Dollars for Dishwashers

I saw on the news this evening that, in the spirit of the Cash for Clunkers auto program, the state of Minnesota will be offering a rebate to replace old, inefficient appliances with new Energy Star units. (Dollars for Dishwashers) Sounds great, but, like the auto program, it’s representative of an unsustainable way of thinking. It’s wasteful and shortsighted. Here’s my justification of that statement.

First, it falls prey to the dangers of consumption due to planned obsolescence. I know, the new appliances are better. I get that, but how are they better and at what cost? Let’s consider refrigerators, the hungriest appliance in the home. Of course, they’re more efficient. Their marketing says as much. What does that mean? Better insulation? Better motors? Great, we throw out an old appliance that literally leaks energy and replace it with one that does so at a slower rate. Superficially, this sounds good. How much energy was required to manufacture the new appliance? Did anybody attempt that calculation? Is there any way of upgrading the insulation and mechanicals on an old appliance to make it more efficient? What if, rather than subsidizing the disposal of hundreds of functional appliances, we subsidized the upgrade of old appliances? Pay an amount to appliance repair services (do those even exist anymore?) to learn the upgrade procedure, offer the parts at a reduced price to the consumer, and figure out a way of splitting the labor to the repair company. Money in the pockets of hundreds of service professionals and an appliance NOT in a landfill. That sounds like a better option to me.