this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 75 points 7 months ago (2 children)

E-waste will continue to be a problem until companies are forced to make products that are designed to be repaired and upgraded without replacing them.

We have certification for safety and compliance, why not one that guarantees that an electronic product can be fully repaired by the end user using readily available (and affordable!) parts? It can be on a scale from 1 to 10, and the less repairable the item, the more restricted its distribution should be.

Every laptop should be made like a Framework laptop; every phone like a Fairphone. Every electronic product should certified to have long life.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago (13 children)

Hardware is not even the biggest issue imho. Software/firmware is even much worse. How is it possible to sell a phone that does not even get updates for 5 years. And why is Fairphone, Google Pixel and iPhone standing out with only 5 ish years.

Luckily the EU is currently working on that.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago (2 children)

IMO its fine for vendors to abandon their products but they should be required to release all technical documentation and software used with the device into the public domain so enthusiasts can continue where companies stopped.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Exactly. Right to Repair should include software and whatnot, not just parts and schematics.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Fair point re: software. Part of manufacturing products that don't need to be thrown away would entail longer software support, naturally.

But realistically, software was never an issue 15+ years ago, when your toaster and microwave weren't connected to the internet and your fridge didn't have a large tablet interface.

I think we would all do better by having a few more "dumb, but immortal" products in our lives.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Exactly.

Why can't I buy a decent dumb TV? I get that people want smart TVs, but surely there's a decent market for people who really don't need those features and would be happier with a simpler product. I'm absolutely part of that market, and I'm sure there are others.

I generally prefer simpler devices, and it was difficult buying a fridge with decent longevity (i.e. limited smart crap, ice maker in the freezer instead of fridge, etc). That's becoming more and more difficult, and large appliances have shorter and shorter lifespans (I had my compressor die twice in <10 years in my LG fridge... fridges used to last 15+ years).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I generally prefer simpler devices, and it was difficult buying a fridge with decent longevity (i.e. limited smart crap, ice maker in the freezer instead of fridge, etc). That’s becoming more and more difficult, and large appliances have shorter and shorter lifespans (I had my compressor die twice in <10 years in my LG fridge… fridges used to last 15+ years).

I should say that my current fridge is 27 years old and has NEVER had a problem (other than over-stuffed crisper drawers being broken).

I was reading that the average life for a fridge is 10-15 years, and I can't honestly believe they are being made so poorly these days. They are such simple appliances, and I dread the day when I have to replace this one for a modern version.

But I'd love for my next TV to be a dumb TV. All the features my LG tv has just gets in the way of using it. LOL

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

Yeah, after some research, LG in general is the worst, especially with their linear compressor. It failed after 2-3 years (under warranty), and failed again after 4-5 more years. We didn't bother fixing it again, since the repair people said it'd cost $600+ assuming the part is under warranty, and probably wouldn't last much longer anyway. Samsung is apparently similarly bad, but with different components. I liked this video, which goes over which fridge to get, and other resources say something similar: LG and Samsung are piles of crap (they're super fancy though), Whirlpool and GE are better if you avoid fancy features, and everything kind of sucks.

We went with Whirlpool this time, but everything I've read says the expected lifetime is still just 10-years. I don't want fancy features, I just want it to keep things cold, and I'd rather pay someone to fix it than replace it...

All the features my LG tv has just gets in the way of using it

Same. I have a Samsung "dumb" TV (~40", 1080p) from ~10 years ago and it's fine, and I have an LG "smart" TV (~55", 4k) from 5-ish years ago, which can be a pain to use and I'd prefer to just have a "dumb" TV instead. I even use the "smart" features sometimes, but they're slow and I'd get a much better experience with a small PC hooked up to it instead.

But it's incredibly hard to find non-smart TVs. There's a handful of "hospitality" TVs, but they're usually lower resolution, don't have nice features like OLED, and size seems to cap out around 40" at the biggest (most are 32"). I don't want any of the AI fixing crap, apps, etc, just give me a bunch of HDMI ports (ideally DisplayPort as well) and a decent picture.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (9 children)

You can. Its called a monitor.

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[–] themurphy 72 points 7 months ago

And that is exactly why we need more regulation on this area, because it's NOT sustainable right now.

This was why the EU made it mandatory to use USB-C, so we only need few chargers for everything in our home. This alone were tons of e-waste reduced each year.

We need this thinking in other areas too.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 7 months ago (3 children)

We need phones that don't break so easily and we should be able to repair them and replace the battery, at the very least.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago (4 children)

we have phones that don't break easily and we can repair them and replace the battery; with long-term support.

what we need are laws that makes it mandatory for all.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Make laws that give consumers mandatory, irrevocable warranties that include fit-for-purpose clauses, and has phrasing such as "reasonable expected lifetime" for the goods. Make those laws apply to whoever sells you the goods, not the manufacturer.

Laws like that weed out a lot of crap. Shops won't buy crap in because they have to deal with the warranty on said crap. Manufacturers won't make (as much) crap because they have to deal with returns.

You won't be able to buy a $4 air fryer any more, but the one you do buy will last a lot longer.

Edit: I'm Australian, and we have consumer rights over and above warranties offered by manufacturers. Those rights would be a good start.

They start about half way down this page:

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-services/consumer-rights-and-guarantees

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The most fucked up part is that, if I could, I'd happily take in some of that trash to repair and recirculate it, but corporations make that as difficult as possible so as to not hurt their profits.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

And I'd happily keep my current phone if it had security updates, but those ended a few months ago so I'll be throwing out a perfectly good device.

I'm getting a Pixel for my next phone so I can get 7 years of updates, so I'm trying, but it just sucks that perfectly good hardware gets thrown out just because the manufacturer either blocks repairs or stops supporting it...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Shout-out to framework laptops for repairable, upgradeable, and reusable components.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Anecdotal but in my career in corporate this has been the order of operations

  1. Employees get any old equipment free if asked
  2. Employees can pay for any old equipment if asked at a reduced cost
  3. Employees can't get any old equipment

The reason was they company wasn't getting any benefit to give away the equipment. Then it was too much of a hassle to write paperwork for the sales which are then used to write down refreshes. Then they just blanket sold to another company which as an employee you then have to engage but with no discounts.

These big businesses make money hands over feet but god forbid they let Joe Employee keep his old laptop for his kid as an unofficial perk of working there.

[–] UsernameIsTooLon 4 points 7 months ago

Parts are expensive and profit margins are thin. What's stopping us from buying parts on eBay and reselling those phones for profit? You pretty much end up with the cost of the phone to repair the phone.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I feel a law that would go a long way would be to force companies to release code, drivers, and designs of any product they no longer support. That includes Intellectual Property. If you no longer support a product, then you don't need the IP used on it.

We either get everything we need to use EOL products however we want, or companies support products much longer to protect their IP.

[–] reddig33 24 points 7 months ago (5 children)

E waste is full of precious metals. You’d think someone would figure out how to recover them.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago

There are trace amounts of precious metals mixed in with a lot of other crap. It's possible to recover them, but nobody is going to do that if recovery costs more than the metals are worth.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

'Tis the nature of Economics. -If recycling for money were easy and profitable then it's highly likely that someone would already be doing it really well and competition would be jumping in to reap some of the rewards. -That said, you will always need a 'Pioneer' to pave the way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

People are doing this, but it requires some gnarly acids and a lot of material. Think extracting gold from sticks of RAM with aqua regia. Not sure of the exact process but scrappers do this in some capacity. I’d imagine the waste from these processes is particularly nasty.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Less and less, the last good stuff was made well before the millennium. It costs to put it in there, so manufacturing processes have become more plastic, less metal. Same goes for cars and white goods.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Apple: No no no, it's fine! Keep buying a brand new phone every 2 years! Oh, you don't want to? Well, we'll make them irreparable, lock down the software so that you can't revive it or reuse it in any way, claim it's for "security", and make sure that repairing it costs as much as a new phone.
But believe us, we're the good guys and are doing our best to be sustainable 😉

Graphics card manufacturers: listen up, that graphics card you bought just a few months ago is already outdated. Never mind that it could be full speed, but we artificially gimped it in hardware and software to sell more units. Responsibility to handle the trash you say? Lol, that'd cost money! Let your government ship them to a third-world country and dump it in a slum.
Btw, we're sustainable, and don't you forget it!

appliance manufacturers: Repairability is for chumps. We need those fat stacks! The day your warranty ends, your device breaks 😘 Planned obsolesce baby! Buy a new appliance you bloody consumer.

IoT manufacturers: Who, us? No, we don't exist. Look over there. Nothing to see here.

And so on and so forth.

  • #opensourceAfterDeprecation : you deprecate or stop supporting a device? nice, now release all the source code, designs, and schemata to the public
  • #greenTax : a tax is levied for the estimated impact to the environment your device has
  • #recycleByDesign : all your devices need to have a planned recycling route and if somebody else has to figure it out, you pay a nice tax

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The laws don't go far enough to protect usability of both the hardware and software. For example, the new EU law about software, only requires smart TVs to have software updates for only 5 years (my own $2k Sony TV only gave me software updates for its AndroidTV for only 2 years! -- these days I don't connect it to the internet at all due to security problems). Who throws a TV every 5 years? IMO, it should ask for 6 years for full updated phones, plus 3 additional years for security updates, computers should go to 12 years, and TVs to 15 years.

Personally, I've been gathering old laptops and towers from friends and family and "upgrade" them with Debian and XFce. As long as they have more than 450 Passmark CPU points, and 2+ GB of RAM, these machines can still serve a purpose. So far, I've repurposed 12 such machines and gave them away back to their owner, my mom, my nieces, and two of my cousins. Even on machines with only 2 GB of RAM, it's enough to run a browser with up to 3 tabs before touching the swap file (Debian/XFce clean-boots to about 800 MBs of RAM). That works just fine for someone like my mom who doesn't even how to open a new tab, or for a young kid researching for school.

I would do the same with old phones too, but most of the models bought here in Greece are cheap Chinese Xiaomi/Huawei/realme phones, so LineageOS doesn't support them. That's the biggest travesty these days, since very few people buy computers now. Think if Google could ask as part of android license that all phones have usb-out for monitors, and all these phones can then be transformed like Samsung's desktop DEX OS. I mean, most phones today have 4+ GB of RAM and 128 GB internal memory, just like an old laptop would. It should be able to transform itself into a desktop OS on demand and extend its life and its purpose.

[–] ordellrb 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I had this exact idea but for old Consoles: every PS4 could be a perfectly capable x86 Computer, 8GB of Ram and a AMD CPU, enough Power for Office and Web for a long Time. Only Problem the Software.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (8 children)

@ordellrb @eugenia The other place the motherboards of old phones could be repurposed is in embedded processors.

Most home appliances feature embedded processors and motherboards these days. Many commercial and industrial buildings and structures feature a range of embedded sensors.

In many cases, a repurposed three-year-old or even six-year-old iPhone or Samsung Galaxy motherboard is overkill in terms of being capable for these kinds of applications.

Especially if they're reflashed with an embedded device-focussed operating system, such as QNX.

Instead of making new motherboards for embedded devices, why not repurpose old consumer tech instead?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Don’t look into that recycling either. It’s just arbitrage all the way to the acid vat man.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Wireless earbuds are trash and part of the problem, like wireless mouses. Stop putting irremovable batteries in things that don't need batteries, its basically just planned obselecence on shinier more expensive goods. The last thing I want is to spend money on is good quality audio equipment that has a necessary end of life date due to charge cycles. These days you can scarcely find good headphones that arent wireless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ok no but a wireless mouse is so much better, rechargeable batteries are the way

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Even rechargable batteries have a limit, if you cant swap the battery as a user it's part of the ewaste problem. It's also a lot more power consumption for somthing that stays in a stationary space reletive to the computer or laptop.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

People living in high-income countries own, on average, 109 EEE devices per capita

What the fuck?!?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Anyone got a non paywalled version of this?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Can we just roll it all up in a big ball and shoot it into space on a rocket? That worked great in Futurama… 😉

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Super expensive. Better to just burn it in low income communities. /s

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Ironically the same stuck up bitches who are always virtue-posting about how green they are, (make damn sure the waiter knows they don't want a straw in their drink, etc.) are the same people who insist on yearly Apple flagship refreshes so they get social affirmation.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I feel like the answer is recycling deposits somehow. I've seen attempts at them here and there, but I guess we haven't quite figured out the details yet. I guess electronics are a bit trickier to set up a deposit system for than pop cans. Even the places that do have electronics deposits, often you have to drive to a special recycling centre out past the airport that's open 3 hours in the middle of the day, only for them to tell you that everything's glued together so they can't really separate out the parts they need and most of it will probably end up just going to the landfill anyway.

But theoretically, if we could get a serious deposit system that allowed for recycling to be profitable and gave manufacturers and incentive for making their stuff easier to take apart and recycling (and hence easier to repair), that would be pretty sweet.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

A lot of the stuff you recycle doesn't actually get recycled, at least in the US. I just got a new fridge and they carried old one away for me, but I'm pretty sure they just take it to the dump and the thing that's recycled is the refrigerant.

I'm a huge fan of recycling, but I don't think we actually process most of the recycling we have, so we should be focusing more on things lasting longer. Phones have kind of plateaued, so they should have longer support cycles, better repairability, and smoother resale.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh cool another crisis, throw it on the big pile over there

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[–] FinishingDutch 2 points 7 months ago

You can read the actual report here:

https://unitar.org/about/news-stories/press/global-e-waste-monitor-2024-electronic-waste-rising-five-times-faster-documented-e-waste-recycling

It’s an interesting topic for sure. And I’m not surprised that E-waste recycling is lagging. It’s easy to buy something, but there’s generally no equally easy way to turn things in as E-waste.

Let’s say I bought a new toaster from Amazon. What do I do with the old one? I can’t exchange it at the door, so I need to make an additional effort to bring it to a special E-waste recycling point. Which many don’t bother to do, as it’s easier to just chuck it in the regular waste bin. And if it’s small enough, we tend to chuck it in a drawer and forget about it. Who here doesn’t have a drawer with like three old phones in it?…

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

They should just burn all the waste. It works for spacex and starlink.

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