Our dishwasher recently gave up the ghost. It wasn’t a very good dishwasher. We initially purchased it to replace one in our rental, but my husband was able to fix that one. Our dishwasher at the time was several decades older than I was, and although ran better than most of its human contemporaries, had lost the spring on the door. This door weighed at least 20 pounds, and I lived in fear that one of my young children would inadvertently be knocked senseless when play with the latch. My husband switched them out, and we now had a less dangerous, but less effective dishwasher. But alas, its pump gave out and it passed away at a premature four years.
We found another, better, dishwasher on Craigslist for $40, and soon swapped them out. Now we were left with our middle dishwasher. It sat by the garage for a month, when I decided we should dispose of it. If we put it in our large construction dumpster, it would take up room and add weight, for which we would be charged. I could put it out the curb. I could haul it to the dump. I decided to call our garbage service, as they picked up these items upon request. After a few minutes on the phone, I was told what they could do.
“We can pick it up for you for $97.50.”
I said no thank you, and hung up. It cost $97.50 to dispose of a dishwasher? The thing didn’t even cost $300. Disposal cost 33% of the dishwasher’s purchase value? Perhaps hauling it to the dump would be better after all.
Welcome to one of the hidden costs of stuff. Disposition of products and goods take time, energy, and, increasingly, money. We pay for someone to haul our stuff away. We pay postage to return items we don’t want. We pay for gas to return items we don’t want. Sometimes, we try to sell our stuff, which takes time and energy. We might donate stuff, but this still requires some time and energy. Sometimes worse, we hold on to items, which then occupy space which has been linked to increased stress levels, not to mention using up unnecessary real estate in your house and life. Sometimes, in order to hold on to items, we pay others to store them for us. Self-storage is the “fastest growing segment of the commercial real estate industry over the past four decades.” h
We typically fail to consider the cost of disposition as part of the cost of an item at the point of purchase. We consider the purchase price, and possibly maintenance. We do not consider how we will get rid of it when it inevitably ceases to function.
In their book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things,William McDonough and Michael Braungart propose that our struggle to dispose of items is really a function of our manufacturing which designs items for consumption without ever considering the end state of the process. This same “cradle to grave” thinking in manufacturing is perpetuated in how most of us interact with the world around us. We purchase items without thinking of what we will do with them when they are no longer of value to use.
We need to begin counting the cost of disposal at the point of purchase as part of the total cost of the item. The cost of this dishwasher was not $299. The cost of the dishwasher was
1. Purchase price: $299
2. Disposal price: $50-97.50
3. Time spent figuring out how to dispose of it: 1 month
4. Time spent actually disposing of it: 1-2 hours
5. Irritation seeing it beside the garage: daily for a month
Total cost of the dishwasher: $450.
Even if we decided to forgo purchasing a new appliance, we still would have paid something in time, energy, and money. McDonough and Braungart argue for dispensing with a recycling industry that tries to fix the broken manufacturing system with a manufacturing system that mimics nature. When blossoms fall from a tree in spring, we consider it food, not waste. Items should be made with the end in mind, and designed and produced as such.
Just as the manufacturing process ignores the “hidden” problem of disposing of items at their end of life, so we tend to ignore the “hidden” cost of disposal. We can incorporate some of “cradle to cradle” concept into our purchase of items by considering the total cost of an item when we consider buying it. Do we know the cost to dispose of it? How will we find the time and energy? Do we want this item enough to deal with both the maintenance and disposal?
Pause long enough to consider the full cost of an item. It will help you know the full cost and value of the stuff you are buying.
Photo credit: Jonathan Pavluk