We should just stop buying new products.

[JasperFrank]

I've been involved with what has been called the reuse movement most of my life. I have personally refurbished well over 40 thousand home computers that got a second, and third life, cause they could be updated, or at least vectored to people that didn't need what these old state of art machines could do. But there is a war going on, that the Corps don't want you to buy anything other than what is new. And they don't care. Some one has told the Corp they make more money doing it this way, with planned out and intentional obsolescence. We have to fight this, cause having worked on the "recycling" side, there is no plan for it. We use to be able to fix things and had an entire economy for fixing things, which is being lost. It can be recovered, the special tooling shops can be refreshed, if we reject this Corp plan, that all is disposable.

 

[TimberHole]

So many of the young crowd preach “green” but they buy everything new and really do nothing to recycle. I get everything used, sometimes free. I have a ton of mowers and paid for very few of them. Bought a Deere Gator yesterday. I think it’s a 1995 model. I love to get stuff others are throwing away and bring it back to life. Here is my current mower. It was free.

 

[Roadworthy]

40,000 is a LOT of home computers to refurbish. I've only done a few dozen myself for donation from my employer to the local school district. I think my last three computers were purchased used and I donated one of them to a needy college student. The same frequently holds true for my cell phones. Unfortunately much of the newer stuff is made to not be readily repairable and many of the younger generation are unwilling or unable to learn how to fix stuff.

 

[JasperFrank]

Roadworthy... Hold on. I like your attitude. I created two fully independent sites for fixing electronic stuff that would have been land fill.
In a way. I can agree that the younger gen don't fix stuff.

They are not allowed to.

In this, I can not find fault in them, I find the fault in the OEM that designed the intentional, and yoked, burnt diodes that makes a device only work with this machine and no other. Its the world we live in. And some how, these of another generation,...... they have to deal with it..

 

[5030]

I 'recycle' them all the time. Take them out back and use them for target practice. Put a bulls eye on the hard drive and blast it.

 

[Wobblin-Goblin]

I live on a farm. Fixing and reusing things is kind of a way of life.

 

[ddbackhoe]

Fixit shops are disappearing because locating parts is becoming too time consuming (labor too high). Had a broken headlight lens on a little JD 3032e. Called and ordered a new one, wrong part shipped 3 times. 4th was the right lens but “new and improved“ bulb holder that was not compatible with existing wiring. JD did not offer a fix for the problem, answer was sorry thats been discontinued. Ended up splicing and dicing wiring. Big deal? Tractor was less than 5 years old and under 700 hrs. Have a 1952 hay rake that’s still usable but the tractor to pull it wont last near as long.
Had a Poulan saw dropped off the other day, starts wont stay running. The plastic cage that holds the rewind assembly flexes under vibration loading down the motor.
Maybe frustration with fixing things is why some people opt for new. Others just dont have a clue how. Local machine shop, good luck. Places like Tractor Supply have more clothes and Knick knacks than hardware or tractor stuff because thats what sells.

 

[dodge man]

I agree, we have turned into a throw away society. I also admit me and my wife partake in it at times. It also bothers me that they sell you something cheap but make up for it by selling you maintenance items. Printers are a good example. Sometimes if you get a cheap printer on sale the ink cartridges cost as much or more than the printer.

 

[Reddogs]

I've been involved with what has been called the reuse movement most of my life. I have personally refurbished well over 40 thousand home computers that got a second, and third life, cause they could be updated, or at least vectored to people that didn't need what these old state of art machines could do. But there is a war going on, that the Corps don't want you to buy anything other than what is new. And they don't care. Some one has told the Corp they make more money doing it this way, with planned out and intentional obsolescence. We have to fight this, cause having worked on the "recycling" side, there is no plan for it. We use to be able to fix things and had an entire economy for fixing things, which is being lost. It can be recovered, the special tooling shops can be refreshed, if we reject this Corp plan, that all is disposable.

Well, there is a problem when you talk PC computers, and its that many of the older programs cant run on the newest Windows versions, and/or they tend to stop working as they go down or get corrupted, or damage happens to hardware, and you also loose support if you leave them on the old version. I have many Desktops that are still good, (and many more that I took to Goodwill) but have slowed down to be unusable, and its virtually impossible to find out what caused it or to restore as you longer have access to the Microsoft updates and fixes that allow many of the programs to correctly print, open files, and keep damage from viruses or just corrupted files or damaged harddrives or other components. I've reformatted, rebuilt and restored as many as possible, but some are just unfixable or basically boat anchors for my sailboat and ready for the landfill as waiting for 4-5 minutes for it to boot is not usable in my book. So unless you take it in and have it done professionally and run up costs beyond a new replacement, many of the old PC's might as well be moon rocks, so its not that simple IMHO...

 

[RandyT]

Fixit shops are disappearing because locating parts is becoming too time consuming (labor too high). Had a broken headlight lens on a little JD 3032e. Called and ordered a new one, wrong part shipped 3 times. 4th was the right lens but “new and improved“ bulb holder that was not compatible with existing wiring. JD did not offer a fix for the problem, answer was sorry thats been discontinued. Ended up splicing and dicing wiring. Big deal? Tractor was less than 5 years old and under 700 hrs. Have a 1952 hay rake that’s still usable but the tractor to pull it wont last near as long.
Had a Poulan saw dropped off the other day, starts wont stay running. The plastic cage that holds the rewind assembly flexes under vibration loading down the motor.
Maybe frustration with fixing things is why some people opt for new. Others just dont have a clue how. Local machine shop, good luck. Places like Tractor Supply have more clothes and Knick knacks than hardware or tractor stuff because thats what sells.

Too much cheap stuff on the market, and labor rates too high to make it feasible to repair. Back in the late 70's early 80's you could go to your local farm store and buy a new Homelite cheap chainsaw for $78 and labor rates were around $15/hour, and even though you had to remove the engine from the housing to work on the carb or to replace the sprocket it was still cost effective feasible. But now you have $79-139 trimmers but the labor rates are $80, and boils down to the fact of "how much time can you spend on a $90 trimmer at $80/hour."