Repair, Don’t Waste features on Lexicon by Interesting Engineering
Our movement recently had the opportunity to share our ethos with the world via Interesting Engineering’s exciting new podcast, Lexicon. By delving into the issues of E-Waste and the fight to repair industrial electronics, ABI’s International Sales Manager Willian Santos explained why time is up for the break-and-replace mentality, and how the world needs to change to usher in a new era of sustainability in industry.
Lexicon by Interesting Engineering is new to 2023 and is proving to be an exciting podcast, highlighting the latest advancements the engineering world has to offer and beyond. Interesting Engineering boasts a global platform and is a trusted and established source of breakthrough information for engineering, science, and technology. Boasting over 2 million followers on LinkedIn and 900,000 subscribers on YouTube, we hope that Interesting Engineering helps Repair, Don’t Waste take the world by storm once again.
Welcomed by editor-in-chief Mike Brown, Willian begins his exploration of the relatively overlooked world of industrial repair by condemning the lack of knowledge surrounding electronics – and consumer culture is partially to blame. Willian states:
“We are surrounded by gadgets – people don’t tend to give value to something that they feel too familiar with. They think that they have everything figured out, the cost of electronics included – this eventually permeates into the business environment.”
Industrial electronics can cost anywhere from a few hundred to over £10,000.00 per circuit board, depending on its complexity and components required. This is a far cry from our everyday electronics, for which repair is often not considered as it is not economically viable. Whereas if an industrial circuit board undergoes troubleshooting and the problem is found to be a tiny component worth pennies, this can be replaced and the board is restored to full working order for a fraction of the cost of a new board.
Unsurprisingly, obsolescence in industry compounds the problem of replacing circuit boards further. Willian explains:
“They (OEMs) are making a conscious decision of building a technology with what’s known as programmed obsolescence … by making design decisions that will make that piece of technology obsolete within two to three years rather than five, ten, fifteen, twenty years.”
Obsolescence is an increasingly publicised issue within the industrial sector – companies turn to their OEMs for support and services in keep their critical systems functioning and are turned away, in some cases even actively discouraged from repair by the manufacturers. This practise is entirely wasteful and unsustainable – at Repair, Don’t Waste we hope to liberate companies for the will of OEM’s and empower them to carry out their own repair and maintenance on vital assets.
However, this new age of troubleshooting and internal repair labs cannot prevail without repair engineers and technicians – professionals who are extremely hard to source. Willian has the solution:
“We need to put pressure on education to make sure that we are training the next generation of repair heroes, the people who we were going to be helping us get to those reach of those net zero targets by coming out of the university and colleges fully trained and equipped to repair, not replace.”
Educational institutions have a huge part to play in making a sustainable future a reality. The wider focus of society needs to shift – although innovation has a part to play, it is the old methods of maintaining and repairing vital systems that will ensure the reduction of E-waste and the longevity of natural resources.
We hope that this innovative podcast will start conversations around the world regarding the position of repair in a net-zero, hopeful future. A massive thank you to Interesting Engineering and Mike Brown for the opportunity to put Repair, Don’t Waste into the limelight of the global sustainability discussion.
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