Trochotron Industries

We live in an era of liberal return policies.  After purchasing a defective item from a store, we’ve become accustomed to returning the item to the store in exchange for a working item.  Ever wonder where those items go after they’re returned?  It’s nice to imagine that they somehow make their way back to the factory where they are repaired and resold (presumably as “refurbished” items.)  However the reality is that for most inexpensive items, the items are usually “destroyed” by the retailer in exchange for credit from the manufacturer, where destroyed means they are in some way rendered unsellable and then sent out in the trash.  Quite often the item can be easily repaired, but for mass-market items it’s usually not cost effective for the manufacturer to do so.  One of my personal resolutions has been to buck this trend by fixing items rather than returning them, and to spend the effort to fix items when it would be more convenient to just toss it and buy another one.  Generally I learn something about how things work in the process, and feel good about keeping something out of the landfill.  (Not to mention reducing my carbon footprint by a small amount.)

From this idea I tried to imagine a different world, one where our money doesn’t flow overseas to third-world countries where underpaid workers work tireless hours assembling low-quality goods.  Instead items are designed to be readily serviced, and defective items are generally repaired, more out of principle than whether it makes economic sense to do so.  (Probably with the help of legislation overriding the economic incentive for manufacturers to make their items increasingly disposable.)  An item that lasts a lifetime is true wealth, whereas cheap, disposable items are a constant burden, forever needing to be replaced. Our service economy seems to be working overtime to invent new services that we truly do not need.  ($5 latte anyone?)  If only we could find a way to channel some of that money into cost-effective repair services, we might actually make a difference.