch!
A cleaner one?
Joking aside, if you really wishes to see how bad it can get when everyone uses cheap one-time plastic bottles, bags and wrappers and everyone just throws it aside after use, visit the semi-rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. After a while you won't complain that the streets in town is full of plastic; you'll realize that the streets is a compacted mass of plastic and mud, flattened by thousands of feet and baked in the sun...
Re:"Trully recyclable" ? (Score:5, Informative)
Plastic is truly recyclable. It is just a lot cheaper to pump new oil out of the ground than to properly separate out the hydrocarbons. See also monomer recycling [wikipedia.org]
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Why do we always subsidize stupid shit and rarely any of the things that are good for us or the planet?
You know what would make it cheaper? A goddamned government subsidy.
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Or just use a lot less of it...
If your talking computer cases, then stick with standard cases like the ATX standard... I have an ATX case which is over 10 years old now, and has been through several motherboards in its lifetime. Also, this case is mostly made of metal, and contains relatively little plastic.
Years ago when i bought a bottled drink, it came in a glass bottle and a portion of the price was refundable once you returned the bottle... That bottle was then thoroughly cleaned, refilled and ultimate
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Now, glass or plastic bottles are smashed up and melted down, using enormous amounts of energy, if anyone bothers recycling them at all (which there is very little incentive to do without the refund you used to be given).
It's still a lot less energy than would be used making the glass from scratch, and using recycled plastic to make garbage bags makes economic and energy use sense too.
Same with aluminium cans - making alunimium from bauxite is horribly energy intensive compared to melting aluminium that has already been refined.
I'm with you on the reuse of cases and power supplies, but how many people feel confident building a PC from scratch? You know it's easy, I know it's easy, but most folk would rather buy new than h
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So... copper or aluminum computer cases? That's whack!
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If it costs a lot of money to recycle, it's not necessarily a bad thing to put the material somewhere safe until new processes, scarcity, or a plant opening closer make it more economical.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Rather, reasons not to leave your laptop on your bed include rupturing the battery (which will ignite), reducing the life of the components inside, performance, and sterility if you leave it on your lap.