[HN Gopher] Industrial Design Student Work: "How Long Should Obj...
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       Industrial Design Student Work: "How Long Should Objects Last?"
        
       Author : surprisetalk
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2024-05-07 10:10 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.core77.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.core77.com)
        
       | tichiian wrote:
       | This is missing the fact that the stainless steel from the ultra-
       | durable umbrella is also easy to recycle. In fact, steel is far
       | easier to recycle than any kind of plastic.
       | 
       | Also, the whole work seems to skip over the huge problem of
       | insufficient customer information: There is a remark in there,
       | that lots of people (about half) seem to choose the ultra-durable
       | umbrella, rather than one of the less resource-intensive ones.
       | The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the
       | resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to
       | assume that products are crappier than specified. People do not
       | and usually can not know how durable each product they are
       | offered will be. And buying something ultra-durable-seeming at
       | least gives you a chance at a decent product lifetime. All the
       | rest is usually crappier than expected.
       | 
       | One reason is that the environmentally friendlier alternatives
       | are often also materials of lesser quality. E.g. recycled plastic
       | degrades and is more brittle than "fresh".
       | 
       | The other reason is greedy manufacturers, saving on necessary
       | materials, making products less durable. And maybe intentionally
       | building in weak points, limiting lifetime to sell more stuff.
        
       | kstrauser wrote:
       | This is an exercise in externalities. Sure, maybe the cheap
       | umbrella comes out ahead in a raw materials game: X number of
       | crummy ones may be more eco-friendly than a nice one that lasts Y
       | times as long.
       | 
       | As long as you don't consider anything else, like the fact you
       | have to employ Y times the person-hours to make the crummy ones,
       | and Y times the freight to deliver them, and Y times the customer
       | getting pissed off that their cheap umbrella broke and they have
       | to take time out of their day to acquire a replacement.
       | 
       | I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life's too short
       | to be surrounded by crap that's going to break the first time you
       | look at it wrong, student projects be damned.
        
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