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This reads like a joke: By making sustainable living more simple and accessible, Ikea hopes that the initiative will help its customers take a stand against ex

by stinos 6y ago

This reads like a joke: By making sustainable living more simple and accessible, Ikea hopes that the initiative will help its customers take a stand against excessive consumption this Black Friday and in the years to come If you want to solve excessive consumption, you should do that exactly, which means tackling the problem itself and somehow achieving that people reduce the amount of things bought. Offering recycling on the other hand doesn't really do that - or at least, I am not aware of a mechanism psychological or otherwise which makes consumers buy less because of recycling. And even if it does isn't it still a band-aid solution, and you're still not dealing with the root cause? Moreover, it does seem recycling is a nice way both for IKEA and customers to buy themselves the comforting (but fake) feeling of doing something sustainable while at the same time keeping things going as usual. Or who knows, even increasing 'hey I can recycle this so doesn't matter if I buy more, I'm still doing my thing for the planet'.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Yeah. Recycling is just a crappy band-aid. I finally realized that when I imagined our modern consumption as a pipeline: PRODUCTION CONSUMPTION RAW =====*=============*=========> LANDFILL MATERIALS That's our economy in a nutshell: an exponentially growing process that turns raw resources into trash. Now add in recycling: RECYCLING (small %) /--------------------------\ | PRODUCTION CONSUMPTION | RAW v=====*============*=======^=> LANDFILL MATERIALS Since no recycling is perfect, all you do is take some (often small) bit of resources and let it loop around the pipe once, maybe twice, before it gets used up to the point of being non-recyclable. It only delays the inevitable. Given that the pipeline grows exponentially, that small loop there pretty much doesn't matter. That's why Reduce is the most important of the three Rs.
- stinos 6y ago
  The 'small %' and amount of times something can be recycled does depend on the material involved though. So while typical plastics are hard to recycle and a lot of it doen't even get sorted and hence goes straight to landfill, materials like steel and glass do much better. Moreover IIRC recycling steel even needs less energy than producing it from raw materials.
- jimmySixDOF 6y ago
  the question is how to connect this in a circular economy and not just through some random company's optional light touch corporate social responsibility cum virtue signaling marcoms program. Find a way to proportionally link production with disposal and you will see a 5 pack of undies from Kmart change into a durable good that's built to last.
mytherin 6y ago
Read the article again: > Ikea will soon be selling pre-used versions of some of its best sellers > Ikea said that anything that cannot be resold will be recycled. Recycling is a last resort here, the primary news here is that IKEA is going to be selling refurbished items (aka re-use) and incentivising people to partake by offering trade-in value when they bring their items back. This move is primarily meant to counter people throwing away furniture prematurely when moving. This way people can re-sell their items to IKEA, and IKEA will sell it in good state to other people that can re-use it. This seems like it would be better for the environment than everybody logging around heavy furniture cross-country (or cross-continent), because unnecessary transport costs are avoided, and is certainly much better than the status quo of people throwing away old IKEA furniture that is still perfectly usable. To me this seems like a good idea. Do you have any better ideas? Reduce would be theoretically preferable, but good luck convincing people not to use a bed, a desk or a dining room table.
- stinos 6y ago
  Ikea said that anything that cannot be resold will be recycled. Is that even technically possible? 'Most of it', perhaps, though for some of the materials they use I'd really like to see the technical side of how they o it, but 'anything' seems far fetched. This move is primarily meant to counter people throwing away furniture prematurely when moving Yes, I'm not denying that. This is what they are doing, but at the same time they are saying hopes that the initiative will help its customers take a stand against excessive consumption. My point being: where is the link between those 2? So just to be clear: I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not, probably leaning towards good, but with a bunch of considerations in mind: selling their things second hand or even giving away is what people also have been doing already. In case of selling they get back money, with IKEA they'll get back vouchers, limited to 50%. Imo it adds to the idea that recycling is good. It is, but only if there really is recycling (for some products it's a complete myth pushed by the industry) and even then, not having to recycle in the first place is better. From the article: should then return them - fully assembled - to the returns desk - this sounds like they're expecting people to transport complete things (or disassmble/reassemble on the spot). That's kind of a showstopper. This seems like it would be better for the environment than everybody logging around heavy furniture cross-country (or cross-continent), because unnecessary transport costs are avoided This is tricky. Current system: buy X, transport X home, transport X to landfill. Or with second hand: buy X, transport X home, transport X to new home. New system: buy X, transport X home, transport X back to IKEA, transport X to new home or landfill. So there are a lot of variables to consider here so I wouldn't be suprised if ot turns out to be sometimes better and sometimes worse, i.e. really hard to use it in an argument of it being better overall. good luck convincing people not to use a bed, a desk or a dining room table. To state the obvious: that is not at all what this is about and as far as I can tell I also never gave that impression in my comment. It's about teaching people about the value of durability, i.e. convincing people they do not have to buy a new bed or desk every x years. Now how do you achive that? I honestly don't know for sure. But seeing that previous generations had no (or much less) problems with that, it means it's something which is teacheable, so I'd start with that. As a push back agains consumerism, educate the young ones and explain them there are cases where it is possible to buy one thing for a lifetime (or so), that there is nothing wrong with buying second had goods, etc.

by stinos 6y ago

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Yeah. Recycling is just a crappy band-aid. I finally realized that when I imagined our modern consumption as a pipeline: PRODUCTION CONSUMPTION RAW =====*=============*=========> LANDFILL MATERIALS That's our economy in a nutshell: an exponentially growing process that turns raw resources into trash. Now add in recycling: RECYCLING (small %) /--------------------------\ | PRODUCTION CONSUMPTION | RAW v=====*============*=======^=> LANDFILL MATERIALS Since no recycling is perfect, all you do is take some (often small) bit of resources and let it loop around the pipe once, maybe twice, before it gets used up to the point of being non-recyclable. It only delays the inevitable. Given that the pipeline grows exponentially, that small loop there pretty much doesn't matter. That's why Reduce is the most important of the three Rs.

stinos 6y ago
The 'small %' and amount of times something can be recycled does depend on the material involved though. So while typical plastics are hard to recycle and a lot of it doen't even get sorted and hence goes straight to landfill, materials like steel and glass do much better. Moreover IIRC recycling steel even needs less energy than producing it from raw materials.
jimmySixDOF 6y ago
the question is how to connect this in a circular economy and not just through some random company's optional light touch corporate social responsibility cum virtue signaling marcoms program. Find a way to proportionally link production with disposal and you will see a 5 pack of undies from Kmart change into a durable good that's built to last.

mytherin 6y ago

Read the article again: > Ikea will soon be selling pre-used versions of some of its best sellers > Ikea said that anything that cannot be resold will be recycled. Recycling is a last resort here, the primary news here is that IKEA is going to be selling refurbished items (aka re-use) and incentivising people to partake by offering trade-in value when they bring their items back. This move is primarily meant to counter people throwing away furniture prematurely when moving. This way people can re-sell their items to IKEA, and IKEA will sell it in good state to other people that can re-use it. This seems like it would be better for the environment than everybody logging around heavy furniture cross-country (or cross-continent), because unnecessary transport costs are avoided, and is certainly much better than the status quo of people throwing away old IKEA furniture that is still perfectly usable. To me this seems like a good idea. Do you have any better ideas? Reduce would be theoretically preferable, but good luck convincing people not to use a bed, a desk or a dining room table.

stinos 6y ago
Ikea said that anything that cannot be resold will be recycled. Is that even technically possible? 'Most of it', perhaps, though for some of the materials they use I'd really like to see the technical side of how they o it, but 'anything' seems far fetched. This move is primarily meant to counter people throwing away furniture prematurely when moving Yes, I'm not denying that. This is what they are doing, but at the same time they are saying hopes that the initiative will help its customers take a stand against excessive consumption. My point being: where is the link between those 2? So just to be clear: I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not, probably leaning towards good, but with a bunch of considerations in mind: selling their things second hand or even giving away is what people also have been doing already. In case of selling they get back money, with IKEA they'll get back vouchers, limited to 50%. Imo it adds to the idea that recycling is good. It is, but only if there really is recycling (for some products it's a complete myth pushed by the industry) and even then, not having to recycle in the first place is better. From the article: should then return them - fully assembled - to the returns desk - this sounds like they're expecting people to transport complete things (or disassmble/reassemble on the spot). That's kind of a showstopper. This seems like it would be better for the environment than everybody logging around heavy furniture cross-country (or cross-continent), because unnecessary transport costs are avoided This is tricky. Current system: buy X, transport X home, transport X to landfill. Or with second hand: buy X, transport X home, transport X to new home. New system: buy X, transport X home, transport X back to IKEA, transport X to new home or landfill. So there are a lot of variables to consider here so I wouldn't be suprised if ot turns out to be sometimes better and sometimes worse, i.e. really hard to use it in an argument of it being better overall. good luck convincing people not to use a bed, a desk or a dining room table. To state the obvious: that is not at all what this is about and as far as I can tell I also never gave that impression in my comment. It's about teaching people about the value of durability, i.e. convincing people they do not have to buy a new bed or desk every x years. Now how do you achive that? I honestly don't know for sure. But seeing that previous generations had no (or much less) problems with that, it means it's something which is teacheable, so I'd start with that. As a push back agains consumerism, educate the young ones and explain them there are cases where it is possible to buy one thing for a lifetime (or so), that there is nothing wrong with buying second had goods, etc.