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.

Solar roof tiles

Source

 From http://inhabitat.com/2010/10/14/heat-your-home-with-soltech-energys-beautiful-glass-roof-tiles/

the tiles are made from ordinary glass and have about the same weight as those made of clay. Secondly, the system doesn’t, like competitors’ versions, heat up water or vacuum pipes, but clean air. The tiles are installed on top of a black nylon canvas, under which air slots are mounted. The black colour absorbs heat from the sun and the air starts to circulate. The hot air is then used to heat up water, which is connected to the house’s heating system via an accumulator.

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.

Gloom and doom

Last night I watched "Black Wave: The Legacy Of The Exxon Valdez" on ABC, a documentary about 1989 oil spill from the Exxon Valdez that ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The saddest thing is not the poorly implemented cleanup or the long term environmental, social and economic consequences. It not even the fact that crude oil is far more toxic than previously thought causing the collapse of 16 out of 25 of the local species, including the entire herring run.

No, the worse thing is the outcome of the 20 year legal battle to get damages for those effected from the town of Cordova. This was longest legal battle in U.S. history - fought every step of the way by world's most powerful oil company - ExxonMobil. From an initial damages of 5 billion, 10 years later, the plaintiffs got only 500m. When shared out, it doesn't cover 10% of the losses of some people. In the mean time, ExxonMobile recieved 26 BILLION through interest and investment of the 5 Billion they were first liable for. All this from a company that promotes itself as socially responsible. Evil bastards.

Then, of course, there is the ongoing environmental disasters in the Gulf of Mexico- where 200 million gallons were split - and the Amazon basin disaster caused by Chevron Texaco. See http://chevrontoxico.com/ and http://www.amazonwatch.org/ From ChevronToxico.com:

Source

In a rainforest area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, Texaco carved out 350 oil wells, and upon leaving the country in 1992, left behind some 1,000 open toxic waste pits. Many of these pits leak into the water table or overflow in heavy rains, polluting rivers and streams that 30,000 people depend on for drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing. Texaco also dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic and highly saline "formation waters," a byproduct of the drilling process, into the rivers of the Oriente. At the height of Texaco's operations, the company was dumping an estimated 4 million gallons of formation waters per day, a practice outlawed in major US oil producing states

From http://www.elrst.com/2010/06/15/the-much-lesser-known-amazon-oil-spill/

During three decades Texaco operated more than 300 oil wells without taking any notice of environmental issues. As a result the company polluted the air, the soil and the water in a massive way. As the NYT puts it :

” The quest for oil is, by its nature, colossally destructive. And the giant oil companies, when left to their own devices, will treat even the most magnificent of nature’s wonders like a sewer.”

Then, tonight, I made the mistake of checking the news.. and boy it gets me down. For instance:

• Cardinal Sean Brady, says he has "moved on" and will not resign after he helped cover up for one of Ireland's most notoriously abusive priest [Source]. At the same time in NSW, Ports and waterways minister Paul McLeay has resigned after admitting to using his parliamentary computer to visit gambling and adult websites. [Source]
• The Japanese have started killing dolphins for food that is high in mercury [source], while in Western Australia, they've blown up a dying humpback whale [source]

No wonder I feel down

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.

Solar is cheaper than nuclear power

From http://theenergycollective.com/oshadavidson/40559/study-solar-power-cheaper-nuclear

The Holy Grail of the solar industry — reaching grid parity — may no longer be a distant dream. Solar may have already reached that point, at least when compared to nuclear power, according to a new study by two researchers at Duke University.

[...]

Having dropped below nuclear power, solar power is now one of the least expensive energy sources in America.

The study is available at  http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NCW-SolarReport_final1.pdf

Kung Fu Tiger

I really had hoped that Viagra would help save the Rhino and Tiger. Why does the world continue to disappoint me.

The Beijing News quoted an unnamed zoo official saying between 40 and 50 tigers might have died at the privately operated zoo since 2000 and that it was an "open secret" that the zoo was producing tiger-bone liquor.

Tiger parts, such as penises and bones, have long been used in traditional Chinese medicine to increase sexual potency or treat certain illnesses.

Troubles at the zoo first came to light in November last year when two hungry tigers were shot and killed as they mauled a zoo worker, who survived.

Since then, 11 more tigers have died at the financially strapped zoo due to malnutrition and poor conditions, press reports have said.

Large vats of tiger-bone liquor have been produced at the zoo since 2005 and were given to high-level officials of the provincial forestry, parks, and police bureaux, the Beijing News reported.

[...]

China is believed to have just 50 to 60 tigers left in the wild, including about 20 Siberian tigers.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/china-zoo-shut-amid-allegations-it-harvested-tiger-parts-20100317-qf2r.html

I do wonder who would be stupid enough to think that Tiger bones or penis will give them a better hard-on.

Adding this to the list of things I don't like about China.

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

Environmentalists blocking the oil industry

You have to love a conspiracy theory that thinks that the environmental lobby (one of the least funded and disempowered lobby groups) "has blocked all efforts" of the oil industry (one of the best funded and most influential lobby groups there is)

I wish!

Anyway here is the full text of the false chain email I was sent (which has been doing the rounds since at least Mar 09):

Chain e-mail: If you start reading and "don't believe" go to the bottom of the page and click on the US Government link. You'll get the same information.
The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota ; western South Dakota ; and extreme eastern Montana ..... check THIS out:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels.. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.
'When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.' says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.
'This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years.' reports, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin , but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada . For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves.... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!
That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.
2. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from TWO YEARS AGO!
U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this mother load of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?
They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:
- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
- 18-times as much oil as Iraq
- 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
- 22-times as much oil as Iran
- 500-times as much oil as Yemen
- and it's all right here in the Western United States .
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy....WHY?
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?
Got your attention/ire up yet? Hope so! Now, while you're thinking about it .... and hopefully P.O'd, do this:
3. Pass this along If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices .. because by doing NOTHING, you've forfeited your right to complain.
--------
Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to every one in your address book.
By the way...this is all true. Check it out at the link below!!!
GOOGLE it or follow this link. It will blow your mind.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

And here is the response from FactCheck.org see http://www.factcheck.org/2009/03/us-offshore-oil-reserves/

FULL ANSWER
We’ve received this e-mail from our readers several dozen times, and a Google search for some of its claims turns up hundreds of results. Unfortunately, it is false. It combines and twists several different news stories and studies into a longer tale of sound and fury that ultimately signifies nothing (factually anyway).
The tale begins with an exhortation telling the reader to "go to the bottom of the page and click on the US Government link" for proof of the e-mail’s veracity. Well, we did. And the link to a U.S. Geological Survey press release from April 2008 directly contradicts the e-mail’s main assertion.
The e-mail says that the Bakken Formation oil reserve (which is located in the Dakotas and Montana) "has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil" and is estimated to hold 503 billion barrels of oil. That’s not true. It credits the USGS report from 2008 as the source of this information. It’s not.
The glowing language and more optimistic estimates about Bakken quoted in the e-mail can be traced to a 2006 Wall Street Journal story reprinted in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. But the anonymous author of this e-mail omits an important caveat from that story, which said that "the lofty predictions remain unproven, and skeptics remain."
And there was an incomplete USGS draft study of the Bakken from 2000 that included estimates ranging up to 500 billion barrels. But the Energy Information Administration explained in 2006 that it was not peer-reviewed and cautioned readers to wait for the official USGS estimate:

EIA, 2006: A draft study by the late organic geochemist Leigh Price provides estimates ranging from 271 to 503 billion barrels (mean of 413 billion) of potential resources in place. The study represents Dr. Price’s work as it stood at the time of his death in August 2000. It was conducted while he was working for the USGS, but it did not receive a complete scientific peer review by the USGS and was not published as a USGS product. A new assessment of the entire basin, due out in about a year, will provide an updated USGS estimate of the technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Formation.

The official estimate, contained in the USGS press release from last year, was a substantially smaller estimate of technically recoverable oil: 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels.
The e-mail cites James Bartis as a "lead researcher of this study," but he was actually a RAND researcher who led a different, related study. Bartis wrote a 2006 report on oil shale development and resources in the United States that said "the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia." That’s for the entire U.S., not Bakken alone. But Bartis also cautioned that the technology to extract oil from the fields was not yet commercially viable and said that even "under high growth assumptions, an oil shale production level of 1 million barrels per day is probably more than 20 years in the future, and 3 million barrels per day is probably more than 30 years into the future." Nowhere in his study did Bartis say that Bakken has "more than 2 trillion barrels," as the e-mail falsely claims.
Snopes.com reviewed a similar mutation of this e-mail and traced the 2 trillion barrels of oil estimate to a tout sheet from the Stansberry Report Online, a group referenced in the e-mail. Snopes also noted that Stansberry is an investment newsletter trying to sell subscriptions. The Stansberry site appeared to be down when we tried to access it, but the tout sheet was reproduced here.
Snopes ultimatley ruled the e-mail to be a "mixture of true and false information." We agree. But we’d add that the email’s implication that politicians, environmentalists and the media are preventing oil drilling in the Bakken is decidedly false. The Bakken has already seen drilling and was a principal cause of the recent increase in U.S. proven oil reserves, according to the EIA.
–Justin Bank

Sources

Fialka, John J. "Wildcat producer sparks oil boom on Montana plains." Wall Street Journal, 5 April 2006.
Press Release. "3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—." United States Geological Survey Newsroom, 10 April 2008.
USGS Frequently Asked Questions. "What is the time frame to accomplish the retrieval of this oil and gas?" accessed 16 March 2009.

It should also be noted that Oil Shale has the potential to provide vast amounts of oil but:

1. Its bloody expensive to get out, still
2. When are we going to wean oursleves off oil? Instead of we making the environmental situation worse through increased Carbon Dioxide and other pollutants, we need to increase investment into research and development of clean energy alternatives.
   

Pacific Garbage Patch

Image from Greenfudge

In the "things that worry the hell out of me" category is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch this is "gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N and estimated to be twice the size of Texas." The wikipedia article details the following effect on wildlife

Some of these long-lasting plastics end up in the stomachs of marine birds and animals,[20] including sea turtles, and the Black-footed Albatross.[21] Besides the particles' danger to wildlife, the floating debris can absorb organic pollutants from seawater, including PCBs, DDT, and PAHs.[22] Aside from toxic effects,[23] when ingested, some of these are mistaken by the endocrine system as estradiol, causing hormone disruption in the affected animal.[21] These toxin-containing plastic pieces are also eaten by jellyfish, which are then eaten by larger fish. Many of these fish are then consumed by humans, resulting in their ingestion of toxic chemicals.[24] Marine plastics also facilitate the spread of invasive species that attach to floating plastic in one region and drift long distances to colonize other ecosystems.[13]

At least there are some efforts underway to see if we can fix this:
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/08/05/05greenwire-recyclers-scientists-probe-great-pacific-garba-57979.html

Project Kaisei is at its core a commercial endeavor, funded in part by international recycling companies that see opportunity in a sea of debris thought to be twice the size of Texas.

In addition to funding from individual donors, Project Kaisei is backed by the Bureau of International Recycling, whose membership counts 77 companies from Austria, China, Cuba and Canada, to name just a few of the nations represented. Deutsche Bank AG is also a key funder.

Mary Crowley, co-founder of the project, said examining the dump's potential as recycled material is just as important as studying the decomposed and decomposing plastic, which largely originated in California and Japan before being trapped by currents of the North Pacific Gyre.

Why do we continue to use materials that last for 100,000 years to package products that last less than 1 year?

I hate printers too!

I complained about printers before so it's nice to see someone else raise the same sorts of issues - just with graphics and in a funnier way. From: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

I love the Oatmeal.

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.