Medical professionals say that a used razor can transmit infections and recommend even monogamous couples don’t share them. They wouldn’t re-use a razor more than they’d re-use a needle. You need to apply a little common sense beyond saying re-use everything.

Many electric razors (at last in Germany) consists of a head (which is a bit plastic and the blades) and separate handle (which has the electric parts). So reusing the handles is just fine as they don't get into contact with any cut (through desinfect them anyway).

For classical razors you could have a culture of getting a high quality one when you start needing it and then keep it for a lifetime if possible (through you have to sharpen it from time to time).

#notallmedicalprofessionals, says my SO. Needles get thrown because they're cheap, and expensive instruments get sterilized. Boiling will kill the few things that can survive on stainless steel, like the virii that cause hepatitis.

But we don't need to nitpick one tree, and miss the forest of products can be designed better for reuse. The central issue in my mind is that companies are usually incentivized for obsolescence.

You have exceptions like Patagonia with strong DNA for societal good, but companies generally need some extrinsic motivation. What could be effective here? I can see service models working, as the company providing hardware would want longevity to save costs, but I don't want my stuff's lifespan to be connected to its manufacturer.

Surgery tools are a common application for ultrasonic cleaners, because "only an ultrasonic cleaner actually gets in all the small nooks and crannies of a complex instruments and removes blood and tissue from those" (or words to that effect).

Any buyers are in for a surprise, Braun changes their blade designs every few years and after 3 or 4 years, a replacement foil will cost more than a new razor.

I have an alert for whenever Amazon's algo goes wacky and the price drops, but it's only happened twice in three years.

Thats a fair point (I don't feel attacked, but thank you). I'm getting more at the idea that maybe we start planning for things to wear out in a more radical way. I was struck by a story about how the Japanese knock down old houses after 30 years (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...) and while this might be an extreme example, its an interesting perspective. Not without its flaws, but not without its benefits either.

I should point out that I don't think the Japanese home model is worth copying, only that it challenged the way I think about the "shelf-life" of a given thing.

I think Japan knocks down homes after 30 years because their building technology have evolved so rapidly that it would be irresponsible to keep people living in vulnerable homes (a bit like running similarly outdated nuclear power plants /s) when much better options have been developed. Plus, we all realized concrete does not last as long as wat thought to be in the '60s.

What I mean is, Japan might be special and not necessarily generalizable.

on the other hand, there's gotta be much lower hanging fruit to pluck before we start using each other's hygiene equipment. there's a lot of stuff to be reused first that doesn't require thorough sterilization. for one thing, you could just use your own razor for longer if they were more durable.

I think hygiene equipment is a perfectly valid place to start. In some form or another, products in this category are used across almost every demographic—except for maybe hippies—every day for entirety of out lives. Not really something we stop needing, rather we probably end up using more over time. Much of this crap is tossed into the bin or the ocean.