There's also a serious problem with public perception - a surprising proportion of people seem to believe that items that are dangerous will be prevented from sale by the ubiquitous "they".
Worlds most dangerous Portable Water Heater!
I don't think it would result in non-availability, so long as the impending ban were known by the manufacturers in plenty of time. I think (and hope) it would make them return manufacturing to the West (or to more respectable parts of the East, such as Japan).
People wouldn't be able to buy their $8 toasters in WalMart or their £20 DVD players in Asda, but would that be such a bad thing? I find it rather ironic that in an age when so much is made of saving the environment, recycling, not wasting resources etc. so much equipment has become "throwaway" - We ship it halfway around the world, use if for a couple of years, then it goes into landfill (or in some cases is shipped halfway back around the world again as trash).
Perhaps we could return to an age of equipment designed to last a decent amount of time, and which is maintainable and repairable at reasonable cost compared to buying new. Wouldn't that be something?
Perhaps we could, if we all made our buying decisions on quality rather than price.
Perhaps, although I suspect that there would be years of legal attempts by the (Western) manufacturers to prevent the 'ban' being implemented.
As you imply, it is not without reason that Western companies have their manufacturing done in Asia. If they returned manufacture to the West, that could well largely price 'reputable brand' products out of the market, leaving iffy 'cheap and nasty' companies (even if Western-based) to take advantage, and lower the general standard of products being bought and used.
Kind Regards, John
It's interesting that when we tried to buy a decent electric kettle a while back, and paid a lot (five times than a cheapie) more for it from a "good" maker, it, and it's replacements, all quickly failed. We were so sick of it that my wife bought a cheap plastic Tesco kettle for a few quid while she was in there one day, and that lasted us several years. I think that even then it worked, but was looking pretty tatty and discoloured,
That's unusual for you John
I agree though, it's never going to happen.
Yes, that is very true - although an increasing amount of 'publicity' (e.g. TV programmes) is highlighting the resource deficiencies which prevent 'them' from doing more than scratching the surface.
... and it's obviously not only in the UK, or Europe. A while ago I saw a bit of a TV programme about 'fake components", and it revealed that even "Air Force One" (probably the most 'protected' aircraft in the world) had been found to have been fitted with a significant proportion of fake replacement components.
Kind Regards, John
Indeed. We've had the same experience with irons (and various other things). We used to buy expensive branded ones, which rarely lasted much beyond their warranty period (if at all!). We then started buying dramatically cheaper ones, in places like Tesco and Homebase, and they have generally lasted 'for ever'. We now tend to replace them (again, with 'the cheapest we can find') when they are starting to look a bit tatty with age, not because they have stopped working. Watches are another example!
The correlation between price and quality is clearly nothing like one might expect. It seems that high price can mean mean 'a name', and a high profit margin (at every stage of the supply chain), but not necessarily a better product (or necessarily even a product which cost any more to manufacture) than a much cheaper one.
Kind Regards, John
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Indeed - as there is a lack of policing on anything. Can you remember when a car with a burned out light used to get stopped by the police?
Nowadays about 1 in 10 of the cars I pass at night has deficient headlights. It is not uncommon to pass cars with both offside head and sidelights dead (This is particular dangerous in the countryside, where they look like motorbikes)
OK, a digression, but symptomatic of the increase in laws and the decrease in policing. Government without thinking.
Mind you, there is also the opposite (or is the inverse?) Anyway, I remember seeing in a magazine article, must be 30 years ago about a bolt for one of NASAs rockets. Now it was something like a 5/16" UNF X 2" socket head cap screw. In a Ziploc bag, and labelled up. Non structural, not critical, not special. One out of an ordinary box. $25.
No rhyme or reason to a lot of things.
And down here at least, the plonkers then switch on their fog lights!
Just a update, In a impromptu fashion I tried sticking two bits of 0.75mm² copper wire spaced about half an inch apart in a glass of water what were in turn connected directly to the mains via a UK plug. Nothing happened other than the copper wires oxidising with small bubbles forming what happened rather quickly; I suspect the water did not heat up because I did not have differing materials for the electrodes.
I did film a video of it, but think it's best not uploading it to YouTube in case some nutcase tries copying what I did and ends up killing themselves - even though me clearley saying in the video not to try what I did.
I did film a video of it, but think it's best not uploading it to YouTube in case some nutcase tries copying what I did and ends up killing themselves - even though me clearley saying in the video not to try what I did.
Why would different materials make the water heat up?