Roger said: "I think that the end price of a better built unit is better "overall" as planned obsolescence costs the environment far more than dollars". You may be right, it may not be a good solution, it needs to be estimated. It is not planned obsolescence since the goal is not to have an obsolete product, and make people buy more. The goal is to make them use something they wouldn't have used, even if it means selling a short life-span stove to greatly bring down costs.
Overall costs including environmental costs need to be estimated. Maybe we can allow the stove to be repairable by local welders? If not, we have to make sure the materials can be reused on the local market. Ceramics in stoves can be sold (or can it?) to ceramic makers, they use it in the production process. Old sheet metal can be sold to people who ship it, to Europe I think, and then it is recycled. The question is : to what extent will people spontaneously do it rather than dump the old stove in the nature? Perhaps customers could deposit the old stove when they buy a new one (just like a glass bottle ...). Then the producer needs to figure out if it is possible to recollect and recycle the used stoves, if it is viable on an economic point of view. Difficult if the factory is overseas, and because the stove has such a small economic value. Xavier _______________________________________________ Stoves mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: http://www.bioenergylists.org/
