Disposable world part 4 (this time it's Nokia)

Nokia BH-505

My lovely wife and kids bought me a Nokia BH-505 bluetooth stereo headset for last Christmas. And I loved it!

Light weight, water resistant and with a decent enough battery life - I used it almost every day on the train and in the gym. I even recommended it to half a dozen people.

Then the buttons stopped responding reliably. Ok. I can live with that, although it is irritating. Then last weekend, it would not turn on, even though it had been charged overnight.

So I contacted the retainer (www.i-tech.com.au) who, in typical low cost fashion, redirected me to Nokia.

When I called them they said that headsets only have a 6 month warranty. I've now told them that this is not acceptable and that as the product was purchased in Dec 2010, it is covered by the Trade Practices Act which provides an implied warranty for a 'reasonable period of time'. I would argue that 8 months is well within what most people would consider a 'reasonable' period of time. See http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/8818#toc4

What's next - lets see if Nokia stand by their products. If not, it might be time to do the what is suggested by Nokia's own ad below. Buy products from someone else!

Have a close look at the distinctly non-Nokia phone in use. No wonder the model looks happy! Source.

This is a good idea

Time to break out the bread ties

Source

Disposable World part 3 (Lumix looser)

Disposable world strikes again.

I was loving the Panasonic Lumix we got to replace second dead Casio. And for the first 6 months it was lovely. Then it started to having trouble turning on.

Then it died.

Sure we used it in the water - but only as advised. We took care of it and looked after it. And it was less than a year old. We sent it in for warranty repair.

Panasonic representatives wrote back claiming its out of warranty because we didn't "clean the exterior of the camera and the waterproof seals as described in the user manual". They concluded there was "neglect / misuse of the camera this resulting in it not being covered under warranty".

So much for a tough camera you can supposedly throw across a river. (How ironic it is, that I first saw that particular ad in a paid focus group, two days after we had actually bought the camera!)

To fix it, they want $200.

Of course, why would we pay that when we can get a newer waterproof Pentax camera, delivered, for around $135?

Why pay more to fix something you already have, when you can buy a newer one for less? Especially as the so called 'tough' camera lasted the same as our previous two Casio cameras. As my wife said "As far as I'm concerned, the cheaper the better, because no matter how much we pay, our cameras seem to last for one year"

To add insult to injury even when repaired, Panasonic say that any "repaired waterproof / underwater cameras will not be covered for any form of liquid damage after the repair is completed."

So, let this be a warning to the many family and friend's I've recommended the Lumix camera to... you might be hiking with it in the mountains, but if you don't clean the seals before you skip it across the water, don't expect the warranty to be upheld.

Plastic Food Containers

Source

We live in a world where very little is made to last.

So why do temporary items need to come in permanent containers?

Be it a take away food container or a plastic drink bottle - the contents only need to last weeks, days or minutes - yet the packaging can last for hundreds of years.


I wish Australia would lead the world with the banning of all forms of non-biodegradable plastic food containers.

Disposable world part 2 (this time it's the TV)

Our 5 year old - and very expensive Philips TV died the other day.  Once again it is not worth repairing.  Bloody disposable world

This time, my complaint is related to why is it so hard to recycle electronic waste - or ewaste - in Australia?

Lane Cove Council collects ewaste only once or twice a year - which is no where near enough -  and they have not even announced a date for this year.

There are lots of private companies (see Recycling Near You) but many of them charge or have limitations. I've now requested quotes from http://www.ewaste.com.au/ and http://planetgreenrecycling.net.au/

Many other part of the world have mandatory recycling or manufacturer take-back program but here - a National Electronic Waste recycling scheme was announced a year ago but nothing has happened.  The Reborn initiative even helped force the nation's environment ministers to endorse a new National Waste Policy. Likewise Product Stewardship Australia was supposed to be a "national solution for managing post-consumer TVs." But all they have is press releases - no real action.

Companies need to be pressured by the market or legislated by government to fully internalise the otherwise externalised environmental cost of picking up and recycling equipment that breaks or is superceded. Ironically enought, this is what Philips agreed to do in the UK after a large campaign to shame the company into taking back and recycling its products .

Consumer lead initiatives like Take Back My TV  and A Greener Apple are a great start - as is  but again they focus on the US and allow Australian companies to ignore the problem... and, as C|NET notes this problem is not going away:

According to the United Nations (UN), electronic and electrical waste is among the fastest-growing types of trash in the world. StEP, which is a special initiative set up by the UN to look at the e-waste problem, estimates that e-waste will soon reach 40 million tonnes a year or enough to fill a line of dump trucks stretching half way round the world.

Of course, having a recycling scheme in place will only means something if its done responsibility. Not illegally shipped off to China, Ghana or Nigeria where the poorest people get horribly ill from processing our ewaste.

As the 60 Minutes wrote in the US:

Scientists have studied the area and discovered that Guiyu has the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. They found pregnancies are six times more likely to end in miscarriage, and that seven out of ten kids have too much lead in their blood.

See also

• Greenpeace operation webpage and on YouTube 
• BBC expose 
• PBS program 
• Sydney Morning Herald article 

or watch

Disposable world

I'm sick of living in a disposable world. A world where it is more expensive to repair equipment that malfunctions than it is to throw it away and buy a newer version.

Most recently it was the Brother DCP-115 multi-function printer. The black ink stopped working - probably due to a blockage in the ink tube or print head. It would cost a minimum of $50 to even have it looked at - and probably over $100 to get it fixed. Instead, its cheaper and easier to have a new one delivered to our house. So we have a new DCP-145 for $107 including delivery. I expect this one will go in a couple of years too!

Before that it was the camera. We had a Casio that got sat on and cracked so we go a new Casio. Around a year later (Just about when the Warranty had expired, of course), it started to have problems taking photos. Some images did not come out. Probably a loose connection with the CCD I thought. But again - it wasn't worth fixing. For $325 we have a new, waterproof and shock proof Panasonic Lumix camera.

The same thing has happened in past with Apple Powerbooks and IBM & Compaq Laptops 

Some people don't have a problem with this. I do.

Consumer growth may demand we buy and chuck - but why can't we build things to last? When are we going to take into account the true cost of these products - things that are externalised like pollution and the destruction of cultures where our crap is sent to be broken down and 'recycled'.

For my part, I think I'll  start writing to companies (Casio, Apple, Lenovo, HP) to see what they say.  Maybe I should donate 10% of the cost to the "The Story of Stuff" (which is a wonderfully clear analysis of this problem)

A good start would be for these organisations to have eWaste recycling programs in Australia, like they have to have in Europe and, increasingly, in the US.. We should have legislation that demands tech companies own their crap and take back products that fail - maybe this will encourage them to build them better in the first place, or at least take into account some of the otherwise externalized costs.