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Products that prick your conscience
13

Products that prick your conscience

Products that prick your conscience

(OP)
Just a thought, but do any other members face a dilemma regarding the items they produce?
As a plastics toolmaker/drafter I have always avoided the bottle/packaging industry, as the problems relating to disposal are all too obvious.
This may seem rather trivial, but how about people involved in the manufacture of land mines, for example?

DC

RE: Products that prick your conscience

A number of years ago, I left the industrial manufacturing industry to become a consultant.  For personal reasons I chose not to try to sell services to the tobacco industry.  Over the years they have approached my employer for services and I was part of the team for their projects, but I still did not get a warm fuzzy at the end of the job.

Steve Braune
Tank Industry Consultants
www.tankindustry.com

RE: Products that prick your conscience

DC,
 I guess you have to look at it like this, what if the people who conceived and developed the Atomic Bomb had not worked on the project? Some would say, hurray, others would obviously not be here. The sad fact is, it still would have been developed, just not at the exact moment. That may sound cruel, but we all face the same thing every day, perhaps not on such a grand scale.
 I know sooner or later something I work on will get someone hurt or killed, all I can do is remove as many pitfalls as possible. The same would apply had I worked on the Atom Bomb, only in that case, speed to production would be the overriding concern.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

DC-

It is prudent to perhaps think that applying high standards of ethics to your everyday job will somehow make the world a better place.  But with that thought, one could conceive that something you engineer today could somehow become the foundation for an engineered device that would one day evolve after generations and generations of iterations into the doomsday machine itself.

The mere thought that one could be responsible for such an idea would force you to become a hermit!

Just think if the Wright brothers were told that they had a choice between making a flying machine that would evolve into the B-29 which would carry the atomic bomb to Hiroshima and Nagasaki that would kill multitudes of people or to just continue being bicycle makers.  Which one would you have chosen?

My take on the subject, work in whatever area you are interested in, or that which you have the most enthusiasm for.  What the end user decides to use it for (whether as it was intended or not) is something that you have very little control over.

Brian

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Well said Brian, A star for that.

We as Engineers have only so much control over how the end users utilize our products.  And come on, how many of us take home something and end up looking at how else can we use it.

We are Engineers, it's in our nature.  Curiousity may have killed that cat, but it sure opens up horizons to the engineer.

Alan M. Etzkorn  
Product Engineer
Nixon Tool Co.
www.nixontool.com

RE: Products that prick your conscience

I face a similar dilemma.  I see products leaving my company, going to customers as process consumables. I look at these things and see high quality, highly recyclable virgin thermoplastic material going into the garbage heaps instead of recycling. I've suggested within my company that we develop some sort of deposit reimbursement for reclaiming some of these valued materials.  Where's the money in that, though?

The fact is, though, that many of my companies products come in contact with harsh chemicals and each piece would need to be sanitized prior to any recycling effort.  For now, it's not a viable business practice.  If it were my business, I find a way to make it viable.

Part of the problem is, I believe, that waste recycling and disposal is the reposibility of the consumer and local municipality and is subject to all sorts of budget constraints.  Why not transfer this liability to the manufacturer?  Should not a manufacturer be responsible for the fate of their product from cradle to grave?  This sort of policy would undoubtedly revolutionize the recycling industry and would likely become economically viable.  
My 2-cents.

aspearin1

RE: Products that prick your conscience

aspearin1

...no way!  I couldn't disagree with you more.

IMO once a manufacturers sells their product they are not responsible to see that it is recycled properly.

Responsibility for recycling falls on the owner of the product at any given time.  It's a package deal, you buy the container, you are responsible for the container.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

MASSEY
You should see what the laws are like in Germany. In order to sell a car, an automaker has to take responsibility for ultimate disposal of the car.  I believe this also applies to a multitude of consumer products.

There are two types of people in the world: the kind that believe that people can be categorized into one of two groups and the kind that don't.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Where will we be if everyone passes the buck down to the consumer?  We will all be poor and living on piles of garbage.  Taxes will soar, municipalities will suffer... and companies will continue to produce future garbage.  There will come a time when the trash will be dumped on the lawn if its creator.  That's my prediction.

aspearin1

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Most of the basic technological advances in the last 100 years ( pick a number if a 100 years doesn’t work for you)  have come from the death and destruction business.
Even the computer you are now using is a spin-off of someone wanting to kill someone else faster, cheaper and better.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

That's absolutely true BJC. In fact, one of the first, if not the first, use of computers was to calculate ballistic trajectories during WWII.

I can sympathize with 3dKiwi's question, but bubb375's response sums it up perfectly.  No matter what we do, what we invent, what we build, someone with an evil mind will figure out a way to exploit it.

In a quite similar vein, there is a great thread over in Tek-Tips,
Thread717-711977  "Should computer technology be used to kill people?"
which you may find to be an interesting read.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

How far can you take this line of thinking though?  Seriously, how far?

Example... I work for an electric utility (GASP!).  The electricity we produce comes from power plants (coal, natural gas, etc.), which release certain gases which, based on whose research you read and believe, cause global warming, potentially displacing (or killing) millions from their soon to be flooded coastal homes (from melting polar icecaps).  Oh, and the lines we transmit power over?  They produce electromagnetic fields, which based on some circumstantial evidence MIGHT cause cancer in children who live and play just off the right of way.  Oh, and here's another one... that electricity produced by my employer?  Well, it could be used by a terrorist to power his computer so that he can coordinate an attack which could kill hundreds of innocents.  Or this... it could be used by a weapons manufacturer, whose products end up killing tens of thousands throughout the world.

Makes you wonder how I sleep at night, huh?

My point?  Pick your "ethical" cause... I'm sure that regardless of your industry, you can pick a line of reasoning, follow it far enough, and find a way in which your product violates that in which you believe.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Two quick responses-

Aspearin1-

If the government transfers responsibility to the manufacturer, who do you think will pay for the cost?  That's right - the consumer!  Yes, your ultimate goal of environmental responsibility will be achieved, but the long term detriment to the economy by means of sucking the consumer dry may be devastating.

Jstickley-

My point exactly!  You can take everything to the extreme.  If you are going to sweat the small stuff, you should dig a hole and live in it (like a hermit).

One has to make a concerted effort to use their engineering knowledge for the purpose of perpetuating their ideals and ideas with as much responsibility as humanly possible.  One cannot contemplate all of the unforseen implications because they are quite simply infinite.

Do that which you can, not what you would prefer but is absolutely unobtainable.  You will sleep better at night.

Brian

RE: Products that prick your conscience

bubb375,

Eventually the consumer pays anyway.  One possible advantage to requiring the manufacturer to be responsible for the recycling is that the marketplace will reward the companies that are better able to control the costs of the recycling.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

(OP)
A couple of replies,
Thanks for your 2 cents asperin1. IMO the change of focus to the manufacturer “owning” the complete life cycle of a product is coming, and about time too!
Bubb375,
I agree that the outcome of our endeavours can not always be predicted; here in New Zealand we have the perfect example in Ernest Rutherford, who, as the first to induce an artificial nuclear reaction, was awarded the Nobel peace prize. The irony continues considering N.Z.s nuclear policy today! However, to include recycling as an unforeseen after effect seems too short sighted, considering the rising costs of oil production.
Maybe 8 yrs in N.Z. has led to me becoming a hermit, or even a hobbit! But I believe “sweating the small stuff” is where the changes necessary will begin.
Cheers all,
DC

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Perhaps we should start taking personal responsibility for how we use products?  Just a crazy notion, but ultimately, I am responsible for my own actions.  Business has a responsibility to produce products that consumers want.  Regardless of whether you want to believe this, it is true.

If people didn't want cigarettes, then the cigarette companies would quickly fold.  However, it is not the responsibility of the cigarette manufacturers to pay for all of the lawsuits due to unintelligent end-users.  At the end of the day, noone held a gun to the smokers head and made them light up!

RE: Products that prick your conscience

(OP)
I was under the impression that the cigarette/lawsuit issue was about the manufacturer discovering the hazards of using their product, but not informing the customer. Surely they would be liable from then, until they issued a warning of the risks?
DC

RE: Products that prick your conscience

2
I don't think that all this is just so cut and dry.  Ethics can be very complex.  For example, some of the posts above refer to the atomic bomb as some kind of great evil.  

But you can, intelligently, make the case that more lives have been SAVED by Hiroshima and Nagasaki than have been taken.  Not just in WWII but in subsequent stalemates through the decades after.  When was the last time we had a world war?

I'm not belittling the lost lives there but you can make the case and its hard to refute.  And please don't argue with me about the bomb - its just an illustration.

Thomas Sowell has used the example of welfare.  Ethically, you initially would think that welfare is a good thing for poor people.  The news media (quite the mental children they are) can easily place a poor woman with three kids on the nightly news and show how bad off she is.  Then, with the welfare money coming in show they can show the immediate effect of its "goodness."  

So ethically, its the right thing to do?  What if there is the great, unseen effect of welfare where thousands of people are affected by the welfare laws such that the stimulus to find work is lessened and MORE people end up depending on it, modelling to their kids a lack of work ethic, creating a continuous family chain of dependence...you get the picture.  You just can't SEE it so clearly but you can see the welfare mom all fixed up.

As an engineer working for a company, you simply should evaluate your position, your work, your companies product, etc. and use your best judgement as to what is right.  You have the intelligence and you have the sense of right and wrong.  Just don't over-react without really thinking through it all.  Its complex....its life.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

I was under the impression that I was responsible for my own behavior.  I admit, it would be nice to pass off any and all personal responsibility to the government / manufacturers, but I am just afraid that in the end we won't like the results.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

The end results often are: biodegradable products, reuse of recycled materials, recycled materials costing less than raw materials, conservative usage on the manufacturing side, strategic planning (i.e. no over-production).  My point was that policy will be the key to unlocking the technologies necessary to make all these things profitable.  Without it there is no incentive to make the Green Engine run. Forgive my liberal point of view, but trash is very much a tangible, foreseen, and fundamentally reduceable consequence of production.  

I as a consumer am responsible for segregating my recycling from organic trash.  I, however, am powerless to the budgeted recycling program available in my county (other than 1 vote).  Very few municipalities have a recycling program, and many will not recycle anything other than polyethylene milk bottles, glass, and aluminum cans, and newspaper.  What about all the other scrap metal, recycleable plastics, newsprint, and junk mail that make it into landfill each day?  Pits turn into mountains and then are shut down for lack of space, and better yet become quarantined from future usage because of the colored goo leaching from the soil.

aspearin1

RE: Products that prick your conscience

When I was a senior in engineering school, a friend was complaining about the possibilities of working on weapons and ancillary areas. I suggested going into bio-med, and he lit up with interest. The last time I heard from him, he was going to medical school. (Several ME's in my fraternity went to medical, dental, prosthetic, etc.)

Speaking for myself, aviation and weapons were the areas hiring and paying the best salaries. I had no regrets. I hope some of my designs went into weapons systems aimed at bad people.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

"Mechanical Engineers make weapons, Civil Engineers make targets"

RE: Products that prick your conscience

And computer engineers ensure that weapon hits the target.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Quote (bubb375):

Just think if the Wright brothers were told that they had a choice between making a flying machine that would evolve into the B-29 which would carry the atomic bomb to Hiroshima and Nagasaki that would kill multitudes of people or to just continue being bicycle makers.  Which one would you have chosen?

Just to be contrary, what if you also told Orville & Wilbur that the same machine could deliver medical supplies that could save a nation or an organ to a transplant patient (or vice-versa)? Or they could keep simply making bikes...Which one would you have chosen?

Is there any invention in existence that cannot be misused?

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Leanne's hit the right note there - is anyone seriously claiming that aircraft have not been a net benefit to society?

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Products that prick your conscience

It is also true a device originally intended to rain destruction on one's opponents, i.e., the rocket, has provided substantial benefit to mankind, e.g., satellite TV, GPS, worldwide communications, trips to the Moon and the rest of the solar system.

OK, I'll concede that satellite TV's benefits are debatable.

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

what about us civil engineers.  We often are the last people to see a great tract of natural land.  We provide designs that call for the clearing of trees and the pouring of concrete.  But we also give people a safe place to live with safe roads and clean water to drink.  I hate seeing some of these natural areas destroyed but dont know the alternative.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

2
3dkiwi,
every time i make breakfast i wonder at the problem we have where the food takes up less space than all the packaging.
I often feel we would be better off if we re-introduced money-back bottles, and more recycling.

As a consumer, i am appalled to think of all the resource and effort that goes into producing a plastic cup so that i can take one mouthful of water at the cooler then throw it away.

As a consumer, i decided to provide my own mug (I hope to get one of those Eng-Tip mugs soon!).

I therefore think that engineers should not take the blame onto themselves as engineers, but share the blame with everyone else as consumers. Consumers have more power than they think and there is much to be said for motivating for change in how we behave as consumers. It's the old story, if you don't make it, some one else will, so long as there is a consumer who will pay for it.

If we could improve recycling and/or bio-degradability I'd be happier. If we could stop packaging 5 screws in a blister pack, if we had more products sold loose and un-packaged, great.

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com

RE: Products that prick your conscience

I remember the days when Mom would drive to the small Sears outlet and pickup her mail order purchases.  Everything came unwrapped in a brown paper bag.  She kept the bags to use as trash bags.

And here is another one.  I remember the days when we would fill up a red wagon with "glass" soda bottles and redeem them for cash.  

As an environmental engineer consulting with major oil companies and petrochem plants in both upstream (drilling and  production) as well as midstream and downstream, we need to get a grip on "where" we are headed with respect to recycling, pollution, fossil fuels and water usage/waste.

First, it starts at home.  And this is the reality of "where" we are headed.
(1) A tax break was passed that allows a $23,000 tax deduction for anyone who purchases a vehicle that has a GVW + passengers, fuel, extra cargo, etc. over 6,000 lbs and that vehicle is used for business.
(2) Now if you have two or more people in one of these gas guzzlers you can drive in the HOV Lane.

We can turn around North America immediately with respect to our dependence on foreign oil.
(1) Change the $23,000 tax deduction from 6,000 lb vehicles to HEV (high efficiency vehicle)based upon an EPA city rating of 30 mpg.
(2) Change the HOV lane to HEV lane.

Next, shift our focus and research to upgrading oilsand found in Alberta Canada.  Keep in mind that Gas To Liquids (GTL) technology is still in its infancy.  Thus converting natural gas to gasoline or diesel is not commercially feasible yet.  Thus, we must still rely on refining crude oil for transportation fuels.

Finally, a tremendous amount of water is produced from oil, gas and coal bed methane wells.  The "produced water" is too salty for use.  The costs for disposing the produced water is reflected at the gas pump.  This water can be put to good use if the salt is removed.  

The Reclamation Act of 1902 allows for recycling water for irrigation purposes for any state lying west of the 98th meridian.  Push your local community to reuse produced water that is now desalinated for firefighting water, lifestock and wildlife.  Also, push the local oil companies to reuse the produced water for "stimulating" the well.  This will offset the use of 100,000 to over 2,000,000 million gallons of water to stimulate a well to produce oil or gas.

Now back to the product that pricks my conscience:
"All civil engineers need to wake up and begin changing HOV Lanes to HEV lanes.  I deplore the fact that a soccer mom driving a gas guzzling SUV can drive in the HOV lane when she is the only legal driver in the vehicle.  This is not car pooling.  Nor is it the intent of why HOV lanes were created with respect to where I want my Federal Excise Tax dollars to go to when I fill up at the pump."

Let the trucks and SUVs battle it out during rush hour. If you have ever driven the Katy Freeway in Houston during rush hour you may have purchased that SUV based upon what all Naval Officers regard as "the Rule of of the Road,"
Gross Tonnage always has the right of way.

If you are an engineer of any type, do you think it is ethical to commute to work alone in a vehicle that gets under 20 mpg?
Remember this - Does your plant or company produce a product that does not require the use of any type of hydrocarbon product or byproduct?

It starts at home!  Buy a hybrid car and watch the reaction on your coworker's faces when they ride in it.  Also, it's amazing to listen to people complain at the gas pump.

I'll leave you with this.  On Friday morning I filled up at the local gas station/coffee stop.  A friend who also has an office in the same building pulled up in his Ford Excursion (gas engine) hauling his offshore boat that has tripple 300 hp racing Black Max motors.  He told me he was going fishing about 100 miles offshore.  In the same breath he began complaining about gas prices.  I asked him how much gas does the boat take to fill it up.  He stated, "About near my credit card's limit with today's gas prices."  He then said with the extra fuel tanks about 500 gallons!  And he would burn it all on Saturday if he ran wide open throttle (about 90 miles/hour).

I wonder if any of use really care about what we are leaving or lack thereof to our grandchildren.

  
   
 

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Quote:

Now back to the product that pricks my conscience:
"All civil engineers need to wake up and begin changing HOV Lanes to HEV lanes.  I deplore the fact that a soccer mom driving a gas guzzling SUV can drive in the HOV lane when she is the only legal driver in the vehicle.  This is not car pooling.  Nor is it the intent of why HOV lanes were created with respect to where I want my Federal Excise Tax dollars to go to when I fill up at the pump."

Right... So we should force ALL eight moms to drive SUV's to pick up their kids, individually, increasing both pollution and congestion?  

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Hi,

Just found this thread, amazing stuff.

Thought long and hard about all the comments.
Where do you draw the line at what may or may not prick your conscience.
You can utilise anything with a point to maim injure or kill, so do cutlery manufacturers show concern, are there disclaimers? Vehicles can kill regardless of design! You can injure a person with a pencil or pen! How about baseball/cricket bats.
Is it the designers/manufacturers responsibility how these things are used? or is it down to each and every indiviual. History shows that even inventions for the greater good at the time of conception can ultimatley be used indiscriminatley for death/destruction.
Its not the goods its the people who use them?

Must go my new eco friendly shelter has arrived, going to lock myself away eat off of biodegradable plates (vegan only food) using my fingers and wearing a fig leaf!

NOx. :)

RE: Products that prick your conscience

True enough, anything can be used with an intent to harm.

But what about products designed to harm. I think this discussion is meant to revolve more around those products. Weapons engineering is big business. There are probably other things that I can't think of that are designed to harm or destroy human life.... efficiency systems that slash jobs for example (good or bad? depends on where you're standing).

Whatever you design, whoever is paying you for designing it, whatever the application of the product, an engineer must able to look him/herself in the mirror and say to themselves that they are helping people in the long run. This is where no engineering board can get invlolved, because there is no general populous concensus on a great deal of ethical issues. Another example: you design a product that makes abortions faster, easier, safer, more efficient. Depending on personal ethics this could be an amazing thing or an attrocious thing. Depending on society's ethics you could be applauded or deemed a monster. Too many grey areas.

Mabn

RE: Products that prick your conscience

I agree that death and destruction products might offend the sensibilities of the engineers who design them.

What about the products that are designed with pre-determined life-cycles, planned obscelence. Is there any guilt associated with designing a product to minimal standards when it could be made highly durable.

I think many products are total rip-offs. For example the biggest rip-off (IMO) are automobiles; both in durability and the complicated assembly procedures that turn basically simple maintenance into rocket science. When I speak of maintenance I am not necessarily relating to the insane computerized control systems, I am talking about simple stuff like R&R a water pump, timing belt, even spark plugs on some cars, normally .5hr to 1.0hr on older cars, now jobs take upwards of 5 to 6 hours for a professional to accomplish. This opinion is based on V-6 front wheel drive cars in particular. Is this good engineering? Is maintenance ever a factor during design or is it just marketable looks?

Is there a responsibility to give the consumer a quality product?

ietech

RE: Products that prick your conscience

It is great engineering to the requirements given, which is to reduce weight and increase fuel economy.  They traded off maintenance cost, which, in many cases, is a reasonable trade, as I haven't had to do anywhere as much maintenance on my newer cars as I did on older cars.



As for weapons, it's a two-edge sword.  Man's inhumanity towards man is a historical fact, with no obvious end in sight.  So yes, I would work on weapon systems that allow the US to liberate ungrateful Iraqis and Afghans.  And it's pretty clear to me that even if I or all of the US stopped making weapons, others will continue to do so and they would continue their petty tyrannies with impunity.  

Does any seriously think that Hitler would have been stopped by a high-quality DeSoto?

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Where do you draw the line?

What are the criteria for and against any act of engineering?

How about the civil engineers who are working on the huge dam projects in China which will affect the lives of many millions of people not just in China, but down stream?
Criteria change.

If you built the Panama Canal today, would you? or the US transcontinental railroad?

In any civilised society we should not have to bear the burden alone. That is why we elect governments. That is why governments issue licences for arms exports to some and not to others.

The system isn't perfect. No system is. Sure Leo Slizard (The voice of Dolphins?)and others on the Manhattan Project had a quite a burden of assumed guilt after the event, it was not theirs to bear alone, if guilt it were.

For me the biggest issue at the moment is GM crops, or any GM products. This is profoundly unsettling for me as i think we have here a situation that scientific methdo was not evolved to handle.

Yes, there are times when i feel that some things are done becauuse the can be done and not because anyone has thought whether it is right to do them. Pretty well everything can come under this umbrella dependent on your viewppoint. I am not convinced that all the medical "advances" are advances. They may affect individual lives but what do they do for the future of the race? Dangerous topics indeed. A reason why we cannot take the burden onto ourselves as individuals.

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Genetic modification has been going on for thousands of years.  There have been plenty of unintended consequences.  Consider that ALL dogs today are ALL descended from wolves.  Now we have dogs that are purely decorative.

The American rose has been genetically modified through cross-breeding over the last 2 centuries to the point where only in the last decade did someone recognize that the cross-breeding had nearly bred out the fragrance of the flower. Ooops...

The current on-going battle with the Africanized honeybee was started by a purely classical crossbreeding of two varieties of bees.  Then, they got out...

The scientific method works fine, it's we that have not evolved.

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

ietech

A modern car is usually designed so that it needs no under-hood maintenance for 100 000 miles apart from oil, oil filter, coolant and air filter (and I'm not too sure about the latter). This is a legal requirement in California. I don't know about timing belts et al.

This is quite an advance on cars that needed new plugs every 5000 miles, say 10 years ago.

Believe it or not we design cars taking into account the total cost of ownership. It is a very important parameter, but given the infrequency of the maintenance intervals you can see that the cost of servicing is rapidly going to be dominated by other things.

The automotive industry is not about engineering excellence, per se, it is completely customer driven. The history books are full of the now-forgotten names of auto companies that tried to sell what they knew was 'right' rather than what the customer wants.

And just as an example of compromises - you do replace the tires on your car every 10 000 miles with the same brand and model it came on, don't you? Those groovy things in the tread do get less effective as they wear, you know.

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Um, just a zoological point. The tigon is not so very strange, given that both tigers and lions have evolved directly from the same species, apparently, and the odds are good that tigers evolved from lions, rather than both from a common ancestor

http://www.forevertigers.com/evolution.htm

for a not very scientific discussion of this.

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Crossbreeding IS genetic modification.  

Just ask any breeder what they are trying to accomplish -- the sole objective is to cause the insertion of a desired genetic trait from one organism DNA to another's.  

Cross-breeding causes rare genetic transfers that might never breed true to occur at a much higher rate than would naturally happen; so to think that it's somehow more "natural" is denying the truth.

Just about every organism born is a genetic modification.  Look at Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia.  Every one of these diseases is caused by the mixing of genetic material.  Thalidomide, DDT, cigarettes are genetic modifiers.

The bottom line is that it matters not how genetic traits are transferred or modified; once done, there are unintended consequences.  

That's not a fault of the scientific method; it's a fault of our inability to visualize all the potential consequences and our inability to perfectly prevent such consequences from occurring.  What needs to be done is to learn from mistakes.


TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

"History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men."  (Blue Oyster Cult)

RE: Products that prick your conscience

IR Stuff,

Your reply to my post was;
"Right... So we should force ALL eight moms to drive SUV's to pick up their kids, individually, increasing both pollution and congestion?  

TTFN."

My wife is a soccer Mom, but she drives a Siena Mini Van that gets about 25 mpg.  Now, when we drive up to the soccer field the number of gas guzzling SUV's far out number more efficient mini-vans that can carry the same number of passengers.

In addition, when I dropped my son and neighbor's two children off at school today, I counted the "large" SUVs parked in the "Teacher's" parking lot.  There were 18 SUVs and only one small mini-van.  NO two or four door  small or medium size cars!

The point I was trying to make is that the price of gasoline is escalating, yet the number of large SUVs and trucks on the highway are also increasing.  I guess many Americans have lots of cash to simply throw away.  Or many American's do not have a conscience when it comes to fuel efficiency, pollution, etc.  They simply don't care.

I drive a 1997 Chrysler Cirrus that now has 187,689 miles.  Yesterday, on my way back from Corpus Christi I averaged 28.01 mpg.  My next vehicle will be a Toyota Prius.

NOTE:  I have invented a reformer that can help usher in a hydrogen economy quite rapidly.  It will convert any carbonaceous matter to hydrogen.  Yes, just hydrogen.  The carbon is sequestered within the system.  It will be on the market within the next 90 days.  It will first be used in the oilfield on drilling rigs and next in several large scale PetroChem plants along the Gulf Coast.  Also, the system can be used for decomposing MSW prior to being landfilled.  So the fluff from all those fairly new vehicles can easily be converted to a fuel in lieu of being disposed of in a landfill.

One last thought -
Where do all of the "old" vehicles end up.  Metals are recycled but the fluff usually ends up in a landfill.  Why do you think Europe has enacted take back laws.  

RE: Products that prick your conscience

oxilume,
Your points are valid.  It is clear consumers are preferring the gas guzzling monsters.  I wouldn't call it just a fad or a willful neglect for the importance of a fuel efficient economy.  From my experience most people have made a clear choice to use an SUV for safety reasons.  Soccer moms in particular could choose to have a high riding vehicle that at least give them the illusion of safety.  (after the Ford-Firestone criss-crossed finger-pointed salute, there's little question that safety can be an illusion.)  So then engineers and manufacturers, since they're already on the bandwagon of providing a vehicle the consumer seems to want, why not give them what they really want... a truly safe vehicle with good gas mileage... or alternate fuel?  The technology for this is evolving, but the revolution has yet to occur.  And it probably won't until business owners and policymakers are backed into a corner.  I still say that engineers should take some personal responsibility for the products that go out the door, because the majority of consumers are not aware of the consequences of their purchases, and the fuel economy/fossil fuel depletion estimates are controversial at best.  There is no clear-cut agreement.  GWB says drill in Alaska and keep an eye on Yosemite.  I say stop drilling and find an alternate fuel source.  Consumers say, "I need gas."  

Aaron Spearin, EIT
ChemE, M.E.
"The only constant in life is change." -Dan Andia; 1999, Chemical Engineering Progress

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Oxilume,

Your statement, which I quoted verbatim, implied that driving around a bunch of kids was not carpooling because:

quote] she is the only legal driver in the vehicle.  This is not car pooling.  [/quote].

My response what that this eliminated each mom driving their own SUV with their own kid and clogging the road.



As for gas economy, the answer is mundane, despite spikes, gas prices have not really risen in any real sense relative to standard of living.  

Couple this with the fact that people are more willing to take on debt, which allows them to buy the bigger SUVs.

The wave of gas economy initiatives in the 70's was tied directly to the scarcity and price of gas during the gas embargo.  So the solution is clear; we need to provoke another gas embargo.  Probably won't work, since we're obviously more willing to go to war over that sort of thing now.

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

If the SUV owners did their homework, they would find that these are one not as safe as they think. Rollovers is a real concern to me. They just are not stable. Most people buy them because it appears everyone else has one. Thats the only reason.

On a different note, I think consumers should be responsible for waste, etc from the products they use. The company that makes them, also, needs to be responsible. They are not immune, every one of their employees is a consumer. The company itself is a consumer.
Its sad, but most companies only look at the bottom line. The more money it makes the better. This is natural, afterall a company is around to make money. Too many do not care about the effects or affects of the products they make or the way they make them, as long as its cheap, its the best option. There used to be people around that actually thought about these things but they are quickly fading away. Both the company and the consumer are responsible.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

The point about SUVs is that the cost of fuel is virtually irrelevant to the total cost of ownership. As evelrod often points out, even now fuel is cheaper in real terms than it was in the sixties or any time before.

Due to a ludicrous series of laws voted for by /your/ representatives in Government it is cheaper to buy and run an SUV than the equivalent minivan. The SUV is also much cheaper to develop, so it gets bells and whistles that the minivan does not, thus making it more attractive to the cup-holder crowd. Added to this is the image thing. Monster trucks and 4wd have an aura that a minivan lacks, so people are willing to pay more for a given vehicle. This is the way of the world.

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Only for BUSINESS.  Us engineer sods don't get that tax break.

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

I didn't just mean the tax break, I'm pretty sure the safety, emissions and CAFE requirements differ, favouring SUVs.

This reduces the variable cost of each vehicle, and reduces its development cost, which can be quite a significant part of the cost of the vehicle - say you sell a half a million of one model, and it cost half a billion in development and fixed costs, that will have to be amortised at $1000 per car. Those numbers are not untypical, it is easy to spend far more than that on a program - a world car from scratch is around 6 billion.


Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Well, they are not all cheaper to buy.

The Land Cruiser MSRP is $54765.  You could buy a maxed-out Sienna and a maxed-out Corolla for the same amount.

Not convinced they're cheaper to operate, either.
The Land Cruiser's EPA mileage is 17 mpg, while the most expensive Sienna's mileage is 24 mpg.

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

A good old Suburban would not be classified as an SUV to me (to long of a wheel base). I like driving them, they are more stable than a Durango or Explorer.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Whoever invented speed cameras can't be sleeping too good.
0

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Wheelbase is a determining factor?  How is an SUV defined?  I really should have kept a copy of that post...

  

RE: Products that prick your conscience

No they aren't cheaper to buy.

Say you have 40000 to spend moving 6 people around. I can sell you an SUV, with its lower safety and emissions and CAFE requirements, with a lot of bells and whistles, for 40000, or I can sell you a minivan, that meets all those regulatory requirements, for 40000. No bells, no whistles, I've spent all that money developing the thing.

The reality is that bells and whistles are much cheaper than you might think, and are primarily there for product differentiation and marketing. Again, this is customer driven, if our average customer is willing to pay 1000 more for some fake wood, velour seat material, and a ten dollar clock, then we will go broke if we don't do that, because someone else will and will use the extra profit  to reduce the base price of their car.

Our coffee club in the office regularly makes a bigger annual profit than most car companies.

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Greg Locock pens:
"Say you have 40000 to spend moving 6 people around. I can sell you an SUV, with its lower safety and emissions and CAFE requirements, with a lot of bells and whistles, for 40000, or I can sell you a minivan, that meets all those regulatory requirements, for 40000. No bells, no whistles, I've spent all that money developing the thing."

Exactly!
Lets examine the situation in the US. Im a big boy, 6'5". I dont FIT in what they try and excuse for a car. Thus, if I were to buy a new vehicle, it by definition would be a Truck or large SUV. Thankfully, I can still lay my hands on a large, RWD sedan, currently the car of choice is a Buick Roadmaster wagon, big, roomy and 26-27 MPG on the Hwy to boot. Pray tell why dosent GM manufacture anything like this today? Emissions, etc.
Crackerbox cars may be fine for small countries, but not worth a hoot here.
Another thought, we always hear about how wonderful the Europeans do with fuel economy, why not just import their cars? Sorry, wont pass crash and emissions laws.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Wheelbase is definately one of the determining factors in how a vehicle handles, stability. In my book, this should be a fundamental factor in determining SUV category or not, afterall the 'S' stands for sport. A suburban is NOT a SUV.  

RE: Products that prick your conscience

OK, I have to admit I'm suprised.  I always thought of a Suburban as a big SUV.  What was Ford's really big one?  And then there's the Hummer.  Is a Suburban a truck then?  Certainly a long wheelbase causes a slower yaw response, more time for the aged like me to respond.    I drove a CJ-5 some years ago and found it to be a bit nervous.  I would think, however, that track width and the center of gravity height would be the largest contributing factors in rollovers.  I doubt that full size conversion vans and pickup trucks are any better than a mid-field SUV.  Is a Tahoe an SUV?  Certainly a Jeep Grand Cherokee must be....

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Interesting. I wonder how the old 80's variety SUbrubans compare in wheelbase/track to a new one? I have driven a suburban many times along with a Tahoe. The Tahoe, feels like it wants to roll sooner. I believe the Suburban has a wider track, maybe not (the new Suburbans are actuall 1-2" thinner than a Blazer but 30" longer).

RE: Products that prick your conscience

We are talking about certain industries that are driven by customer/consumer wants and desires. Who creates those desires? Society isn't full of level headed engineers, most of the population can be persuaded, and with billions of dollars sunk into psycologists turned marketers, desires are easily created from nothing. It's not our role as engineers, and there's not much we can do to change this, but where are the ethics here?

Regards

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Hello,

Nit sure if this has been said already, as I have just found this thread and have read only a little of each reply.

Surely, everything we manufacture can potentially cause death. How many people are killed on the roads, on trains, in the air?

What about other products, anything with electricity can kill.

I have two young kids, I have to be very careful with what they play with as it usually goes straight into their mouth.

Going back to your land-mines question, what if the Germans had tried to invade England during the war.

A classic example of product change has to be the BIC pen, they had to put a hole in the end so people didn't choke. (I think this is true).

I could go on, but I won't.

It is really up to you, to go off ona tangent slightly, when I was interviewed for my current position, I was asked if I had any problems with our products being sold to South Africa (during apartheid). What about issues like this?

----------------------------------
Hope this helps.
----------------------------------

maybe only a drafter
but the best user at this company!

RE: Products that prick your conscience

A hole in the end of a Bic pen so people wouldn't choke?

What?

What hole? if there is a hole, it's so air can get in to allow the ink to flow, I imagine.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Two different holes:

Biros do indeed have a hole in the removable cap designed to prevent choking.

The small hole in the side of the pen or in the plug does allow air in and the ink to flow.

And on the same topic, in the UK trees are being cut down because motorists keep driving into them and killing themselves (I'd keep the tress; see www.darwinawards.com) and chesnut trees because the conkers that fall from them can injure children waiting underneath.

Some of these are good safety ideas. Some are lunacy.

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

I don't think a hole will prevent actual choking. I bet it breaks the vacuum created when a child sucks on them, preventing them from being inhaled or sucked into the mouth, that would make sense.

I always assumed it was a molding issue, but the inhaling prevention does sound viable.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Maybe the UK could take lessons from Jamaica.  

I was vacationing there in a small town a couple of years ago.  There was a local artist who is now mentally impaired because of getting conked on the head by a coconut while napping under a palm tree.  Now they tell EVERYONE in town "don't sleep under palm trees", but they do not cut them down.  (the artist no longer paints, now he only makes carvings from coconuts!)

Back to the original subject, every person has the ability to decide what DIRECT affect their work has on the world and if their conscience can deal with that.  I'm very glad to see that 3dKiwi and others posting here actually have a conscience.

As a wise man once said:  "You must BE the change you wish to see in the world"

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Well I don't know.

Once they move out of the osmosis stage (where they ingest food through the skin and can only eat smearable foods that can be hand applied such as jelly, cream, yoghurt, treacle, paint etc.) Kids become pretty omniverous; they'll eat pretty well anything that doesn't eat them first (except,of course, green vegetables). This includes most plastics which toy manufacturers so thoughtfully use thesedays. I can tell you, when i was a lad and toys were made out of die cast alloys and covered in lead based paints, the diet wasn't nearly as attractive.

Just occasionaly they mistake whether they are supposed to eat or breath the object they have taken into their mouths and I think the idea is to include some sort of airway in the biro cap for just such occasions when interior swelling around the object can otherwise close up the air passage.

Of course, I like your explanation too even though kids can get anything into their mouths using both hands (and a foot if necessary; I'd hate to think what they'd put in there if they could unhinge their jaws like snakes) so i don't think breaking the vacuum does more than slow them for a moment.

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

That itty-bitty hole is way to small to break any serious sucking action from most kids.  

Plus, most BIC pens have a cap on the top of the tube, so the hole doesn't help anything other than ink flow.

TTFN

RE: Products that prick your conscience

jmv,

I'm giving you a star, not because the topic, which was good, but instead because of the context of your posts I now understand the words 'biro' and 'conkers'.

I've read a number of books by English authors and been unable to figure out exactly what they were talking about for years.

Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett are the two authors I'm thinking of.

A little off topic, but it proves you learn something new everyday.

RE: Products that prick your conscience

Biro: Ladislao Josef Biro, the Czech (or Hungarian) inventor of ink stained shirt pockets.

Not to be confused with the other Biro who invented some sort of meat processing machines.

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

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