[ihuk]

We bought an expensive washing machine 3 years ago thinking it will last us a long time. It already broke down twice. It's been broken for almost a month now waiting for parts and whatnot. There's a good chance we'll have to get another one.

Does Electrolux/AEG care? No. They don't care about the environment, their only obligation is to their shareholders. But frankly neither do I anymore. Next time, I'll buy the cheapest one and when it inevitably breaks down I'll throw it away and get another cheap one.

It's absurd that in the world where planned obsolescence, cruising industry and fast fashion exist, ordinary people are tasked with saving the planet. This is like trying to improve performance of a program using naive algorithm with O(n^2) complexity by rewriting it in assembler.

[bradleyjg]

> ordinary people are tasked with saving the planet

I can’t read minds, but my sense is that much of what individuals are asked to do is knowingly conservation theater. If you want to put a positive spin on that, you can say it makes them feel more committed to supporting the regulatory changes necessary by building a sense of shared sacrifice. The cynical version writes itself.

[masklinn]

> I can’t read minds, but my sense is that much of what individuals are asked to do is knowingly conservation theater.

Oh it's not just conservation theatre, it's also cynical responsibilities shifting: by convincing everyone that the public at large is to blame, corporations get off scot-free

[cx42net]

There was a leak from Exxon (always them) (source: https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobi...) ? That showed they made campaigns to push the responsibility to the public.

We can do all the efforts we can, if the big corps don't act properly, it will be for nothing.

[whymauri]

My house recently started vigorously composting. I can't help but wonder how many centuries of daily composting we would need to offset the climate impact of the plastic composting bin, composable bags, and composting infrastructure. Feels good, but no impact. Sigh.

[drusepth]

Yeah, I don't know if it's true (which is a separate problem in itself!), but I was always taught in school _not_ to recycle because the infrastructure around consumer recycling (outside of large cities) did significantly more harm than good.

[FooHentai]

The truth is 'it's complicated' and that cuts both ways. If you have the time, assessing what is and isn't worth doing based on your location is a better approach than just blanket recycling=bad or recycling=good.

For example, at-home recycling of organic waste by composting? Excellent. Municipal glass and metal recycling? Generally a net positive. Plastics recycling in the boonies? More of an energy waste than useful, in many cases the 'least worst' place for that material is landfill.

The other end of the consumption pipeline is where we should be focused IMO. If we nail that, the tail-end stuff becomes a much smaller issue as a matter of course.

[asdff]

The impact will be felt on your garden yields though. Vermipost might as well be a performance enhancing drug.

[dangoor]

I completely agree and think pricing should reflect more of the externalities.

Side note: I do not consider myself a "handy" person. Never cared much for fixing things around the house. However, thanks to YouTube and (at least in the US) RepairClinic, I have found that certain kinds of repairs to appliances are actually easy and I can get them done much more quickly than when calling a repair service because RepairClinic has the parts in stock. (I have the added benefit of living ~30 minute drive from RepairClinic.)

Also, I haven't personally found a correlation between price and reliability.

[syshum]

Ironically I have often found the cheaper models to be more reliable because they tend to be less complex, less parts, and are "dumb" mechanical machines vs these "smart" devices that are to clever for their own good

[slumdev]

If you're in the United States, consider buying a Speed Queen.

They're not pretty. They don't have lots of features. They use more water*.

But they'll last forever.

*Many consider this to be a drawback, but it results in cleaner clothing.

[Thlom]

I bought a relatively expensive Miele washing machine and a Miele dryer 7-8 years ago. No problems what so ever. Just a tip.

[foepys]

My 35 year old Miele is also working fine. I had to replace the pump once after 20 years but that was easy, I just ordered it from Miele for a few Euros. End of production for this model was in the 80s by the way.

[Thlom]

Haha. Two days after this post the drier started acting up. Luckily it was just a matter of opening it up and putting back the rpm counter/home sensor.

[jstsch]

That's not normal. Both my Siemens washer & dryer will reach 10 years this December and both are working like new. Price wise in the 75th percentile models (of Siemens).

The dryer is a heat pump model, which was quite a bit more expensive than other models at the time. The salesperson at the local MediaMarkt even recommend against it, since you would never 'make the money back' in energy costs from it. This is quite wrong. In fact, with EU energy prices you recoup the difference within 2 years using it twice a week.

[krob]

Not sure which country you live in, but if you can get a speed queen branded washer / dryer, you'll likely never have to replace them. They're repairable.

[kylebyproxy]

Ehh, I look at it more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space%E2%80%93time_tradeoff

Either we can have more stuff and larger material/waste/energy/emissions footprint to save us some time/effort or improve convenience/pleasure, or we can put in the time & effort to lessen our footprint. I say we're overindulging our pleasures and underperforming our responsibilities.

That's not to say we're necessarily lazy, but likely due to a combination of pressures that distract and exhaust us through the course of our modern lives. Remove the oppressive/coercive/manipulative influences and more individuals will have the space to act responsibly. The greater challenge will be to train them to actually do so.

You seem to want to wash your hands of the whole thing, as if the presence of major polluters somehow absolves you from your part in this. Ultimately, it comes down to the actions of individuals. The faceless organizations pillaging the environment subsist entirely on our patronage; stop feeding into them and they die off. Ezpz.

Is handwashing dishes & clothes really too much to ask?

[brightstep]

A handful of corporations are responsible for the vast majority of warming. It's not our fault, it's theirs. They did it, and they knew they were doing it. Any individual action may make you feel good but it does nothing to address the problem.

[gruez]

>A handful of corporations are responsible for the vast majority of warming. It's not our fault, it's theirs. They did it, and they knew they were doing it.

Consumers want oil. Drilling for oil is legal. BP drills for oil. Why is BP's fault?

Or, to switch around the entities a bit. America likes widgets. Making widgets generates pollution. Prior to the 90s it was mostly made in America, so that's where all the pollution is emitted. It's clear that America is to blame. Now it's the 2000s. Thanks to globalization it's now cheaper to make in China rather than the US. Now all the pollution is being emitted in china. Who's fault is it? Is America suddenly off the hook?

[guerrilla]

> Why is BP's fault?

Where have you been? You missed oil comapnies spending billions to misinform people, the corruption, the carteling, ghe cover-ups, the greenwashing and everything else?

[gruez]

Are you saying that "the vast majority of warming" is caused by "spending billions to misinform people, the corruption, the carteling, ghe cover-ups, the greenwashing and everything else"? While I would agree what they did is truly horrible, I'm also skeptical of the implied narrative that "if only we didn't have oil companies doing misinformation campaigns, climate change would be solved".

I'm also not sure how does "the carteling" refers to, and how that contributes to global warming.

[guerrilla]

If only we didn't have widespread climte change denial and minimizing caused by their broken incentives caused by failure to caputre externalities, yes, we'd be a hell of a lot further along.

The cartels were used to outcompete all alternatives and bend governments to their will. See 1979 for how just a 4% shock caused pandemonium.

[gruez]

>If only we didn't have widespread climte change denial and minimizing caused by their broken incentives caused by failure to caputre externalities, yes, we'd be a hell of a lot further along.

"a hell of a lot further along" is much more vague than the original claim of "responsible for the vast majority of warming". Furthermore, most of the climate change in the future is going to be caused by developing countries rapidly industrializing and getting richer. How much of that can be attributed to climate change denial?

>The cartels were used to outcompete all alternatives and bend governments to their will.

That doesn't sound like a cartel to me. Excerpt from wikipedia:

A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. [...] Cartel behavior includes price fixing, bid rigging, and reductions in output.

>See 1979 for how just a 4% shock caused pandemonium.

It's unclear how that's due to cartels. Shortages during covid shows that a supply/demand shock in any essential commodity will cause pandemonium (eg. toilet paper, hand sanitizer, mask).