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association comment Nothing lasts forever


A balance needs to be struck between repairing appliances and knowing when it’s time for them to be recycled, writes AMDEA executive Sian Lewis


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ith growing pressure to make products last longer to reduce our impact on the planet, what are


the implications for household appliances? Large white goods are covered by Ecodesign


legislation, which has been concentrating on reducing energy use. There are now moves to control other environmental aspects such as durability and resource efficiency, as well as ease of dismantling and recycling. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment


(WEEE) Regulations already specify how such products are handled at the end of their lives. But there are those that want more emphasis on refurbishment and resale. There are also suggestions that manufacturers should be legally required to offer long guarantees and/or hold spare parts for years after a model is discontinued. However, there are several reasons why


a blanket assumption that electrical goods should continue to be repaired indefinitely is actually wrong.


One of these is energy use. Modern appliances are far more energy efficient than


their predecessors. Add in deterioration in performance over time and older appliances use much more energy than current models. In terms of environmental impact, it may be better to send your old washing machine to be recycled than to keep it going. Requiring goods to be designed so that they can be easily dismantled seems, at first sight, eminently sensible. But innovations in combining different materials have given us better products, often cheaper, and sometimes more durable. How can designers favour simpler constructions to facilitate their eventual disassembly, if this makes the product less effective than technology allows? But the most important consideration is, of


course, safety. A product that is simple to dismantle at the end of its life could be easy for a user to take apart themselves, without them necessarily understanding the dangers. Even the recurring argument about the accessibility of batteries is complicated: the need for those in hearing aids to be easy but those in toys to be difficult


to remove; the sealed units in small electronic devices versus the risk of small children swallowing button batteries. As more substances are identified as hazardous to human health or the environment, some chemicals used in older products are no longer deemed safe and need to be removed. Others, such as lithium, require protective measures. And finally, nothing lasts forever. At some point a product becomes uneconomical to repair, however environmentally friendly its owner may be. So yes, jettisoning an almost new television


is wasteful of our planet’s limited resources. But keeping a 20-year old fridge-freezer going for another couple of decades is not necessarily the best approach either.


• AMDEA is the UK trade association for manufacturers of large and small domestic appliances. It has 35 member companies who between them manufacture over 100 brands


 Retra chief executive Howard Saycell responds to the Chancellor’s Budget, and highlights the opportunity presented in Smart Home


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usiness rates have been a point of contention for some time among members. Along with most retail


associations out there, we appear to have a mixed bag of winners and losers. For the big losers where their business rates have increased significantly there appears to be a soſtening on the part of the government. Chancellor Philip Hammond’s budget announced three measures designed to ease the burden of business rates across the country, amounting to a giveaway of £435m over the next five years. Mr Hammond said that under the new measures, any business coming out of small business rate relief will benefit from a cap which prevents the rate that it pays from going up by more than £50 per month. If you have been badly affected by the review and gained little from the budget changes please do let us know. We can then inform the BRC which is co-ordinating a joint response on behalf of their members. It seems Mr Hammond favoured small pubs, which received a £1,000 discount on business rates bills for all pubs with


14 | www.innovativeelectricalretailing.co.uk


a rateable value of less than £100,000. Not much help for electrical retailers unfortunately. Last month I attended the Smart Home seminar at AWE. This event came out of the discussions at our conference last year. It was a very informative day and is a great guide to getting involved in this growing area of the business. My thanks to Stuart Tickle and the AWE team and also Paul Laville of T21, who organised the event. The Smart Home continues to be one of the


few areas of the CE industry that is growing in both value and profitability, thanks to it being an expertise and service-led concept. Independent retailers have always prided themselves on being the experts in the electrical market and delivering great customer service. Clearly with this natural fit, Smart Home should be seen as a great opportunity for members. Simon King, who edits member’s magazine Retra Alert, was there so there will be a full report on the day in the next edition of Alert. As a final note, many retra members have now reached their ‘staging dates’ for launching their


March 2017


in-work pension schemes for staff. It’s a long time since this was originally announced so please don’t forget about it. They started with the big employers but are now down to the smaller ones. If you haven’t done anything yet we recommend you use the government scheme called ‘Nest’. Full details are available via the government website.


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