Hi Y'all
I've recently become involved in setting up a repair cafe in our city. The aim of this is to repair, as much as possible, all manner of things and reduce materials to landfill. We fix furniture, bikes, electrical items, clothing, and have a go at nearly anything. However, seeing some of the rubbish people bring in, I guess I take the perspective that we shouldn't be buying or even permitted to sell, stuff that can't be fixed, or at least recycled. The build quality of some of it is appalling. Obviously this applies more broadly than just tools. The cheap items that get bought in, in many cases, can't be taken apart and there are no available spares if you could get them apart, and they are so badly made in the first place that any fix is not going to be long-lived anyway. It is frustrating! You would hope that better quality would be the opposite, can be taken apart, motors rewound or replaced and some manufacturers hold spares for years. People bring in garden tools that have bent or broken on first use and have basically never been fit for purpose. They may have sat in the shed for a year and are out of warranty. Not sure if that adds another perspective to the conversation but I feel we cant just keep buying cheap stuff for single use then discarding it.
Cheers
Richard