Indeed, but you can only run a repair business if it is not cheaper to throw away the whole unit and fit a new one, and in many areas that is not true. There are however things that could be done to make things easier to repair, screws instead of glue and rivets, only potting things that really have to be, not sure how you get makers to do that.

It is quite fun to look at the innards of something from the 1950s - as a noddy example for anyone old enough to recall "Music and Movement' at School,  there are valved Clark and Smith amplifiers that drove countless wooden boxed speakers in school halls that are still going strong because they were designed to be maintained, though the purchase cost had some  premium for it.

The other side of the coin is the deliberate design for kit to have a short life, to make sure next years model sells. In many ways this was the error of many UK companies, and the likes of Clark and Smith went under because their stuff by and large could have lasted for ever, but instead became outdated, (24 RPM record player anyone ?) and in the end much of it went into the skip,  or is still in a store cupboard fully working but unwanted, in favour of imported plastic things that had a shorter working life but were cheaper and lighter, and themselves were unrepairable scrap within a few years.

By skimping on heatsinks and the size of the power transistors you can make things as unreliable as you like, hours to failure being exponentially a function of temperature for most electronics.

The change required to manage the landfill problems, rather like truly fixing the housing market, will be more fundamental than twiddling with a 'recycle' target.

Mike.

Indeed, but you can only run a repair business if it is not cheaper to throw away the whole unit and fit a new one, and in many areas that is not true. There are however things that could be done to make things easier to repair, screws instead of glue and rivets, only potting things that really have to be, not sure how you get makers to do that.

It is quite fun to look at the innards of something from the 1950s - as a noddy example for anyone old enough to recall "Music and Movement' at School,  there are valved Clark and Smith amplifiers that drove countless wooden boxed speakers in school halls that are still going strong because they were designed to be maintained, though the purchase cost had some  premium for it.

The other side of the coin is the deliberate design for kit to have a short life, to make sure next years model sells. In many ways this was the error of many UK companies, and the likes of Clark and Smith went under because their stuff by and large could have lasted for ever, but instead became outdated, (24 RPM record player anyone ?) and in the end much of it went into the skip,  or is still in a store cupboard fully working but unwanted, in favour of imported plastic things that had a shorter working life but were cheaper and lighter, and themselves were unrepairable scrap within a few years.

By skimping on heatsinks and the size of the power transistors you can make things as unreliable as you like, hours to failure being exponentially a function of temperature for most electronics.

The change required to manage the landfill problems, rather like truly fixing the housing market, will be more fundamental than twiddling with a 'recycle' target.

Mike.