When Mr. van den Akker put the iron back together,
two parts were left over — no matter, he said,
they were probably not that important. He plugged
the frayed cord into a socket. A green light went
on. Rusty water poured out. Finally, it began to
steam.
A classic example of poor risk assessment.
Its possible that this pervasive bit of anal retentiveness has made some(1) individuals marginally safer, but its super dangerous to societies.
(1) Except for the aforementioned homeless. They're not safer.
But you can see that there is a big difference between "not completely perfect" and "likely to cause death or serious injury"?
No
You don't know what parts they were, but I'm sure the repairer evaluated the situation.
This is an extreme sheltering mentality
An old product certainly does not conform to modern standarts, but it's reasonably safe (given you don't do anything stupid to it)
Given how horrible reporters are at getting tech and science right, I don't assume "frayed cord" in the article translates to the technical meaning of the term.
That being said, this argument seems to largely consist of 1) some people who assume the repair-man is incompetent and possibly has a psycopathic desire to kill people via shoddy repairs, and at the same time assuming the technical descriptions are 100% accurate, and 2) some people who assume the reporter was being a reporter and willfully being incompetent in reporting, while the humble repairman (basically a hacker working on items) is good enough to know what he is doing with extremely reasonable margins of safety.
Neither of these sets of assumptions particularly valid and they appear to stem from deeper assumptions: what is an acceptable margin of risk, what value various safety rules have on actual safety and so on. IMHO, discussions on these would be far more interesting than wrangling about a passage from a single report without any other evidence of what was (not) done.
When you have a 2000 watt device operating on 220 v ac mains you can't afford to bodge safety critical components.
Irons are not double insulated (they have a huge chunk of metal on the base) and thus you need to be really careful with earthing and mains cords. This is especially true in a device that needs water to operate.
Since 1.5 metres of good quality mains flex costs hardly anything, and they have have the iron open anyway, there's little reason not to replace the flex. You replace the mains plug at the same time, thus avoiding another common source of risk.
You mention the potential for safety standards to be over-protective and over engineered. I gently agree, some of them do seem a bit much. But then I remember when TV adverts warned people about mains-socket safety - about shoving the wires into the socket by using matches. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYwmrBXHFO4)
All electrical appliances need to come with a pre-fitted plug in the UK. Perhaps the wiring coming from mass producing Chinese factories is scary, but so is the wiring I've seen many friends do (skimpy short earth leads and big loops of live leads) with over-tightened or loose screws - I've seen many nasty errors.
We then need an maintenance 'engineer' who has been on the half day PAT course to come and fit the cable for us.
But of course you could describe a cord as "frayed" but only because it's a little dirty, but the isolation is still in good shape
* sleep on a heavily soiled mattress made of highly flammable material
* dress your baby in highly flammable second-hand sleepwear
* consume unsanitary meat that has been sitting out in the heat for too long
* feed your family a diet of donated junk food including chocolate, biscuits, chips and frozen pizzas
* give your teenage daughter a second hand hair dryer with a frayed electrical lead exposing live wires
* wear bright fluorescent green clown-like clothing that has been collecting dust in someone's attic for 20 years
* allow your children to play with lead-painted toys that pose a choke/suffocation hazard
What makes it acceptable to purchase a brand new electrical appliance and dispose of the old, worn and unsafe one to the less fortunate? What message does it send?
Charities are forced at great expense to dispose of huge amounts of junk similar to the items listed above. It's not just a case of charities looking out for everyone's safety and well-being. To a large extent it's also a desire not to insult those in need by offering junk that the rest of the world wouldn't want to purchase and use.
The rule of thumb that charities use is: donate items that you would purchase yourself or gift to your friends and family.
No, I probably wouldn't dress a baby in “highly flammable second-hand sleepwear” but the critical part of that phrase is “highly flammable”, not “second-hand”. It's ridiculous to suggest that because clothing isn't good-as-new to automatically assume it's a “highly flammable” health hazard.
> What makes it acceptable to purchase a brand new electrical appliance and dispose of the old, worn and unsafe one to the less fortunate? What message does it send?
I use old appliances all the time. Sometimes I do replace them. But just the act of buying something new does not make the old any less usable. What message does it send that those old appliances are good enough for me, but they are below the standards of people who can't afford to buy their own?
It was not an argument about the minimum technical specifications of donated goods. Nor was it an argument about donated goods needing to be brand new.
That "Only donate what you would buy" dictum is just as misguided.
I did buy it once. I just don't need it anymore. Maybe someone else can find some use for it.
―"There are things that are not even usable. We can't sell it in the store."[2]
―"We want saleable donations only," a Red Cross spokeswoman said[3]
―"What people take out of our store, we would actually wear ourself."[4]
―“Every Monday, we waste time sorting other people’s rubbish instead of preparing clothing and furniture for sale for people in need,” Mrs Barrett said.[5]
―"A good donation is something which is unbroken, complete, clean and sellable."[6]
―“If people are trying to get rid of stuff, use the tip; we only take items that are in good condition and that people can use.”[7]
―Barbara Cunningham, Sails Outlet's volunteer manager, said people dump unusable items at the thrift store two to three times a week. Recently, they found a queen-size mattress tossed outside the door.[8]
―McLellan suggests donors ask themselves, “would I buy this?”[9]
―“They wouldn’t buy it themselves, but they think other people will.”[9]
―“The appliances and that kind of thing, we want them working. We don’t them to come in without a cord, or a broken anything. There are standards — you can’t sell things that aren’t in good order.”[9]
―“These are things that should be taken to the dump,” said Thrift Store Manager Sheila Combs. “Who wants half a pool table — and a broken one to boot?”[10]
―“We couldn’t get rid of the TVs if we slapped a $2 sticker on them,” Combs said Wednesday. “As for these computer things… we don’t even have a computer so we don’t know if they work.”[10]
[1] http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/04/26/Greater-Vancouver-Food-Ban...
[2] http://www.sunjournal.com/node/100881
[3] http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/charities-report-incre...
[4] http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2011/05/11/18135666.html
[5] http://www.portnews.com.au/news/local/news/general/tip-fees-...
[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/sep/06/charities.volu...
[7] http://www.westernadvocate.com.au/news/local/news/general/tr...
[8] http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/09/22/1650943/tri-city-th...
[9] http://www.rosslandnews.com/news/121669949.html
[10] http://www.revelstokecurrent.com/2011/05/25/thoughtless-peop...
I would like clarification: Are you advocating we shouldn't donate used items to charity, or that we shouldn't donate unusable items to charity?
If the former, then how do you propose those less fortunate purchase items outside of their budget? I've gone to thrift and goodwill stores; many of the electronics and clothing there are perfectly usable.
If the latter, I completely agree, though am not sure why this is pertinent to the discussion. Broken junk isn't generally sellable except as scrap.
We had this panic here - everybody had to throw out their Nalgene water bottles because they contain PBA and it MIGHT leach out AND it might be a health hazard - although we had been using them for 20years
If you'd like to dig it out for yourself, the search terms are: Stanford cancer bpa
(Yes, I'm well-aware that studies sponsored by chemical companies find no problem whatsoever. Quelle surprise.)
The pharmaceutical industry actually tested BPA as an estrogen replacement decades ago, and did not adopt it because BPA did not produce measurable results. Today most of the BPA warnings are based on extrapolations from cell cultures. But based on the history of drug development such extrapolations are rarely valid. This is why U.S. regulatory agencies have not banned BPA; there just hasn't any solid evidence yet that BPA harms humans at the incidental levels of exposure most people experience.
Give me a break, nobody can use that junk!
One or two screws missing, it's a whole lot better than buying a new one and wasting raw materials and energy and creating waste.
1. Performing dodgy repair jobs on your own equipment for your own personal use.
2. Performing dodgy repair jobs for unsuspecting people that don't know the difference between a resistor and capacitor and are trusting your skill and judgement.
In instance [1] you're performing your own risk assessment and will bear any consequences. In [2] you're performing a risk assessment that will directly impact upon someone else's safety. Their level of risk acceptance may be far more conservative than your own.
After the fire you discover that the CE mark on the side doesn't mean it has passed all the european safety checks just that it is "china export"
In a low-margin business such as home appliances, I'm willing to bet every single part's cost/benefit ratio is carefully examined by experts before being added.