wrote in message
...
On Wednesday, 23 March 2016 13:27:45 UTC, charles wrote:
In article ,
tabbypurr wrote:
On Wednesday, 23 March 2016 12:07:20 UTC, michael adams wrote:
"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 23/03/2016 03:39, Bill Wright wrote:

In the interests of the conservation of materials and energy, should
not DIY, especially the repair of goods,

As far as repairing goods is concerned, the whole point of mass
production certainly since the Industrial Revolutiin is to manufacture
and assemble all goods as far as possible by machine with as little
labour input as possible. As its this that makes goods so cheap in the
first place.

Given economies of scale and labour costs its usually far more economic
to manufacture a new item from scratch than it is to train up
technicians to disassemble, diagnose and repair faults, maintain an
inventory of spares etc.Especially when new models might be introduced
on an annual basis.

In larger items such as cars these are often broken down into
sub-assemblies, headlights etc which need to be replaced entirely and
are imposible to repair.

Although this may be wastful of material, overall the cost saving in
labour is probably far greater than any labour costs incurred in
sourcing new material. For the present at least

This really is old stuff; going all the way back to Vance Packard and
the "Waste Makers" in the 50's/60's.

That's all half true. The reality is a considerable percentage of what's
faulty & what's thrown away is worth repairing. And much isn't.

There's also the cost of someone's time to be taken into account. DIY
repairs can be worth doing, but paying someone do to the job is most likely
uneconomic.

like I said it's often worthwhile.

Its only "worthwhile" if the persoin doing it isn't costing their
time.

But we live in a throowaway culture and repair places aren't set
up for it, they haven't moved with the times.

But that's assuming that whatever it is is repairable in
the first place. Many things such as headlights in many cars
and many similar "sealed units" are so designed as to be
impossible to dismantle let alone repair. And even with things
which can be repaired, assuming that the correct parts are
available - a problem which appears to beset even many
washing machines and boiler "specialists",by the time
the item has been dis-assembled, the fault diagnosed
and repaired it will often have been cheaper for the
repair place to supply a replacement unit instead.

It simply isn't economical except for people doing it as
a hobby.

Same as with most recycling certainly as practicised in the
UK; where sentiment is allowed to outweigh straightforward
economics.

Whereas in some subsistence economies its economical for
people who would otherwise be unempoyed to spend all their
time scouring rubbish dumps and landfills. A situation which
fortunately doesn't yet apply in the UK. Salvaging timber
from skips is different, as most of it is superior to
what's on offer "new" in the sheds.


michael adamas

....