4 ms·

repair falls into reuse in my mental model

• logfromblammo 11y ago
  I always felt that reuse was finding another distinct purpose for an item after its original purpose had been fulfilled. For instance, cutting up old milk jugs as scoops or as root-watering funnels would be a re-use, whereas washing out the plastic jug to hold water instead of milk would be a repair. Scuttling an old naval ship as an artificial reef would be a re-use. Permanently mooring it and opening it for museum tours would be re-use. Stripping it of war materiel and refitting for use as a passenger ship would be re-use. Replacing the obsolete artillery guns with modernized radars and air/missile defense systems and replacing all worn or corroded parts would be a repair. As such, I would put "repair" before "reduce". If you spend 120% on resources at construction time to also build repair parts, that item might last 50 years under repair instead of being reduced to 90% of normal resources and then reused after only 20 years. I have to assume that when something is reused, that it is simultaneously being replaced in its original purpose, which implies additional use of resources.