by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Squeezed in somewhere between reuse and recycling, re-manufacturing sits most uncomfortably in the standard waste hierarchy.
The process, however, which essentially boils down to reusing the parts of a product which weather well and replacing those that wear out faster, can trace its roots back centuries to when repairing - rather than replacing - was the norm. And it was the norm until not all that long ago. So where did we go wrong?
Reworking too, falls, to some degree into this category, making things, such, as an example, usable knives from old knives – a trade that has been practiced by some Romani clans for generations, for instance. Other rework is possible with other things when those may not, in fact, be the same article and use but still.
Though the drivers behind the process were originally purely economic - it's cheaper to re-manufacture than build from scratch - the idea has a major environmental role to play in both cutting carbon emissions and reducing waste.
The UK re-manufacturing industry, according to its advocates, employs more than 50,000 people and contributes in the region of five billion Pound Sterling to the national economy, covering everything from printer cartridges to rugged industrial machinery.
The re-manufacturing sector has, nevertheless and unfortunately, been nigh on invisible, despite being on a par with the entire UK recycling industry.
One of the main hurdles today, however, is persuading both consumers and industry that re-manufactured products really are as good as new while clearing up confusion over what exactly the term means.
When it comes to repair, as mentioned above, though, the problem is that today we do live in a throw-away society where it is cheaper, I am afraid to say, to by new than to repair. It makes no sense when an ink jet printer costs less than £30 to buy and when it went wrong – and I am speaking from experience – after six month because of the high volume of print that was put through it (so Epson informed me) it would have cost 4x as much to repair it than what if cost to buy in the first place. Reply from company representative was “well, then you better buy a new one then and dump the old one.” This should not be thus, however, if we are serious about the environment and all that.
Ben Walsh, technical consultant at the government-sponsored Centre for Re-manufacturing and Reuse, acknowledged the problem in that he said that this is one of the big obstacles that they have as there is an issue that second hand is perceived by the consumers as second best.
The website of the Centre for Re-manufacturing and Reuse, www.remanufacturing.org.uk, explains what re-manufacturing is, who is doing it and with what products. It also provides a wealth of advice for businesses wanting to save money while at the same time helping the environment.
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
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Re-manufacturing has role in the war on waste
