EU Bans Powerful Vacuums in Name of Environmentalism

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I couldn't care less about those 2000+ watts vacuums. I worked as an appliance sales man and can tell you first hand that none of the customers used any of the vacuums on full power because the nozzle immediately got stuck on the carpets the store had laid down in the vacuum cleaner aisle. If couples came in, the husbands were usually impressed with the suction but the wifes (who were the ones to actually use the vacuum) turned the power down to a manageable level.

 

Fortunately, the EU has mandated performance labels to go with these new vacuums. Cleaning on both carpets and hard floors, along with dust retention and energy consumption are evaluated. So, if a manufacturer decided to make low-powered vacuum that doesn't clean... the label will tell.

 



 
"...Governments around the world DO have the right to regulate power consumption on ANY product they like, partly because the majority of voting citizens around the world [ such as myself ] have voted them in office giving them the right to regulate consumption any reasonable way they see fit."

So where does this stop? If they have the right to do this, then what else are they "allowed" to regulate?
Like I said, the EU already has a ton of stupid regulations - like the ban on bent or straight bananas/cucumbers. A priceless example of EU Red-Tape and stupid regulations

INCENTIVES for manufacturers of efficient products or purchases is better. Not just banning things. That does't work (at least the way I consier it), and removes people's freedom of choice, and freedom to choose.
Whether or not a government is "voted in" for what they do, not everyone voted for them, and those people shouldn't have to bow to their "good ideas," (such as this ban) people have free will, and they can do what they want with that free will!
 
And to really top it off--these STUPID politicians don't have the TECHNICAL qualifications to make such rulings on machines for a crisis that REALLY doesn't exist!!!Again--VOTE the BUMS OUT!!!They and their silly laws have to GO!!!If we do this--maybe-just maybe the economy just MIGHT recover!People are being needlessly penalized for paying higher rates for power and fuel for WHAT???Electric rates are going up becuase coal plants are being closed.OK that puts the former employess that worked at those sites out of work.Coal mines close becuase the power stations closed-so--miners out of work.And rail and other companies that process and haul the coal to the power stations are out of work-doesn't make one bit of sense!!And NO alternative power source to replace the coal plants-so power rates go up-and if the winter is severe-power shortages will surely result.People will just get colder and can't pay for their heat or power.Does THIS make sense????COME ON!!!Glad the summer was mild in my area-if severe probably would have too high a rates and blackouts.
 
Government regulation

Whilst I am firmly of the opinion that (generally) heavy-handed government is a very bad thing, the sad truth is that, as the whole planet is getting desperately short of viable fossil fuel reserves, most people refuse to 'self regulate' their usage of this precious resource. We (collectively) seem to have a 'live today, to Hell with tomorrow' attitude, which seems strange to me, considering that the majority of people (but not myself) have children and grandchildren whom they are seemingly quite happy to consign to that fuelless Hell.

We have happily used in the last 300 years or so (since the Industrial Revolution) almost all of the viable fuel reserves which were 60,000,000 years in the making. We have all been (and still are) living in an unsustainable 'bubble', which is about to burst whatever we do, but the various governments are trying to make what is left last just a little longer, while we try to develop alternatives, or at least build more energy efficient places to live, so our grandchildren don't have to live huddled under blankets like our great-grandparents did.

Yes, the 'Anti' lobby will tell you that these's lots of fossil fuel left in the Earth's crust. Yes, there is..... Sadly, though, fuel which takes more energy to get out than it will yield in combustion is not 'viable', and that is pretty much all we have left now.

Europe is in a far worse state than the U.S. in this regard because we have had a much longer industrial history, and our reserves are pretty much all exhausted, so our fuel is mainly imported, which itself uses fuel, and so reduces the 'efficiency' of what we get, and (of course) adds considerably to the cost.

Not enjoying the role of 'prophet of doom'

Dave T
 
The Banana Regulations Commission Regulation (EC) No 2257/94 isn't as daft as it sounds.

Extra Class Bananas need to comply with the shape requirement
Class I can be slightly bendier and Class II bananas can be as bendy as they like!

Consumers just get to pick between Class I bananas and Class II bananas.

I know it sounds daft, but you have to be able to determine what fruit's "acceptable" and "not acceptable" at various price points in supermarkets.

The main provisions of the regulation are that bananas sold as unripened, green bananas should be green and unripened, firm and intact, fit for human consumption, not rotten, clean, free of pests and damage from pests, free from deformation or abnormal curvature, free from bruising, free of any foreign smell or taste. The minimum size (with tolerances and exceptions) is a length of 14 cm and a thickness (grade) of 2.7 cm.

The size specifications: sale of bananas below the minimum size is almost always prohibited (with exceptions only for bananas from a few regions where bananas are traditionally smaller.

It's not as daft as you'd think.

Food products are fairly tightly regulated in most developed countries. They have to be able to say what's acceptable and what's not. The tabloids tend to jump on this in the UK.

You'll find before there were EU regulations covering the whole EU that each country's Department of Agriculture or Food Safety Authority, Trading Standards or some equivalent had equally or more bureaucratic regulations.

The purpose of EU regulations is to harmonise things so you don't have a situation like bananas being approved in say the UK and then rejected by say Spain because there were different or unclear requirements.

A huge % of the regulations are about opening borderless markets and ensuring freedom of movement of goods through the whole union.

There are actually all sorts of weird national differences between what's permitted and what's not permitted in food and other products and also about what the descriptions of food are allowed to be.
For example, things like "low fat" have legal meanings. There was a controversy over definitions of things like "chocolate" because it was being based on % cocoa content.

You also get stuff being completely made up, like the time that the UK Tabloids decided that the EU was going to rename the British Sausage the "high fat offal tube". Never actually happened.

Also, like it or not, there's a very serious energy crisis in the world at the moment, and particularly in the EU which is massively dependent on Russian gas for generating electricity.
The European Union and the member states (from where it gets its mandate to do this) have really serious energy independence policies to drive through and a lot of that will be on the reduction of consumption side of things and on efficiency drives as well as promoting renewables and possibly also even nuclear energy.

The EU uses nearly 15% of the world's energy (the US uses about 19%) so what either of those huge blocs do has a significant impact on climate change.

However, it's also vital that the EU cuts dependence on Russian gas. We've a situation where Putin and Co can switch off the lights if they take a political notion.

Turning down the power consumption of hundreds of millions of European vacuum cleaners actually has a very significant impact.

Europe actually needs to be in a position where the if the price of energy shoots up, we're not hit hard. We have a huge cushion being created by forcing efficiency through regulation.
 
In all seriousness, while the EU DOES have the right to develop environmental policy; This is not the way to do it. They have far more important issues to be concerned with than how people clean their houses, for goodness sake. (Russia/Ukraine Crisis, Healthcare, Education, Running their economies).

It would be far better to be making improvements to the largest contributors to pollution/energy consumption - which include Transport Emmissions, Heating & A/C, Water Heating.
And yes, we are on the end of our tether with resource availability now - why bother wasting precious time on a VACUUM CLEANER(s) when there are "bigger fish in the pond," so to speak. Why aren't uber-efficient water-heaters, air-conditioners, heaters and the like being mandated? Where are tougher smog-regulations?
It honestly makes no sense!
 
They might have worked extensively on what I've mentioned, but all those things I've mentioned STILL make up the majority of energy consumption/pollution and wastage, not people taking about 30 minutes out of their week to vacuum, for crying out loud.
 
The EU has put car manufacturers absolutely through the wringer when it came to environmental regulations.

To give you an idea of how seriously it was cut:

CO2 emmissions for a diesel car in 1992 were 2.72g/km by 2014 they're 0.5g/km
Gasoline went from 2.72 down to 1.0

NOx went from 0.5 to 0.08 (from 1996 to 2014)

Particulates went from 14 in 1992 to 0.005 in 2014.

So, to say they're not turning the eco-screws on transportation, electricity, manufacturing etc isn't true.
It's just that vacuum cleaners suddenly came under the microscope as the energy efficiency regulations get tighter.[this post was last edited: 9/5/2014-20:07]
 
@iej

Thank you for posting this data. 

 

However, I will <span style="text-decoration: underline;">still</span> hold onto my belief there are far bigger polluters that must be targeted - Vacuuming does not make any meaningful contribution to household electricity usage, whereas HVAC, Lighting, Kitchen/Laundry Appliances and so on, actually do use large amounts of a household's energy. 

As it is undoubtedly clear by now - there are FAR better things to targeting in the strive for efficiency than vacuums.

Based on my calculations of 1/2hr vacuuming per week in our household with the Miele at full 1800w, we get an energy usage figure of 46.8kWh, which rises to just on 100kWh if we vacuumed twice weekly (it varies) . A television set, refrigerator, oven and even light-fixtures will all use far more electricity than this during that time. So why is it worthwhile to target a vacuum-cleaner? Would someone PLEASE explain the logic behind this?

 

Aside from "Carbon Taxes" (Which are useless - as corporations only pass on the extra costs to consumers), have their been similar decreases in emissions from power-plants, factories and industry?
 
This is a tough one, which side to come down on. What's more ridiculous? Solving the climate/fuel economy by regulating sweepers? Or making/buying one that uses TWO KAY-DUBYA? All the damn thing is going to do is pickup skinflakes and toiletpaper lint no matter HOW much power you throw at it, and it does those just fine with half the power or less.

Howzbout this? In the metro, the sky is so full of waste light you can read a newspaper at night without adding any illumination. On an average night, you can see maybe a half dozen stars out of roughly a half trillion. My car sits right under a 750W arc lamp and it got broken into twice in the past year. OK, maybe without the lamp it would have been broken into 6 times or stolen outright, who knows? The entire southwestern sky is aglow from the glare of a car dealer 2 miles away. It's CLOSED AT NIGHT! That's several dozen MEGAWATTS serving no purpose whatsoever.

Another facet of moronic regulation is this one: Our lakes are 'less than full'. Nowhere near the situation in SoCal, but nonetheless cities have outlawed landscape watering except twice a month. Well guess what. That leaves water standing in tanks so long the chlorine evaporates and it becomes unsafe to drink. So they go around town opening fire hydrants and flooding storm drains to COMPLETELY WASTE the water they 'saved'. That's not just a story, there's video of it happening. A lot. And it continues even when the stupidity is broadcast.
 
Lit carlots when the store isn't open.First off its for security.2nd-for drive by appeal-and it does work.OK-the place is closed and lit.A passerby sees a car on the lot they like---so the next day they go to the store and buy it!As long as the car dealer pays for the lighting-no big deal.I am not paying his bill-neither are you.The dealers are going to lower wattage and more efficient lighting-IE Venture Lighting has lighting equipment for carlots-it draws half the power older lights do-and gives the same light levels.Car dealer happier-his light bill is less!!Lighted carlots is something we have to deal with-know a few folks that work at car dealerships.They mention a customer that buys a car after seeing it off hours from the road at the lit lot.
 
And for street and parking lot lights-there are what is called "Full Cutoff" fixtures available-they only focus the light downward and not outward or upward.Its the street or the lot that needs to be lit-not the sky.Fixture makers haved solved this-folks just have to buy the lamps.Also available in LED lighting,too.
 
Gary Woods - Rich's partner golittlesport

had a  very good post this week on FB about this very issue and it came to light over water usage in CA.

 

Washer111 has a very good point about personal vacuuming !

 

I'll see if I can lift the article and post it here.

 

Gary Wood: "[COLOR=#37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px]Experts say our water supply is on the verge of collapse, as the tables deep beneath us are nearly depleted. What I found interesting, in researching usage, is that less than 14% of freshwater used in California is by homeowners. 77% i[/COLOR]<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">s used for farming (very inefficiently) and the other 9% by government and industry.</span>

<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">
For all the hype about laws to punish homeowners for waste, isn't it odd that if every resident cut usage by 50% it would only save 6.5% of water use in California?

</span>

[COLOR=#37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px]Instead of wasting billions more on new weaponry, why not invest in solar to power desalinization plants, or build waterways from the Midwest?"[/COLOR]

 

[COLOR=#37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px]Again Gary : "[/COLOR][COLOR=#4e5665; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 15px; background-color: #fafbfb;" data-reactid=".1j.1:3:1:$comment10203545427693849_10203550875710046:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.0"><span data-reactid=".1j.1:3:1:$comment10203545427693849_10203550875710046:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$0:0">Even if 35 million residents simply "stopped" using ANY water, that would only save 10% of the state's water. If our water supply is going to continue to be 30% of normal, we have some s</span></span>[COLOR=#fafbfb]<span data-reactid=".1j.1:3:1:$comment10203545427693849_10203550875710046:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3.0"><span data-reactid=".1j.1:3:1:$comment10203545427693849_10203550875710046:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$0:0">erious issues looming with regards to food supply, pricing, and the economy. I am baffled that Washington has not caught on to this - exactly where will 1/2 the nations vegetables suddenly come from when our crops fail?"[/COLOR]</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px] [/COLOR]

 

jetcone-2014090607081906296_1.jpg
 
See Jetcone

that is an example of common sense. Something that is lacking in DC today. And the EU so far as I am concerned.

Thus, to punish homeowners who are the minority in terms of water usage is pure nonsense.

The little secret here is of course money and lobbying! Obviously big biz, big agriculture and big whatever has the $$$ and influence at THEIR disposal to influence legislation to benefit THEM, not you and me. Been that way for years and it will not be going away any time soon.

What is depressing is no one really wants to question all of this. Goobermint sez, I do. Because after all, goobermint knows everything and I'm an unwashed minion incapable of seeing the so-called big picture.

And that is precisely why we're stuck with this eco-crap and why we're having it shoved down our throats 24/7/365.
 

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