love the mallet. Why not glue up scraps, especially if the surfaces are already prepped? I need to do this with some of my scraps.
Where did you buy the mop?
That assumes the people doing the labor are being paid. A lot of them would just be sitting in their cells doing nothing.....How can more labor not cost more money?
Also - China has a few thousand year old tradition for not wasting anything.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon
You have been fortunate indeed then. (Or I am way too heavy-handed) Pretty much every inexpensive mop-type device that comes into our house ends up in the trash with a broken handle. Many are made from the infamous "Chinese white wood" that has virtually no strength. They often don't last out the first use.
The last couple of brooms from the borg just gave up the ghost, they had 'look of real wood' metal handles that set into a plastic ferrule at the top of the OK corn broom head. First the metal bent then the ferrule broke. Just got really wonderful new brooms made in Lancaster County PA that look like they will last for many years. Those handles appear to be ash. They cost 3x what the HD ones did, but will easily last 10x longer.
I, for on, would be pleased to find a handle like the OP's; it appears that someone actually thought about the problem and implemented a solution that makes good use of materials to produce a more durable product.
Just speculation but the material may be waste from another product and obtained for next to nothing.
As far as labor is concerned there are lots of products, fingered jointed trim for example, where the increased labor/manufacturing cost is significantly less than the costs of better material.
Good way to make a straight handle that stays straight.