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0 pointsamelius7y ago0 comments

> Recycling might be the responsibility of the company, but they might systematically find the cheapest way to do it without regard to the full externalities of how it's accomplished.

It's a lot easier to hold few companies accountable, than to hold millions of consumers accountable.

> And good luck trying to prove to a fridge service provider that their unit has an intermittent thermostat problem...

That's also a problem when you buy a product.

> but they wouldn't care much about your power bill, nor fridge features

I suppose the market will do its job. Cost of ownership is transparent (monthly fee plus power use), so consumers can easily choose, and they can easily switch.

> It sounds like a nightmare to me.

I'm already having nightmares about the environment right now.

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BRAlNlAC7y ago

Consumers largely dispose of waste through municipal pickup which is already well overlooked. Setting up oversight for industrial disposal by a bazillion corporate entities in this theoretical shareconomy of appliances would be an enormous burden on the already undercapable county and state EPA offices. It would probably all just get shipped out of the country anyway.

If you think modern refrigerators are wasteful I'd ask you to prove it. The design choices they make are manufacturing trade offs—not simply cutting corners to make it break. A refrigerator might only last 10 years, but its a net gain if it cost 1/10 the energy to build, uses 50% of the power, never leaks refrigerant and uses a small ammount.

ameliusOP7y ago

It's not just disposal. It's also the choices that are made when building/buying the product. Consumers are easily persuaded to choose based on different qualities than environmental-friendliness. Also, the recycling facilities may be optimized specifically for the type of fridge that a service-provider uses.

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