When my wife asked me today what I had planned, I knew trouble was coming. “Well, I’ve got to get the garden winterized, dig in the leaves and coffee grounds, cover up with cardboard, etc. and I want to check the bees, see if they’re flying, it might be warm enough.” Apparently that wasn’t enough. “Why don’t we get that old printer out of the shop so we can use the space for the laminator.” Now, I’ve been successfully foot-dragging for about 3 years on this little project. Somehow I knew I wouldn’t get away with it this time.
Ten years ago that color printer was hoisted up the narrow stairway when we decided to expand our printing capabilities into color posters. It took about 8 hours…my wife, daughter, myself and a come-along to safely jack that heavy piece of machinery up. I well remember that and didn’t want to ruin my back or my day plus I absolutely hate trashing something that has been manufactured.
As I removed piece by piece, I recalled all the work I had pushed through it. This was a good printer, but not without problems. Even with the many consumer replaceable parts, we still occasionally had to get a service man in for maintenance beyond what I could do. That was not cheap, nor were the parts that I could replace.
As I’m taking it apart, I can’t help but think of all the natural resources that went into the making of it. Carefully machined rollers with gears and motors, belts and pulleys…I’ve got to add some photos.
Gears in printer
What a cute belt and gear
How many toner cartridges did I use, I wonder?
Image drums…when I first started replacing them, they cost $110 each. After a few years the price increased to $400 each
Think of all the designing, labor, and raw materials that went into this.
The accumulator belt.
Paper tray assembly
During this painful disassembly, I kept thinking about the beautiful machinery and all the design work that had gone into this.
How can we continue using raw materials taken from who knows where, cheap labor, and energy only to have it come to an ignoble end in such a short time?
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Beautiful question. What if disassembly were part of the production process?
That would play hell with the GNP numbers but it seems more realistic. Maybe we’ve been living on credit too long, tossing things away when they could have been transformed into another useful product. If that’s not economically feasible, then why not throw our economics in the trash? Our growth since the mid 1700’s has depended on trashing natural resources. Not sustainable.
Let’s log a forest so it lasts for 20,000 years. Let’s farm so the land is fertile for 30,000 years. Is that impractical? I’d say the opposite is impractical. But I come from a family of Alaskan fishermen and Northwestern loggers so I don’t talk like this at family get togethers!
Logging is big in this town so I know what you’re talking about. Still, I believe we can log sustainably and still maintain jobs while not harming the environment (as much). It would cost a little more for sure, but the effects of climate change is going to cost much more.
It would slow down the economy if we added that extra work to producing lumber. The Gross National Product might not rise. But so what? The king of Bhutan said “Forget the Gross National Product, let’s measure Gross National Happiness every year!” I have to check in and see how they are doing with that.