PLEA AGAINST OBSOLESCENCE

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30857, 16 September 1965, Page 14

PLEA AGAINST OBSOLESCENCE

(Ne/r Zealand Press Association > HASTINGS, September 1 1. Mr M. S. Chambers said al a meetins’ of the Hawke’s Bay Electric Power Board that he hoped New Zealand would never adopt the American attitude to obsolescence.

He had quoted a statement! by the commercial manager of a large electrical firm that New Zealand was near the saturation level for washing machines and refrigerators and needed to develop an attitude to obsolesence similar to that of America. “I trust we will never develop such an attitude,” said Mr Chambers. “In America this is carried to ridiculous extremes. In New Zealand, because so many industries are protected and so much of our income derives from farming products, the position could be much worse than in the United States, and even dangerous.”

In America many appliances had “built-in obsolescence” so that they would last only a short time. It seemed to 'him that something like that was being done in New Zealand with light bulbs .

Since imports of bulbs had been restricted it must have cost the consumer huge sums because of the shorter life of New Zealand-made bulbs. Mr E. V. Howard “strongly supported” Mr Chambers.

H “We are not getting the life • out of New Zealand globes [ that we got from imported : globes,” he said. ; The standard voltage of i bulbs in New Zealand was • 230. Overseas it was 240. ■ Generally overseas bulbs were more robust and 240- • volt bulbs on a 230-volt sysl tern might last longer.