Fair Go investigates why things don't last like they used to. Hadyn Jones roamed his neighbourhood visiting people and their irons, cake mixers and freezers that simply never die.
There was Barry Turner with his 43-year-old iron.
"I think it will outlive me," says Barry while his partner Margaret irons one of his shirts.
Down the road, Amanda Henry's whizzing ingredients in her 74-year-old cake mixer. She says coming out of the war, things were expected to last.
"People spent money they struggled to afford and they hoped to have something decent from that. I think it was expected."
Hannah Blumhardt from Wellington's Victoria University says things were built to last because people couldn't afford to replace them.
"If there’s a scarcity of resources you have a real incentive to make products last a really long time."
She says these days it's the opposite.
"There is an incentive in our economy for companies to want to build short-life products, then they can sell more products."
It's called "planned obsolescence".
Planned Obsolescence is banned in France. Apple were fined the equivalent of $50 million for using software updates to slow down their older phones. The company claimed they did this to prolong battery life.
Trident Electronic's Howard Reid has repaired appliances for 43 years. He says it all comes down to money.
"It’s built to a price - cheap."
Howard's workshop is full of appliances that can be fixed but will end up as scrap, simply because the client doesn't want to pay to fix them.
"They’re not made to be repaired. A lot of them are glued together."
The final word goes to Jill Burge and her 40-year-old hair dryer. She got it for her 16th birthday. That night she went on her first date with her now husband.
"I honestly think things are made so they are only going to last a while. This isn’t doing much for demand for hair dryers is it because it’s still hanging around," Jill says shortly after drying her hair for the cameras.
Hannah Blumhardt says some European countries have started providing cash incentives for people to get their electronics repaired. She says they are also introducing rules to encourage products to be designed with repairability in mind.
Blumhardt warns if New Zealand doesn't move with the times, we may become a dumping ground for cheap single use products.
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