The Endangered Repairman [View all]

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from YES! Magazine:


The Endangered Repairman
Getting your stuff fixed instead of throwing it away is good for the environment as well as for your bank balance. So why is this craft dying out in America?

by Shannon Hayes
posted Nov 23, 2012


If there is one piece of electronic equipment in our house that every member of the family equally enjoys, it is our stereo. Listening to music and radio is one of our greatest pleasures. Bob and I purchased it shortly after we got married with gift money we’d received. We chose carefully, selecting a system that had been manufactured in this country, one we felt would last us for the next fifty years.

It lasted ten. Soon, little buttons stopped working, then a few speaker wires shorted out. This past year, we decided to get it fixed. We contacted the manufacturer.

“Those systems can’t be repaired any longer,” the company representative informed me. But lucky for Bob and me, the company, keen on seeming “green,” has a buy-back program for their old electronic products. They’d take my stereo away, and in exchange, they’d award me a $500 credit toward a new stereo system. I asked if the new ones were still manufactured here. The representative faltered, “Well, no….”

We decided to visit a nearby independently owned store that specialized in home entertainment systems. We explained we were looking for a stereo. A good one. There, we learned that stereos were a thing of the past. We were supposed to be listening to music through new wireless blue-tooth speakers that spoke directly to our computers, which would channel the radio stations and music over the internet. We should just throw out our old stereo and buy the new technology. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/shannon-hayes/the-endangered-repairman