Plastic Isn't Always for Ever

[SteveW]

Guys,

Just doing my post summer tidy up and I get to my trusty oscillating fan, bought for a relative song perhaps a few too many years ago and it was crumbling to bits.

First clue as I cleared around its base was little bits of crumbled white stuff. The thing had been loyally keeping me cool all summer and was now disappearing before my eyes. I had kept a previous fan on the bedroom window sill to help me sleep but during the day the sun destroyed it. One night I turned it on and bits started flying off the fan and it started to shake. Yes, I rescued the motor but the rest was shot. I had kept the current fan well out of the sun on a northern window sill when not in use and on the carpet between me and my TV again this summer.

Clearly these things are disposable and have a built in obsolescence or self destruct feature triggered if the thing is owned for too long. It's unlikely the plastic is even now fit to be recycled. I worry that I'll soon run out of room under my workshop bench to stuff all the still very serviceable motors and not forgetting the little gearbox in there.

I spent the usual small fortune at the current MEX so being a bit strapped might not be well placed to buy a cheap end of summer stock replacement. The aim will have to be to get one before it gets too hot next year.

TOP TIP: Keep these things away from the sun, maybe away from daylight.

Just a thought ... Maybe I should give the next one a coat of aluminium primer. This used to work for the old Air Cadet gliders I once flew. Hopefully the case will out last the motor for which I have spares.

[SteveW]

Sorry, I hit the wrong button and self-liked my own nonsense.

Oops!

[SteveW]

As my tidy-up progresses I'm finding a number of those cheap but generally useful little plastic items, I guess sourced from China or the Far East, now starting to degrade. The first sign is to exude a coat of stickiness, I assume the plasticiser element, that's very hard to get off.

Is China now having the last laugh on us all for buying all their plastic, limited life unrepairable crap?

[lesstoneuk]

We had a tall column fan, basically a 4ft cetrifugal fan in a white plastic shroud. It was well away from sunlight but managed to turn into a yellow fag smoke stained edifice. Except no one smokes, no coal or wood fire as its all gas. In fact all air is drawn to feed the back boiler as is proven each year on service day. Kitchen is 16ft away with it's own fan.
Crap plastic indeed.

[uuu]

Ancient civilisations knew how to make things last. Pottery - that's the stuff. Dig a hole anywhere in the UK and what do you find? Pottery. It's indestructible. There should be international treaties banning it, as it pollutes every square inch of our sacred soil. Plastic - it'll never last - pottery is what you want.

Wilf