[PLUG-TALK] Canon scanners: Would you buy one?

Bill Barry bill at billbarry.org
Thu Feb 24 06:36:11 UTC 2011


On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 9:44 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> However, I'm still annoyed that Canon thinks it's OK to make
> unrepairable products. How much more would it have cost to make the
> bottom panel removable with a few screws? And the sale of repair parts
> would be another source of revenue. Sometimes I buy non-green products,
> but given a chance I prefer to send my money to manufacturers who act
> responsibly.


I have one rule for comparing two products to see which one is
greener. Cheaper is greener.

Add up the total lifetime costs of that product  and compare it to the
total lifetime costs of the one you are comparing it to. The cheaper
one is the greener one. Less cost implies less resources used. It can
be nearly impossible to trace all of the resources needed to produce a
scanner. The food that has to be grown to feed the people refining the
plastics that make the frame. The people who built the harvesters that
harvested the food for the man that delivered the scanner to your
doorstep. But you can be be pretty sure that the cost of all those
things added together is fairly close to the cost of the scanner
itself. You know that if it costs more to fix the scanner than to
replace it then replacing it is the greener thing to do. Do not be
fooled by the fact that you see a scanner being thrown away that you
think can be fixed. Just think of all the other wastes that would go
into fixing it. Shipping parts around, producing and storing parts
that might never be used. Creating thousands of scanners that will be
easy to repair just so a few of them can be repaired. And many more.
All of these things add up. So if it is cheaper to to throw the
scanner away than fixing it, then throw it away and you will do a
service for the world. Go cheap and you will most always be green.

You do have to be careful to know what the costs are. If the
government  is subsidizing the cotton which the made the shirt worn by
the person who assembled your scanner then all of the costs do not
appear in the scanner, but some show up in your taxes or in inflation.
These indirect costs can throw off the calculation and are the main
reason to oppose subsidies. They distort this very important
calculation. It is very important to know the cost of something. If
you think it is cheap and you buy a lot of them, but they are actually
expensive but subsidized, then you have been tricked into wasting the
worlds resources.

Bill



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