Recyclable power tools - a powerfully good idea (Power Tools in general)

Member Name: cloudcover

Product:	Power Tools in general
Date:	17/09/01 (1203 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: less damaging environmentally

Disadvantages: reserves the right to change policy

I’m going to tell you why I think Wickes Home Improvement Centres’ own brand of power tools are a good thing to buy.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m no DIY expert – not even a particularly gifted amateur. Until we moved into our present house nearly two years ago, I had never owned a power tool of any sort. I also no longer own a Wickes drill – my boyfriend’s parents gave us a Black and Decker one for Christmas, a month after I had bought one from Wickes, so I had to keep that one and pass the Wickes one to my friends. The only Wickes power tool I do now own is a jigsaw.

So, I’m not going to tell you that Wickes power tools are better than any other brand – I don’t know (although the Wickes drill did have a really useful slot for the chuck key in the handle of the drill itself – it’s only a matter of time before I lose the Black and Decker one for good).

I’m also not going to tell you that the tools are the cheapest on the market – I was too busy doing the DIY to spend as much time as I normally do shopping around – they were cheaper than Bosch and Black and Decker but that’s about all I registered.

I also don’t know if they’re likely to last better than any other brand – but that does bring me to my point. The really great thing about Wickes power tools is the little message on the last page of the instruction manual for my jigsaw. It is this:

“Environmental Protection
Wickes take back worn-out machines for the purpose of resource-saving recycling. As a result of their modular construction, Wickes machines can be very easily dismantled into their reusable materials. Return worn out machines to Wickes.”

Ideally, in the future, legislation will require manufacturers to build recyclability into their products. Some, far sighted, manufacturers are already heading in this direction and I, fo
r one, would like to support this effort. I want to buy products that, at the end of their useful lives, can be broken down into their component parts for reuse or recycling, rather than products that consist of dissimilar substances so moulded together that they can only be separated at a disproportionately large cost, both in financial and environmental terms.

I should say that I don’t know if there are other power tool manufacturers who are already taking the recycling issue into consideration. Wickes may only be one of many. I should also say that, beneath the paragraph I quoted above is the worrying caveat:

-Subject to change without notice-

I would like manufacturers to feel that this is an important matter. I’d be lying if I said it was something I did think about when I bought the drill and jigsaw – it hadn’t occurred to me. Now I know that it’s possible, it will be a major issue to consider when I next find some piece of DIY that I’m not yet equipped for.

We all have different priorities when making purchasing decisions. I don’t want people to think that I’m claiming credit for making an environmentally sound choice that I didn’t even know about at the time. What I do want to do in this op is to make a few more people aware of the fact that it is possible to buy recyclable power tools, then you can use the information as you see fit.

Summary: