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Maybe give your best and a modest example? If not I remain skeptical of this approach for most things. I'd also watch your repair frequency assumptions along with full cycle manufacturing CapEx payback and incremental batch economics
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Replying to and
I'm not opposed to designing things to recycle, reuse, etc better, but my instinct tells me entropy will win and that carbon taxes + public R&D/venture funding are likely enough, and I'm unsure they'd come to this conclusion. Is your project going to be public?
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Replying to and
don't forget the emissions from moving all that plastic bullshit around too, Nick! it really adds up. carbon tax would be fine but why not design better. (I recall looking into this but don't have a cite atm)
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Replying to and
Yea sure, I hope people try this approach if they believe the math. I'm just skeptical that a circular economy is realistically better than other means. There are many examples of "built to last" products having average use lifespans below the energy payback period (ie net loss).
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Replying to and
this is my cynicism / experience in industrial design too: you can spend a heck of a lot of design and tooling time on making something good and repairable, a lot more resources to build it, and people throw it out anyway. I'm all for right to repair, but nearly no one does it
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Yeah it’s not a panacea. Plastic straws and cloth totes are other examples. It’s a mix of targeted redesign, proper labeling, modeling and imitation, and incentives. Designing for durability and repairability as a general default in isolation won’t work.
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Trying to do it with pure carbon taxes almost certainly won’t work. There are even worse “stainless steel bottle” greenwashing problems in tax policy. And the behavioral equilibrium there is imo more entrenched not less.
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