Plastic itself isn’t the problem. However, there are a lot of manufactured items which are the right shape, but made of absurdly inappropriate materials, like toys. Spatulas that melt in contact with a frying pan, or chrome foil on plastic for the edge of a phone, which scratches and flakes at at the merest touch. That’s not to say that you can’t design a heat resistant spatula, or a phone with plastic edges which will be resilient and won’t mark. The problem is the temptation that plastic provides to sell something which looks just about right but doesn't work at all in the long run. If designed properly plastic materials can last for a long time.

Plastic means you can design in obsolescence, if we take off the metal hinge support here then this bin will break in 24 months and we can sell a new one.

Look at something like the handle on a paint roller. A wooden handle will probably last a lifetime, plastic handle - with carefully measured amount of plastic - can be designed to break the second time you use it: At which point we go to the shop and buy another cheap piece of crap that will do the same.

Honestly I think a cm more metal in the handle, and a few grams more plastic and they'd last a lifetime ... but what capitalist company wants to make goods that last a lifetime, that harms profits.

I think there are very few cases of companies actually doing planned obsolescence intentionally. It's always about the price: if I can get a paint roller frame on the shelf for 50¢ less than my competitor's product, I'm going to capture some market-share—even if my product will last half the time as theirs.

The difference in cost cutting and planned obsolescence seems to be semantics. If you go the cheapest route its obvious you arent planning on the product lasting and you will get to sell another to replace it.

It still doesn't make sense though. You buy a spatula, it breaks immediately, and you go out and buy the same one again? Nah, I don't think so. You buy a better one, or if you're poor, you buy one from a charity shop. Not many people will be repeat customers of stuff that breaks.

First time you use it, sure you'll get a different one. Only lasts two years instead of a lifetime ... people just think "oh things break" and buy whatever the supermarket has.

Actually a spatula is one of my growing list of "there's no way that wasn't designed to break". Wooden-handled spatula with silicon head, the spatula handle looked like it went in to the silicon and provided a strong head. But instead the silicon was designed to look as if the wood continued in to it, but instead there was a very narrow wooden extension a couple of millimetres thick. This was an expensive branded spatula from a specialist store.

The spatula snapped at the interface of the head and handle; you could make it much stronger _and_ use less material.

It wasn't this one, https://cdn.cutleryandmore.com/products/large/35515.jpg, but same exterior appearance where the handle appears to extend in to the silicone.

I'm convinced that type of spatula isn't designed to last anyway. Even if they don't break, moisture gets into the joint between the wood and the spatula and develops mold. Sometimes I've discovered this when the mold spreads to the visible part of the handle; other times it's only been apparent when the moisture weakens the adhesive and the moldy black handle pulls out in the middle of being used. It's just a lousy design to begin with.

>that type of spatula isn't designed to last anyway

Hmm, same amount of material constructed in an equally difficult manner will last decades (until the silicone degrades) or last a couple of years if the wooden handle is designed with a super narrow breakable section conveniently hidden in the head ... I'm happy if the survive long enough to need scrubbing with bleach and putting in the microwave for a minute to kill any bacteria/mold on them.

I have a cast iron skillet that was my great grandmothers. I imagine a small herd of cows has been cooked on it as well as a large flock of chickens / eggs.

I have paid for and thrown away several cheaper skillets during my lifetime.

You tell me the difference in cheap and planned obsolescence ?

I have no doubt that both are large factors in the boardroom. Easy sale, easy repeat sale. It would be un-capitalistic to do anything else?! Consumers will probably choose the cheap option for the few jobs they have. Professionals will choose the high end option. How else would Harbor Freight exist?!

I think a good system of borrowing high end equipment within your local community would be far more environmentally friendly, but that doesn’t really fit the macho all American DIY persona very well.

FWIW, these exist in some places: https://localtools.org/find/

Though they don't necessarily have high-end stuff; the one here has mostly middle-of-the-road items.

There's an obvious cost/benefit analysis that people do when they purchase products. Unless you're a professional painter, chances are you don't need a roller that will last a lifetime...you just want to paint your kid's bedroom with the little money you have and then not think about painting for a few years until you get that promotion and move to a new place. It's not a conspiracy.

Hmm. Yes, but the alternative is you pass the roller on to your neighbor, or you use a roller from a tool bank, or sell it on second-hand, which things work better if the quality is better.

FWIW I inspected several rollers, not just the cheapest and they all appeared to have the flaw of very short metal "tang", and hollowed out plastic handle, just that bit too thin meaning it flexes too much. If the "tang" was a cm longer then they'd be fixable with a bit of old broom handle (drill hole, add epoxy, ...).

I'm not suggesting it's a conspiracy, just a natural part of the race to the bottom that Western Capitalism creates.

It's the same pressure that leads to reducing the food volume and keeping a packet the same size - "hey boss, we can reduce ingredient costs 2%".

So, "we want to reduce material volume", so the 'tang' is shortened until the thing just holds together, and the plastic is thinned so that as the plasticiser leeches out, and the extra pressure of the shortened tang acts on it, then it snaps. "If we reduce materials this much it'll break within 20 hours of use", which the boss thinks is perfect because they're optimising locally for profit and not globally for "keeping the planet livable".

Time is money. Nobody has time to go around finding someone who needs a paint roller when the roller costs $10. I just moved to a new apartment, I don't even know any of my neighbors.

The argument for some kind of business that provides this durable goods and tools swapping service is interesting. It might be worth tackling with a start up. But ultimately users would have to validate that idea. No idea if it's viable.

You're right that convenience is the antithesis of economy in most situations. That's why we oceans full of single-use plastics.

Would you not go to a tool library? You wouldn't need to talk to anyone, just like checking out a book, check out a tool, pay a hire/membership fee.

This is very true to me because I just painted over the weekend. I got the nice roller pads (purdy brand) and cheap rollers (Lowes), both of them snapped at the handle and rotate around 360 degrees now. This was the second room using them and eventually got the job done, but with lots of frustration. The worst part is this happened the last time I painted. The problem with things that last a lifetime is finding a place to store them.

Luxury brands (watches on the order of Omega, for example[0]) and makers of professional tools routinely use the longevity of their products as a marketing point.

[0]:"You never actually own a Patek Philippe – you merely look after it for the next generation."

Yes, but the longevity doesn't effect the market because they're things rich people collect. People buying them on the whole won't buy fewer because "this one still works", so the rarefied market changes the market forces considerably.

Another example is high-fashion, where things aren't necessarily made any better than low end goods, and it probably doesn't matter because rich people (women mainly, it seems) will wear an item once. So again longevity isn't really a factor as long as it appears to be well made.

I'm not sure what you intended, but I read that as helping make pbhjpbh's point about planned (or studiously not avoided) obsolescence, i.e.:

Longevity is a luxury. It is not to be expected in ordinary goods; they are expected to last for a short time and then get junked, soon to be replaced with new items.

>Look at something like the handle on a paint roller. A wooden handle will probably last a lifetime, plastic handle - with carefully measured amount of plastic - can be designed to break the second time you use it: At which point we go to the shop and buy another cheap piece of crap that will do the same.

I'm skeptical of this, at least to this extent. What company is going to invest the engineering resources to reliably design a particular failure mode in something as inconsequential and cheap as a paint roller?

It's probably far more mundane. Aim to reduce cost/increase profit > use less materials, or use cheaper materials, or use a cheaper-to-make design.

>but what capitalist company wants to make goods that last a lifetime

Serious question?

Rather than questioning its seriousness, one could have answered the question by providing an example of such a firm. To effectively question its seriousness, one could have provided many examples.

I've heard of a couple of examples of companies that will replace goods at any age, but they don't appear to be any good as capitalist entities as they're not profiting rich owners to the optimum extent.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/30sand40s/32-brands-with-lif...

for example. But then The North Face is on there, and I'd never heard that offered a lifetime warranty (my jacket lost its waterproofness and needed replacing), and they also only give 1 year warranty on several items (half the statutory warranty in the EU).

IIRC Dr.Martens limit their free repairs to a particular sub group of their boots?

Could you give examples of companies with lifetime warranties that you consider successful examples of capitalism? I'd guess to qualify they'd at a minimum have public share ownership.

You're putting a lot of strange qualifications on whether you consider a company to be a capitalist entity. Why must it be publicly traded? Why must "rich owners" profit to the optimum extent (and how do you quantify that)?

I don't agree with your criteria. And asking for "lifetime" warranties is not what you originally claimed.

But, looking around at some of the "highly durable" objects I have that were made by profit-seeking companies:

- books

- furniture (Møller teak chairs from the 60s)

- All-Clad pans, Le Creuset enamel dutch oven

- Wüsthof chef's knife

- Barbour waxed cotton jacket

- Iron Heart denim

- Good, repairable shoes (Crockett & Jones, Oakstreet Bootmakers)

It all depends on the local waste management. In most of western Europe, plastic is either recycled or burned in a waste management facility to recycle energy.

The impact of plastic bottles is probably lower than for alternatives like glass. Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them.

> The impact of plastic bottles is probably lower than for alternatives like glass. Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them.

I'm curious about this, any chance you have references?

According to this paper, glass bottles need to be recycled 20 times in order to reach the same CO2 footprint as a PET bottle (UK, assuming a 60% recycling rate for PET): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257679872_Life_cycl...

60% is pretty low for PET, Glass isn't recycled perfectly either, but is generally better than PET.

In Switzerland 82% of PET is recycled. (Note that this number is the percentage that is really reused. Not the percentage that is collected.) The same number for glass is 96%. That means only 44% of glass gets recycled 20 times.

However, this is for reuse, not recycling. Not many glass bottles get reused, most get recycled. Recycling glass is less energy efficient than reusing.

http://www.swissrecycling.ch/wissen/kennzahlen-und-quoten/

> According to this paper, glass bottles need to be recycled 20 times in order to reach the same CO2 footprint as a PET bottle

This does not support the OP's case that "Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them."

There is going to be plenty of transport taking place during those 20 cycles of use and recycle. If the main energy cost of glass is in transport, as he asserted, that's only going to make it less competitive vs. plastic as the number of cycles increases.

The quote is inaccurate. The paper talks about glass bottle _reuse_.

As long as transport + washing cost of glass bottles are less than production + transport cost of plastic bottles there will be some number of reuses that make glass the winner.

60% recycling rate for PET bottles sounds very low compared to the 90% in Finland [1]. The deposit we have on plastic bottles ranges from 0.10€ to 0.40€ depending on the bottle size (the most common 0.5 ltr bottle has a deposit of 0.20€). Cans are recycled at an even higher rate of 95%.

[1] https://www.palpa.fi/beverage-container-recycling/deposit-re...

This is tied up with untold logical fallacies.

In the UK we used to have electric milk floats with milkmen that would deliver milk in glass bottles. The dairy would be local. The cows would be local. Big cities had trains to get the milk in. Or the milk would travel in tankers.

The bottling plant would be for local distribution. The empties would be carried back on the milk float.

Moving on we now have dairies many, many miles away. They are not a common sight. The milk goes into single use plastic bottles and gets sent to supermarket depots. It then travels by road vast distances to supermarkets and convenience stores. People then drive to the supermarket and buy the milk.

I personally preferred the way milk was delivered. I liked the community value of having a milkman. I liked washing the bottles and putting them out for collection. The milk wasn't homogenised then, it had not the same shelf life.

I don't believe that having four pints (2 litres) of milk driven over two hundred miles of roads is that efficient. Particularly when I can see cows out the window. Then, since it is the EU, milk can be driven from Germany. Or in yogurt form over the Alps in a 1000 mile journey.

So at one level the CO2 emissions of glass are higher but driving milk hundreds of miles is where the CO2 problem really is.

From a capitalist perspective everything is now really efficient and the market is working. But when milk was government and cared for that way, there was a lot more employment going on. We could have kept it all local with solar and other renewables powering the milk floats instead of coal. But when those former dairies have been shuttered and sold for housing developments there is no goin back. We are stuck with mega dairies.

Water is even worse. There are lorries driving from the Alps with bottled water. This is plain absurd. There was a time when tap water was as good as it could get.

Beer is different, as are spirits and wines. Beer should be brewed locally and served in glasses that get washed in a public house. But widgets in cans and other tricks have made canned beer fine, what most people drink.

Anyway, saying that plastic is less CO2 than glass is just not fair to all the issues of globalised food.

The United States culture has evolved around convenience and not around excellence, and this culture spread into many parts of the world one way or another, but some places are more resistant. Cheap, lightweight, convenient, fast, easy - these are the main factors that drive peoples actions, which now manifests in environmental and also health problems (obesity). Take Americans vs. European cars as an example. European cars have always been more performant while being more fuel efficient. American car manufacturers would simply put bigger engines as a quick and easy way to make more powerful cars. This has changed in the last decade when fuel prices went up. The environmental impact is not hard to foresee if you think about it, but most people don't. Reasoning about the long term impact on the actions you do today on your health and environment has to be part of education. We have to teach kids to care about the environment from an early age. It will not be easy to change the culture of convenience because now it is almost in people's genes.

I've heard this about European cars forever. I haven't driven many, but I haven't been impressed. My buddy had a Renault that was impossible to shift into reverse. When my parents bought a new VW, the engine failed within 5000 miles. No dealer in the state could fix it. They trailered the car to a dealer in a different state and traded it in.

VW blasting its dumb "Sounds of Silence" commercial multiple times an hour led me to watching most of the Stanley Cup final on a time delay. Haha VW that joke was funny the first time. Yeah it was a real misfortune for you that you cheated on emissions tests and killed lots of urban children with your noxious diesel fumes.

Of course, you can find sloppiness and bad examples everywhere, but you don't prove the theory by a few examples. Perhaps cars was a bad example. My point was that the Japanese and European carmakers always tried to get better performance out of engines without scarifying fuel efficiency. I am not a European nor an American, but I lived on both continents. Visually ( I don't have a statical proof) Americans use much more plastic and produce more plastic garbage than Europeans. A lot of people in Europe genuinely care about the environment and are ready to sacrifice convenience for the environment, but very few people in the USA are willing to do so. Our office produces several large bags of garbage, and we don't have that many people. I am the only person on the whole floor who uses a glass cup for tea, coffee, and water. A reusable glass cup good for my hormones, good for the environment, and also much more pleasant to drink from. I have to wash it from time to time, which some people may find it inconvenient, as it is a lot easier to fill a plastic cup with water, drink it and throw it in the garbage.

You forgot "I can't believe it's not butter" mechanical properties so it lends itself well to almost every sort of manufacturing process you can think of (well, maybe not forging).

Every time I have to buy or use something with unnecessary plastic in it I just feel extreme disgust. There's just too much plastic around us that it would take decades to recycle or decompose them even if we discover the way to do that right now.

First rule of engineering I learnt was: there are always trade-offs. You can't have it both ways. You're right, plastic is cheap, lightweight, resistant, etc. But shouldn't we have asked: "Ok, but what's the catch?"

Don't forget water-proof, and easy to make airtight bags with, too.