[tichiian]

This is missing the fact that the stainless steel from the ultra-durable umbrella is also easy to recycle. In fact, steel is far easier to recycle than any kind of plastic.

Also, the whole work seems to skip over the huge problem of insufficient customer information: There is a remark in there, that lots of people (about half) seem to choose the ultra-durable umbrella, rather than one of the less resource-intensive ones. The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified. People do not and usually can not know how durable each product they are offered will be. And buying something ultra-durable-seeming at least gives you a chance at a decent product lifetime. All the rest is usually crappier than expected.

One reason is that the environmentally friendlier alternatives are often also materials of lesser quality. E.g. recycled plastic degrades and is more brittle than "fresh".

The other reason is greedy manufacturers, saving on necessary materials, making products less durable. And maybe intentionally building in weak points, limiting lifetime to sell more stuff.

[IgorPartola]

Aside but one interesting consequence of using plastic in certain kinds of products is that it can be a sacrificial part. If you don’t design a point of failure into your system one will be assigned to it. I recently had this realization after installing a new garage door opener. The motor on it is much stronger than my old one but some parts are far flimsier. Then it dawned on me that I’d rather have a cheap plastic gear break if something goes wrong than have it burn up the unit or swing a high tension belt around.

Longevity doesn’t always mean making everything out of cast iron and stainless steel. It can mean making the thing repairable using cheap and available parts.

[thegrim33]

3D printing options aside, there's no possibility of me replacing random plastic components that break. I'm dependent on some industrial manufacturer producing the random plastic broken part for me, and getting it to me. If something metallic fails, it's much simpler in comparison to fashion a replacement / repair the failure myself. I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.

[jjav]

> I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.

You're right that metal (and wood) are much more amenable to work with in a home workshop.

However:

> 3D printing options aside

I wouldn't put 3d printing aside. The main limitation is the size of what you can print, but if the part is small enough (depending what printers you have access to), it is a game changer. We don't have a 3d printer but my child has access to them at school and watching him fix all kinds of gadgets by 3d printing replacement parts has been very cool.

[mythhabit]

If you have the tools to work with metal, you can use those tools with few, if any, modifications and do the same thing with nylon.

[CraigJPerry]

Even for larger items I’ve often found printing sub-assemblies and gluing together to be a useful technique.

E.g. I needed to replace a shaped plastic cover for a handle mechanism on a motorhome/RV. Breaking the design into two parts and making it so they clip together (rather than permanently gluing in that particular case) meant I could print a complex design without supports.

[picture]

Have you used polycaprolactone/PCL aka "InstaMorph" for hobby/projects? It's a very tough plastic that can be melted by putting it in hot water, then formed by hand. I think something like a linkage made out of this material could be a fantastic intentional failure point for certain mechanical systems, as long as the temperature requirement is not much higher than human conditions. Also, if you have a hot air blower, you can repair it in-situ.

I'm honestly not sure why we don't see more of this plastic used for consumer stuff. Something that you can melt down and fix stuff or make little ornaments sounds like a great marketing gimmick. It's also generally a pretty bio-safe plastic.

[eropple]

In industry, it's because it's so low-temperature. The benefits of using it aren't outweighed by the potential failure risks in it in pieces not designed to be repaired.

Also, just kinda--it's not well known! You can't even find it as a 3D printer filament without a lot of effort, even though those "3D pens" often use it, because the output is so unimpressive to most people. That's not that it is unimpressive, it's because they don't know much about it, much like how people act like there's a "leveling up" by switching from PLA to PETG to ABS.

[skjoldr]

ABS is a level up because it curls like mad off the print bed because of internal stresses, and this will cause prints to fail if you do not have a heated chamber, which is a bit of a challenge to set up over Ender 3 like printers. PETG meanwhile likes to be dehumidified under heat first to avoid excessive stringing, which requires a separate doodad, and it likes all metal hotends that do not include the usual internal PTFE tube, which off-gasses nasty stuff if heated above roughly 250°C. PLA has none of these problems. "Level up" is about printability, not material characteristics of the end product.

[eropple]

> "Level up" is about printability, not material characteristics of the end product.

You think that. The people in forums who go "I never print in PLA" despite it having advantageous material properties for some use cases (it's very stiff, for example! sure, it snaps hard, but it's strong until then) do not.

Printability and usefulness aren't on the same axis, but when it comes to FDM materials, a lot of people do.

[esyir]

While from a materials standpoint, its more of a "what fits the needs", from a printing point of view it's definitely a level up going from PLA to PETG / ABS. Both in terms of skill (PETG can be annoying to dial in) and machine reqs (Hot End, ventilation, etc)

[nmcfarl]

If you need heat resistance and can give up reforming and strength sugru is a moldable silicone that I’ve used for a quite a number of repairs. A knife handle I repaired in 2014 is still going strong.

(InstaMorph is new to me - but will certainly get used in the future)

[ElevenLathe]

Can it be injection molded? If not, I would assume it would be much much more expensive to mass-produce than an ordinary injection molded part.

[s1artibartfast]

> I can't work with plastic.

Why not? If you can machine it from metal, it is easier to machine it from plastic. I fabricate plastic replacements often with a drill, files, and saw.

[skjoldr]

It's because plastic injection molding has different constraints and trade-offs in parts design compared to metal machining. E.g. injection molding, after the mold is done, doesn't really care about machine time, complexity, or the availability of specific cutters and drills. So sometimes the geometry and tolerances of an injection molded part is a pain in the arse to replicate manually -- it's just not made to do it, unlike metal machining, which at scale is still a rough approximation of the manual process.

[s1artibartfast]

I get the manufacturing Tradeoffs. What I was responding to was not an issue with part complexity, but part material.

They said "I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic."

Sure, nobody is going to machine a plastic replacement complex injection molded housing. You probably werent going to re-create a complex press-formed metal part either.

IT seems like it is more of a design complaint than a material issue.

[ElevenLathe]

How often do you encounter mass-produced consumer goods that include parts made of machined engineering plastics?

[TeMPOraL]

It's an... unusual skill to have, I'd say. Maybe it's the issue of education or culture, but I'm with GP here: in my mind, metal parts can often be repaired by hand, or an improvised replacement can be made; plastics break too easily, and you can't make new ones without a 3D printer or something.

[Freak_NL]

Yup. Same with wood and fabric. Those kind of parts or components I can replace and work with. Plastic? That's a whole different ball game due to the potentially low tolerances in terms of dimensions and the nature of the type of plastic used. With wood, metal, and fabric it is much easier to gauge the correct replacement material.

[kbenson]

I'd say education and culture might be right on the money. I'm not sure it's occurred to me to take a small block of some type of plastic and cut it to shape using knives, planes, chisels and files like someone could with wood, but now that I'm thinking about it, it seems like it might be considerable easier to work with than wood in some cases, especially with how easy it is to join two parts afterwards with some epoxy or maybe even through heat.

Additionally, it looks like you can possibly re-melt the shavings into another block (I'm not sure if specific plastic types are required).[1] That's like woodworking but being able to easily gather and compress your bits and ends and sawdust into more wood.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wPmcgDRmg

[throwanem]

Yeah, I was gonna say. Not that I'd necessarily want to cut a gear with hand tools even in nylon, considering how exacting the profile would be to get right, but it's doable.

[s1artibartfast]

I'd rather hand cut a gear in nylon than one in steel. If you arent doing it by hand, who cares what it is made of.

[userbinator]

Plastic welding is a thing, and has been used ever since the discovery of thermoplastics. Solvent glues also work well for some types of plastic.

The only reason why it's not more common is usually due to cost of repair vs replacement.

Thanks to YouTube, you can now find plenty of information on this.

I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.

How about pot metal, which is what has been replaced by plastic in many applications?

[alanbernstein]

Are you a machinist? I don't understand why you'd dismiss 3d printing and say metal is more feasible to work with. 3d printing is much more accessible to the average DIY-minded person.

[nmcfarl]

I think this is cultural or location based – I know at least a dozen people who can weld and no one who has a 3-D printer, but I live /way/ out and rural America. The Internet would suggest that urban America is the reverse.

[alanbernstein]

Sure, but if we're talking about replacing machine parts, I'm not sure how far welding will get you. You need to be able to machine custom metal parts, for parity with basic 3d printing capability.

[buildsjets]

I 3D print jigs to hold things together for welding. Mind, blown.

[TeMPOraL]

You can bend small metal pieces with your bare hands, or with pliers, or you can beat it into shape with hammer (or any stiff object). Plastics get damaged and break when you try that.

[pests]

Then just replace the plastic parts with metal, problem solved.

[fragmede]

> 3D printing options aside

Aside from the solution, there's no solution?

If you don't want to get into 3d printing then fine, but don't act like that's not on you. you can work with plastic, you're choosing not to.

[KineticLensman]

On the subject of sacrificial parts, approx. 25 years ago I bought a lawnmower from a well established UK brand (Atco). The original design included a clutch-like mechanism that would decouple the drive from the drum blades if they encountered a serious obstruction and jammed. In the model that I bought, however, the mechanism had been replaced with a sacrificial plastic cog that would simply break if the blades jammed. Even though I was careful, on average, it would break every two to three years. This was before easy 3D printing was available, and I had no choice but to order an OEM replacement. If Atco had sold packs of the cog I wouldn't have minded, but instead you had to buy an entire repair kit with several other parts that weren't needed. After the fourth time it died, I replaced the entire lawn mower with a non-Atco alternative.

I've come across sacrificial parts in other contexts where they make perfect sense (e.g. holding car body parts in place) but I really don't like them being used as an opportunity for manufacturers to increase their lifetime profit from a long-lived product.

[jimbobthrowawy]

Ideally that plastic gear would be a standard size and shape that you could find described in a parts list somewhere in the manual. I'd much rather be able to buy one out of a giant surplus bin somewhere in mainland china than trying to measure it and find/make a bespoke replacement.

Replaceable fuses make great failure points for things like motors that can draw silly amounts of current when stalled.

[ajsnigrutin]

This really depends on many factors.

Will you be able to get those parts, how fast and how cheap, and how easy/hard is it to replace them? Garage door, maybe... it's an expensive thing... you'll investa lot of time/effort to get it fixed... buta battery powered drill? No way to get the parts. Someone mentione 3d printing... can you imagine some average drill owner designing a part for 3d printing, buying a 3d printer, going through the learning curve to get a usable part.. for a $50 drill? No way. Just having someone open it up to replace it is more expensive than the drill itself. On the other hand, you could pay 20 cents more when buying and got a long-lastin metal part.

If you want a part to fail to not cause greater damage, add some kinf of a standardized fuse to it, or detect the overload and stop it, before it fails. Yeah, sure, something is going to fail at some time (nothing lasts forever), but treating plastic gears that break (instead fo $1 more expensive metal ones) as a good thing,.. i have to disagree with that.

[jkestner]

Underrated is ordering SLS parts from a printer, like on CraftCloud. You can get small functional nylon parts made for $2 + shipping.

Modeling things has always been the biggest friction point. Not easy to make CAD interfaces easier. Part files from the manufacturer would be nice.

[ajsnigrutin]

Sure, but you still have to either open the device yourself, or pay someone to do it, find the broken part, find the part design, order it, ship it, replace it, and reassemble the device. If you don't do it yourself, it's not worth it at all financially, and if you do, it's quite a long process, usually not worth it for a $50 drill, where the company wanted to save a few cents with a plastic part.

[jkestner]

Oh yeah, overall, I don't think 3D printers are useful for this in the real world, not at this point. Just playing to the crowd, for those HNers determined to make use of 3D printing.

Nothing beats simply designing to repair, or at least YouTube how-to videos, and available replacement parts. I've kept a stupid $100 microwave going for 15 years with two $4 repairs, mostly for the principle of it.

[btbuildem]

One could find the part design in a library, and print it at a coop hackerspace or order it online off some pay-per-print shop. It doesn't have to be as complicated as you put it.

[ajsnigrutin]

But it's a $50 dollar drill, that failed due to a cheap part.

I don't know where you live, but just a diagnosis by a repair technician is more expensive than that. Even if you open it up yourself, find the broken part, find that part someone, get someone to print it,get the part delivered, and replace it, it'll be more than $50 of associated costs... and just because a company wanted to save 50 cents on a plastic gear.

[A_D_E_P_T]

Recyclability isn't really an issue, because the steel umbrella is not viable as a product. This is on account of its weight.

> Total weight of assembled umbrella: 1.71kg

The average umbrella, and the plastic one at the link, weigh roughly a quarter of that amount. There are golf umbrellas, considered extremely heavy, at ~0.9kg, e.g.: https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro

The ultra-durable umbrella is an exercise in making a product that appears to be an umbrella out of heavy-duty materials. But it's not an umbrella that's viable as a commercial product; it wasn't designed with the average user's capabilities in mind. Most people, even trained athletes, would not be happy to lug around an umbrella that weighs nearly four pounds.

I'm sure it's possible to strike a balance, perhaps with aluminum or magnesium (expensive!) instead of steel. But the project didn't attempt it -- it went with steel to make a point. In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.

[numpad0]

This is a beautifully done art project, but it's curious how relevant comparisons made are to reality. The handle could be easily made of tubes for massive weight reduction and potentially improved rigidity, for example.

It seems the idea is to take an existing umbrella, reproduce it faithfully in different materials, and then comparing results: like right-clicking an umbrella_object displayed on a 3D modeling tool and changing texture bitmaps. I suppose justification to that is it has to be apples to apples comparison.

But that's not how objects are manufactured in the real world: Parts are designed for specific materials and means of fabrication. Replicating existing man-made object with a manufacturing method the object was not intended to be manufactured with leads to subpar results. If I'm making something out of carbon fiber, I'd try to minimize numbers of screw holes. If it's to be made of aluminum, I'd avoid repeated stresses, but if it's to be made of steel, flexure joints becomes an option. If I'm 3D printing something, I'd try to minimize overhangs below 45 degrees. If I'm designing for injection molding, I'd avoid wide flat surfaces and abrupt changes in cross sections. If I'm milling something, I'd repeatedly check for tool clearances, try to minimize amounts removed(which may result in thicker walls), and avoid complex curves as I design it.

I'm not going to take an J-shaped umbrella grip and instruct a factory worker to EDM it out of pre-tempered glass block. Even if I managed to have it done, and if it ended up weighing as much as a steel handle, that won't tell much about viability of glass-framed umbrella in general.

[helsinkiandrew]

My James Smith & Sons Umbrella has a lightweight steel frame (apparently invented by James Smith the 2nd in 1851) - weighs about 500g and has lasted 30+ years.

https://www.james-smith.co.uk/product/umbrellas/gents-umbrel...

[TeMPOraL]

Mass is a tradeoff too, but I suppose you could shove half of the weight without compromising the durability. Would that still not be a viable product then? Something a tad heavier than standard big umbrella, much more expensive, but nearly indestructible?

I'd go for it. And yes, I'm very much the kind of user who says they'd go for durable umbrella and, at the same time, also says they use an umbrella very infrequently. Well, that's because umbrellas suck donkey balls, to borrow a phrase from the Expanse. I avoid the light ones as even a little breeze makes them flip their shape from convex to concave and eventually break struts. The heavier ones... well, they all seem to magically break within couple months, so it's always a lottery if I pick one with torn fabric or hanging strut, and then when I do, then what? Throw away the looks-fixable-but-really-too-cheeply-made-to-be-fixed one, and buy another one, fourth one this fall? The whole experience makes me avoid umbrellas except for the heaviest of rains, and it's mostly because of lack of durability.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.

I would like to point out that I'm old enough that I think I've witnessed how aluminum soda cans have become much thinner over the years. Their contents are of course under pressure and that makes them a bit sturdier; they can be stacked 10 feet high with no problem. Usually. But someone tosses a case a little too hard, packing them in a truck, the angle that the force of that jolts off a few degrees... something, and the can just explodes and makes a mess. And the economics may mean that even with that loss it's still better financially, but this seems wrong to me somehow.

If it were only disposable cans I could probably ignore it. But everyone's shaving milligrams here and there, to the point that you'll get a potato peeler at the store because the last one broke, to bring the new one home and compare it... only to find out it was stamped out of even thinner steel. It breaks next month. You can't shop around and find a better one, they're all pumped out of the same no-name factory that a forensic accountant probably couldn't track down if he had access to all of the supply chain's paperwork.

A friend and I were discussing just a few weeks ago whether or not duct tape was of vastly different quality when we were small children (late 1970s) compared to today. I of course realize that 4 yr old me might have a much more difficult time tearing off a piece of identical duct tape that 50 year old me could tear without trying... but I seem to remember even my dad having to put a little too much effort. You really did have to rip into the stuff.

When you shave these milligrams off of items, it looks like it is win/win, that you're reducing cost without reducing any quality that anyone cares about, but I think that it might be true that you're shaving little pieces off of everyone's lives. Too little for them to complain about, but the sum total of that unpleasantness must be vast. I am not inclined to celebrate it.

[A_D_E_P_T]

Ultimately, I think that it depends entirely on the type of product and how it's used.

If you take an aluminum can from 17g to 12g, that may represent some cost savings in manufacturing and transport, but the average soda drinker won't notice a difference.

But if you take an umbrella from 1700g to 1200g, that's the difference between something that's entirely unusable, to something that has practical utility -- if only barely. 500g would be much better. All else being equal the optimal weight for an umbrella is probably around 100g. Enough to know it's there, but not enough that extended use by the fifth-percentile human would be difficult or metabolically demanding.

If a human has to wear or carry it, and if there's a meaningful weight/comfort threshold associated with the product's use, every gram counts. Duct tape and aluminum cans don't fall into this category -- but, at the same time, this is why hiking and camping equipment tends to be extremely light, and why the athletic shoe companies keep researching lighter and better foams.

The problem is heightened in aerospace and automotive engineering, where fuel economy mandates tend to impose hard weight caps -- and getting a design in at well under the cap is a real engineering accomplishment. Offhand, I recall hearing that there was once a program where ~$15M dollars were spent on efforts to make a commercial airplane lighter. This resulted in about 20kg shaved off the aircraft's weight. That doesn't sound like much of a value, but the program was considered a great success.

[BlueTemplar]

Why was the handle made of stainless steel, and not, say, wood ? Looks to be a significant fraction of mass, while not being the typical part that would break ?

[hbosch]

Steel is more durable than wood.

[HideousKojima]

>while not being the typical part that would break ?

[jwagenet]

Recycleability isn’t really an issue because there isnt really a consumer pipeline for recycling metals of nonstandard shapes like cans. You certainly can’t just throw it in the recycling bin, and anything else is more friction.

[bayindirh]

> The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified.

Personally I'm very aware of the labor and resources required to build a high quality item. This is why I buy them. It's made by humans, with great effort, to have a long life.

Honestly, I want all my items to "positively age" with me as much as possible, and even if they become slightly insufficient (storage devices, or electronics in general), I try to find uses for them until they reach their true end of their life.

And yes, I don't like crappy items. I want to buy one item once (or as few times possible) and have good performance performing its function. It can be an umbrella, a shoe, a keyboard or a pen. Anything, actually.

[eep_social]

Another reason I seek the durable version is that I despise change.

Once I procure an umbrella that meets my needs, I don’t ever want to have to spend the time to go find another. If I manage to wear it out, I will grudgingly replace it with the exact same thing but if that’s not available I’ll go without rather than going through the process of finding a good one again. Modern casual clothing is a disaster in this regard because even the same sku often won’t be the same product year over year.

[mrbungie]

About clothing: that and society tends to mock those who repeat the same clothes in a short period of time, promoting cheap/mass fashion and therefore waste.

I would rather focus on upcycling repairable clothes rather than promoting so much waste. Specially when a sweater I love tears, I (1) loss the sweater and (2) can't get said clothing item because as you say, the sku or even the brand may not exist anymore. Newer is not always better, both in function and form.

Point in case: Mark Zuckerberg and his style change from a anime/cartoon closet full of grey tshirts and blue jeans to a typical sugar daddy atire/style just to appeal to bigger audience without any internal change.

Stupid monkey brains.

[brabel]

I have clothes from 25 years ago, still looking pretty good but I can barely wear them now because they're so utterly out of fashion :D. I am by no means a "fashionable" person, but even I would be a bit hesitant to go out on my early 90's baggy shorts or my black leather jacket that looks straight out of an 80's action movie.

I believe that's why clothes these days barely last a year. People actually don't seem to mind because every year the fashion changes. I really hate that mindset but that seems to be how almost everyone thinks.

[mdpye]

If you were a fashionable person, that's exactly what you'd be doing! ;)

The cycle is roughly 30 years, and teenagers are revisiting the 90s trends right now.

[Freak_NL]

The 90s is completely and utterly hot right now for anyone born after it. Embrace the faux nostalgia or make a mint on Vinted.

[pnut]

If you were wearing traditional slacks, collared shirts, and suits 25 years ago this wouldn't be a problem. Timeless style is a real thing.

[crazygringo]

No, it would be a problem.

Suits and pants are much slimmer than they were 25 years ago. They're cut differently. Pants are different in length, with far less of a break now.

Look at photos of people in suits from 1999, or just watch movies from then. They're swimming in fabric. Not to mention how wide the neckties were.

Even for men, timeless style isn't a thing. Look at how gigantic shirt collars were in the 1970's.

Men's styles don't change as drastically as women's (remember shoulderpads?) but even traditional suits and shirts and ties go through major shifts of size and proportion every couple decades.

Sure you can wear suits and shirts and ties from 25 years ago, but you'll either look like someone who's making a deliberate retro-inspired fashion choice (if you're pulling it off), or else you'll look like someone who hasn't bought new clothes in 25 years (if you're not pulling it off).

But in neither case will you look "timeless". There's no such thing.

[saalweachter]

Even jeans, t-shirts and flannel shirts will get you through the better part of a century.

[MeImCounting]

In my social circles youre far more likely to be mocked if you spend a lot of money on new clothes or cheap/low quality clothes. Its expected that you buy something high quality from a thrift store and wear it until it wears out/splurge on something new and high quality and wear it until it wears out and repair it indefinitely.

[luqtas]

people who mock people because repeated clothes aren't at their social circle (at least in a meaningful level) or if they do, sit & talk or it's time to move on...

i'm almost hitting 30, i still use some 14 y/o clothes and last time i bought stuff was more than 5 years ago because of a hobby. tho i appreciate stylistic people walking at streets. maybe fashion is not that hard to recycle if we use mostly compostable stuff? from leather of pineapple waste, (recycled) cotton and so on

[jameshart]

Yep - even the most famous clothing SKU in the world, the Levi’s 501, changes fabric specs and measurements year over year.

[eru]

For me a reason to choose the not so durable umbrella is that I tend to lose umbrellas rather than break them.

[_carbyau_]

I know you likely don't care but one thing idea I liked from the article is to use a QR code engraved/stamped/stickered onto an item so people can contact you without having to put your phone number directly on it.

I'd point them at a static website titled: "I've lost something haven't I? What? Where?" with a basic form put so they can give me details. You could go further and have the QR code put an item ID code into the url.

I like the possibilities.

[eru]

I live in Singapore, so even putting my home address on my things would be fine. (And we seldom even lock our front door.)

Well, your suggestion might help for some kinds of misplacing. But I often I know it's in the house, but can't remember where.

[TeMPOraL]

> But I often I know it's in the house, but can't remember where.

Given the price/importance of a durable umbrella, it would make sense for you to stick a BLE locator tag to it. But for the love of $deity, let it not be built into the product itself, as putting electronics into products is the easiest way to make them fragile and obsolete within few years.

[mcherm]

Is your home address stable for times similar to the lifetime of that umbrella?

[eru]

I could leave a pointer at the old address to my new address, if necessary.

[tonetegeatinst]

Also keep in mind that metal is stronger than plastic. Sure it might rust if you don't use a preventitive coating....a coating is not a paint BTW theirs a massive difference.

Plastic is cheaper. Sure those injection molds are expensive as fuck to make and have a limited life just like anything but the major reason plastic is seen as desirable is that its cheap, and its way easier to produce 10000 plastic spoons than to cast 10000 spoons. Casting isn't fast and takes up a lot of space and its harder to heat up metal than plastic. And even if your machining a part, plastic is just cheaper when it comes to the footprint and the density of plastic is lower than metal which means handling raw materials is easier.

The downside is recycling and lifespan. A good metal part beats plastic when it comes to so many tests....but its not fast or cheap to make. Is the metal recyclable....yes....but plastic dosnt have to get up to insane temps to get it molten, and you can machine plastic with basically anything as long as its sharp, while metal machining is a process that needs really strong sharp inserts, saws, or EDM machines, and all of that means a heavier footprint both in weight,and carbon footprint.

[Aloisius]

> Many of the objects we use daily are made from mixed materials, ones are often difficult to separate [for recycling]. This cost can outweigh the value of the materials, so these objects are very likely to end up in Landfill. Of course, mixing materials offers functional benefits such as combinations of soft & hard structures, and nowhere else is this more true [than] with Umbrellas.

FTA with context added.

[spandrew]

Ya this was the first thing I saw. It's a student project so we should be open that he's learning, but I wouldn't call this umbrella recyclable if it's constituent parts will likely end up floating in the ocean forever.

If umbrella's were built with repairability in mind I would love it, though. So many I've used were destined to break under the strain of the wind.

[goeiedaggoeie]

Agreed on using energy consumption and how many times do you reasonably expect to use it as important considerations.

Additionally you have to factor in the toxicity you introduce, especially with things like cookware.

An umbrella maybe a 1000 times (massive upper bound), but a le creuset pot I would expect to use 3000 times, and we eat the foot made in it.

[mc32]

All true, but one missing is the one where people abuse things and use them in ways that were not intended by the manufacturer.

[TeMPOraL]

It really sucks when the product is so fragile you can't do it. Items do not have inherent, fixed purpose, they're physical objects. If I can use my umbrella as a hammer in a pinch, that's a value-add.