Hmm, I dunno about that. To provide the goods and services people use and need now from artisans instead of factories would probably make more waste, I think. I haven't done any calculations on it. But machines can have closer tolerances and be designed to make the most use out of things. (Not that they currently ARE, but that's an argument for better standards, not against factories)
Plus, you would require a LOT of artisans hand-tooling things to provide the stuff people use now, and each of those artisans would produce waste. And since human training and tolerances vary more than machines do, it'd probably be more, and it'd be decentralized, which would make it harder for collecting the waste for reuse and recycling.
Local production is definitely better, making the plastic crap we do in China and shipping it across the ocean is ridiculous. But that's more an argument against the way things are set up now, rather than an indictment of the factory system as a whole. Local factories would seem to be the best way to address that. For some reasonable description of "local".
I have nothing against artisans hand-crafting stuff, I think it's awesome, and even have some friends who make money off their own creations. But hand-tooling things isn't really a cure-all to our environmental problems, for a lot of reasons.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asenathwaite
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 02:07 am (UTC)Plus, you would require a LOT of artisans hand-tooling things to provide the stuff people use now, and each of those artisans would produce waste. And since human training and tolerances vary more than machines do, it'd probably be more, and it'd be decentralized, which would make it harder for collecting the waste for reuse and recycling.
Local production is definitely better, making the plastic crap we do in China and shipping it across the ocean is ridiculous. But that's more an argument against the way things are set up now, rather than an indictment of the factory system as a whole. Local factories would seem to be the best way to address that. For some reasonable description of "local".
I have nothing against artisans hand-crafting stuff, I think it's awesome, and even have some friends who make money off their own creations. But hand-tooling things isn't really a cure-all to our environmental problems, for a lot of reasons.