This attitude is part of the problem. Maybe you're right -- although there are 450 listings for used men's Braun electric razors on eBay right now so it's a bit stark to claim that "no one wants a used razor" -- but being squeamish about stuff like this is a silly attitude that we should change. "Eww skin cells and hair" is not a valid excuse to throw away functioning things. We have running water, dishwashers and disinfectants.
I don't mean this as an attack on you, but on this prevalent attitude in society that makes you feel like your used razor is worthless.
I have an alert for whenever Amazon's algo goes wacky and the price drops, but it's only happened twice in three years.
For classical razors you could have a culture of getting a high quality one when you start needing it and then keep it for a lifetime if possible (through you have to sharpen it from time to time).
But we don't need to nitpick one tree, and miss the forest of products can be designed better for reuse. The central issue in my mind is that companies are usually incentivized for obsolescence.
You have exceptions like Patagonia with strong DNA for societal good, but companies generally need some extrinsic motivation. What could be effective here? I can see service models working, as the company providing hardware would want longevity to save costs, but I don't want my stuff's lifespan to be connected to its manufacturer.
What I mean is, Japan might be special and not necessarily generalizable.
It doesn't appear that you're reducing your use of boxes, and you aren't reusing the box as a box.
Recycling it as cardboard would seem to be better than using it as mulch, but using it as mulch would seem to be better than putting it in landfill.
It seems to me you're recycling the nutrients and biological matter back into the soil. This is a 'lower level' recycling than recycling the cardboard back to cardboard, and so less preferable.
Cardboard is excellent substraight for saprophytic mushrooms, which are dominant in certain desirable types of forest soil. It’s a common trick in permaculture circles for simulating second growth forest succession without having to wait forty years (takes about six to twelve month).
By using cardboard as mulch, I'm also not buying wood mulch. Some people do use wood mulch on top of their cardboard to give it a better look, but I just use grass clippings and raked leaves, which people typically also discard. So things that would end up being useless to me instead go back into my own yard.
Now, I suppose one could argue that the grass clippings could be used in a bioreactor to create methane fuel, but that's just more carbon in the air, when really we should be trapping it in soil and plants.
It's also a hell of a lot easier than bagging all that shit and hauling to the street.
I’m not sure if the incremental energy to turn the cardboard into new cardboard (and transport it twice) is more or less than that of growing, mulching and transporting some scrap wood.
Anyway, that is probably the right computation to run.
Where it does get marginal is with all the extra transportation and packaging.
"I then avoid the additional spend in energy, time, dollars, and effort on wood mulch. "
Agreed, that's as good a reason as any. Plus if we get to the point where our biggest problem is recycling or mulching cardboard I'll be happy.
I believe there are actually quite some people who would take it.
But along with sex toys, yes usually a razor is something not for reuse. But actually I cannot think of much more conventionel products who outlive their usefulnes.
Except allmost everything with a computer today.. will it connect to other services in 5 years, when the ones from today die out?
People know how to clean their sex toys, which as a bonus are designed to be very easy to clean completely. (And when you do it the right way, it's feels obvious that you haven't missed anything. You don't have any lingering doubt.) With somebody else's sex toys, we have a feeling of contamination, but it's not physical, hygienic contamination. It's palpable, but intangible.
Razors are much more physically complicated, and many people never disassemble and clean their razor in its whole lifetime. They might know how to open it and shake out the hair that's inside it, but very few people bother to figure out how to clean every nook and cranny and wash out the oils that can accumulate in dark corners. With razors, I think people would be happy to buy a used razor if they knew how to clean it. But they don't, so someone else's razor will always feel dirty to them, in the hygienic sense.
Even if people did know how to clean a razor thoroughly, or had confidence that they could learn, they still might rather buy a new one for twice the price rather than put in the effort, but that's a judgement that can be influenced by the ethic of sustainability, if it was standard for manufacturers to design razors that could be cleaned with high confidence and a minimum of skill.
Have you seen a Braun razor? There are no corners. The product is as ergonomic as can be and since it's entirely waterproof, I don't know how you can say that "hidden oils" accumulate anywhere. The company even sells a station that cleans it for you. You've unwittingly fallen victim to the same effect you just mentioned: a feeling of contamination that is not actually there.
Ultimately, there is little reason for companies to design repairable products when most consumers disdain repair and even used items. I know many people that turn up their nose at buying used items such as cameras or headphones. "Certified pre-owned" is the magic dust that car dealerships need to sprinkle on their cars to make a used car seem new again, along with some vague incantations about inspections. Amazon even sells "expert assembly" packages for products as simple as a bookcase [0]!
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Atlantic-DrawBridge-Storage-Organizat...
If it was really built to last (and not just some plasticky thing that happens to still work), then someone would very much want it. What's the problem with a "used razor"? People buy all kinds of used things...
More so, if it was built to last, any part that could be problematic (e.g. the blade being damaged by the use of the original owner), would be easily replaced, and the rest would be as good as new.
Some items simply can't last a lifetime like shoe soles. You can buy a shoe that can be re-soled but even that will eventually wear down.
Tech products that outlast their usefulness or any product for that matter, should be made from more sustainable materials. Whenever I throw something out I get the mental image of that item sitting in a landfill for eternity and it upsets me. Moreso if it's mostly plastic and contains electronics. This disposable mentality is not sustainable.
My heavy socks last forever because I only wear them when I put on my boots, which is maybe twenty days a year. Eventually the moths will get them.
Old Braun vs new razor is like nice laser printer vs. ink jet.
I bought a cheap Li-Rechargeable (Philips OneBlade). They charge you half the price of the whole razor for a single blade (15€) which sometimes breaks just when you fumble the long hair trimmer off of it.