Built In Waste

Our culture isn't known for its repair-it mentality. When it costs about the same to replace (and upgrade!) as it does for parts and labor, the choice is clear. Some products are designed to fail- products are suppose to fail after the warranty expires, but not enough so you feel enraged (unless, I suppose, you are me). Some products are revamped what seems like yearly so you wouldn't be caught dead with the fat ipod mini now, but then again, a year ago, you wouldn't be caught dead with the skinny one. I have a Zune, which has always stayed skinny, and at just over 2 years old, is just about to be phased out permanently. But not from my collection.

It's not only electronics, it's clothing as well. Skinny jeans, then flared, then (unfortunately), skinny again. I've never been much of a shopper myself, so I'll continue to wear whatever is in my closet, till it's worn down. I know it reflects poorly on myself, that is, if you are only looking at the outside.

I'm usually a stickler for repairing things when I can. Not only do I get to find out how things work, but it usually is cheaper and pretty darn easy (usually because of my fine network of brilliant friends). For instance, when my earbuds fell off of my earphones too often, Jon, who has an incredible knack for fixing things, suggested I super-glue them on. Now I do it with every pair (pictured here are Pumpkin's). Jon and I (mostly Jon) have also installed a car radio, taken apart my laptop, sautered mp3 or monitor parts, and unindented my car (having 2 younger sisters calls for a lot of broken things). They are fun projects and I can look back and say wow. In our glorification of convenience we lose more than just former possessions.

My most recent battle with repair-it mentality and buying new came last night, when my parent's Epson printer decided to not print. After 20 minutes of having it fake a paper jam (where it would load up a piece of paper, claim it was jammed, and then cough it out promptly), my mom suggested it might be the low ink on the magenta and yellow. I heeded her advice. But the notion of the printer not working even though the black ink I was trying to use wasn't empty made me instantly mad, so I pulled out my own refill kit (back in college, when I had a printer) and tried to make something of it.

Well, as it turns out, Epson ink is the bread and butter of the company. For my parent's printer (the Epson Stylus CX7400), the cartridges are pressurized and the ink is put in 3 different compartments. See Ink Re-filling Experts. So even though I tried to jab my ink needle everywhere, it failed to take. I even tried screwing a new hole on top, but upon closer inspection of the article, it appeared to be completely futile so I gave up.

I remember buying this printer. My dad, ever the economic stimulator, insisted he needed a scanner one random afternoon. After putting up an eventually futile resistance (where I questioned his motives), I did some quick research and found the Epson printer on sale, for $100. It was a 4-in-1 and quite sleek looking too. And in black, it would match the desktop color scheme (tricky tricky marketers).

I never saw him use the printer as a scanner (which I knew he wouldn't in the first place). My dad is a lover of all things new and shiny, most of which lays abandonned in various areas of the house. But all of which he absolutely needed in the first place. I now see why the printer was $100, a full ink replacement would be over half the price of the printer. And since there was no way to buy used or to refill it myself, there is built in waste even if I wanted to spend the time to "repair" it.

Eventually I did, biking over to office max 15 minutes before it closed. But, of course, even after putting the new cartridges in, the printer continued barfing out sheets of paper. $%#^ me.