Are we ready to dismiss an entire brand because of one anecdote? All appliances fail at some point. We can't make a judgement based on a single data point.
Reading about this stuff also makes me sad that the rest of the world have such weak consumer protections. In Norway, sellers are obligated to provide 5 years of warranty by law, and the consumer has certain rights such as the right to get a replacement if the product cannot be fully repaired after a certain number of attempts at resolving a problem.
The other thing that's discounted here is how people treat their products they've purchased.
I'm not saying that's the sole cause, but it surely doesn't help when filters aren't cleaned, things aren't replaced at their regular intervals, and other standard maintenance isn't done.
I'm comfortable with buying a used car given the maintenance paperwork and/or maintenance-related receipts are provided. But that's about it.
I'll probably never buy any used household appliance related to hygiene or food consumption -- washing machines, dishwashers, or even a microwave.
Point of order: The non-filter cleaned item is the longest lived.
Also, do you guys even dishwasher? You clean them by using a wash pack like this[1]. You don't need to physically remove the filter save for a blockage as you just wash it in place.
So yeah, I exaggerated, what a dastardly scallywag!
I took my anecdata straight to the shops, jumped onto the planned obsolescence bandwagon and bought the cheapest replacement I could find.
Now I don't care if they fail in 2 or 3 years because they're the same cost as the repair of an expensive model. And like you say, all appliances fail at some point, so I'll keep fueling this horrible new world we've built for ourselves and let the manufacturers fight it out over price.
recycling in the US has to be profitable. Where I live we are no longer allowed to put glass into the recycling because it is no longer a profit center for the city.
I should add that getting rid of big items can be especially difficult, but most appliance delivery includes taking away the old one to .. wherever they go.
The right kind of sand for making glass isn't found everywhere. In the UK, we have a particular problem that the only glass-suitable sand we have is not suitable for making clear glass, so we can only make coloured glass. All our clear glass is imported, mostly from France. However, most local recycling centres only have a "mixed colours" glass bin, so we can't even make our own recycled clear glass. And That's Why We Can't Have Nice Things (tm).
The reason to recycle materials made of abundant elements (steel, aluminum, glass) is to conserve energy rather than ores. (Even the energy justification would be far less significant if world energy systems were mostly non-fossil.) Though city planners should do the arithmetic to double check that the collection system doesn't waste more resources than it saves.
Refining iron or aluminum from ore takes significant energy because you're basically un-rusting it, and that reaction naturally runs the other way; recycled metal gets to reuse that energy investment.
I thought the glass process was basically melting sand and adding some trace additives, rather than forcing any chemical reactions uphill. Recycled glass also needs melted (if it doesn't, that's called a reusable bottle, not recycling).
This is incorrect. Making good glass is not trivial, glass has been recycled since Roman times. Even today, "Savings for other materials are lower but still substantial: about 70% for plastics, 60% for steel, 40% for paper and 30% for glass."
Reading about this stuff also makes me sad that the rest of the world have such weak consumer protections. In Norway, sellers are obligated to provide 5 years of warranty by law, and the consumer has certain rights such as the right to get a replacement if the product cannot be fully repaired after a certain number of attempts at resolving a problem.