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> 1) Making their things easy to repair. 2) Creating in house recycling programs. 3) Making equipment more durable and longer lasting The first and third shoul

> 1) Making their things easy to repair. 2) Creating in house recycling programs. 3) Making equipment more durable and longer lasting The first and third should not be on equal footing with the second. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is meant to be applied in that order. Many environmental crimes can be hidden in a recycling program. Many products are not truly recyclable, but tell consumers they are. Sometimes they are only partially recyclable, or other times the recycling is technically possible but economically infeasible and consequently doesn't actually happen. Corporations know this and have promoted recycling to equal footing as reuse and reduction. They would rather people consume more and casually throw broken products into their recycling bin, naively believing they're being responsible consumers.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> Many environmental crimes can be hidden in a recycling program. Yep But by the same token, many materials in consumer electronics are mined unethically and/ or end up causing toxic pollution. If companies can effectively recycle these products without, a great amount of environmental (and human) damage can be avoided. I would argue that having a responsible battery reclamation process is more important that having questionably repairable devices. Also, while we're being cynical here. If we make a device "Repairable" that doesn't mean it's going to ever actually get repaired. If it doesn't make economic sense from the end user perspective, repairable products end up in the trash. This is particularly true in this world where manufacturers stop releasing software for old hardware. (Or worse, remotely brick old hardware)
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Exactly. And the most impactful solution is also one incompatible with growth-based consumer economy: buy less stuff. Recycling won't be an answer even if, through some miracle, everything would became fully recyclable in practice. The reason is that most materials cannot be recycled indefinitely - they degrade. On top of that, turning trash into input material usually consumes some non-recoverable matter (e.g. chemicals to clean and process it). Then there's production waste that isn't recoverable too. All of this adds up into continuous churn. So with recycling, instead of a Mine->Manufacture->Use->Trash pipeline, you have... Mine->Manufacture->Use->Trash pipeline where a fraction of matter makes a cycle from Trash to Manufacture. Two perhaps not immediately obvious facts: one, that fraction of matter that gets recycled becomes a fraction of a fraction on its next cycle - which is a series that converges to 0. Two, none of this matters as long the pipeline itself is going through exponential growth. You may slow it a little, but it's still exponential.
- narag 6y ago
  Isn't it sad that right to repair needs to be framed this way? I mean, it's fine to look after the environment. But... It seems impossible to ask for individual rights. This is after all an individual right. My right to repair something that I paid for. But... It's presented as a collective benefit, the abstract save the planet thing. We're nothing important unless we're a part of the collective. Or even worse, some abstract idea like the purity of our Precious Bodily Fluids. I'll go to sleep now.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Why not push it on both fronts simultaneously? Right to repair has strong benefits for both individual freedoms and the environment.
    - narag 6y ago
      Indeed, but you see, individual freedoms is not enough anymore.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Two is better than one, isn't it? Also, individual freedoms aren't the be-all and end-all. We're lucky that they align with environmental concerns in this case. Additionally, right to repair isn't really about individual freedoms. Most people aren't going to fix products that require complex repairs. The right to repair is, first and foremost, about allowing people to exercise that right through delegation to specialists. Unencumbered repairability allows for local markets of repair shops to form, that can offer repairs at reasonable price points.
riversflow 6y ago
>The first and third should not be on equal footing with the second. What? >> 1) Making their things easy to repair. 2) Creating in house recycling programs. 3) Making equipment more durable and longer lasting I read as 1)Reuse 2)Recycle 3)Reduce. The best thing a manufacturer could do is create a bomb proof smartphone that will be usable forever.
- shwestrick 6y ago
  I think you and @stretchcat are saying the same thing. Ease-of-repair and durability are more important than recycling.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    Yes exactly. Recycling is better than nothing in cases where reuse or reduction aren't possible (many medical products probably fall under this category.) But reduction and reuse are preferable where possible.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > The best thing a manufacturer could do is create a bomb proof smartphone that will be usable forever. This is illogical. Smartphones become obsolete for technology reasons even if they're bomb proof and usable forever. So they need to recyclable (or components reusable) as the priority. Old Nokias were built to last and still work.. but they're e-waste because they're obsolete for the purposes almost everyone needs a phone for. Maybe it'd be better if they'd be more recyclable instead of more robust?
  - michaelt 6y ago
    Presumably for smartphones, 'reuse' would mean devices that get software updates for long enough they can go through 2 or 3 users.
  - riversflow 6y ago
    I’ve broken far far more phones than I’ve had to replace because they became obsolete. If we came anywhere close to most phones lasting until they are outmoded we’d be doing good.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Many environmental crimes can be hidden in a recycling program. Yep But by the same token, many materials in consumer electronics are mined unethically and/ or end up causing toxic pollution. If companies can effectively recycle these products without, a great amount of environmental (and human) damage can be avoided. I would argue that having a responsible battery reclamation process is more important that having questionably repairable devices. Also, while we're being cynical here. If we make a device "Repairable" that doesn't mean it's going to ever actually get repaired. If it doesn't make economic sense from the end user perspective, repairable products end up in the trash. This is particularly true in this world where manufacturers stop releasing software for old hardware. (Or worse, remotely brick old hardware)

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Exactly. And the most impactful solution is also one incompatible with growth-based consumer economy: buy less stuff. Recycling won't be an answer even if, through some miracle, everything would became fully recyclable in practice. The reason is that most materials cannot be recycled indefinitely - they degrade. On top of that, turning trash into input material usually consumes some non-recoverable matter (e.g. chemicals to clean and process it). Then there's production waste that isn't recoverable too. All of this adds up into continuous churn. So with recycling, instead of a Mine->Manufacture->Use->Trash pipeline, you have... Mine->Manufacture->Use->Trash pipeline where a fraction of matter makes a cycle from Trash to Manufacture. Two perhaps not immediately obvious facts: one, that fraction of matter that gets recycled becomes a fraction of a fraction on its next cycle - which is a series that converges to 0. Two, none of this matters as long the pipeline itself is going through exponential growth. You may slow it a little, but it's still exponential.

narag 6y ago
Isn't it sad that right to repair needs to be framed this way? I mean, it's fine to look after the environment. But... It seems impossible to ask for individual rights. This is after all an individual right. My right to repair something that I paid for. But... It's presented as a collective benefit, the abstract save the planet thing. We're nothing important unless we're a part of the collective. Or even worse, some abstract idea like the purity of our Precious Bodily Fluids. I'll go to sleep now.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Why not push it on both fronts simultaneously? Right to repair has strong benefits for both individual freedoms and the environment.
  - narag 6y ago
    Indeed, but you see, individual freedoms is not enough anymore.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Two is better than one, isn't it? Also, individual freedoms aren't the be-all and end-all. We're lucky that they align with environmental concerns in this case. Additionally, right to repair isn't really about individual freedoms. Most people aren't going to fix products that require complex repairs. The right to repair is, first and foremost, about allowing people to exercise that right through delegation to specialists. Unencumbered repairability allows for local markets of repair shops to form, that can offer repairs at reasonable price points.

riversflow 6y ago

>The first and third should not be on equal footing with the second. What? >> 1) Making their things easy to repair. 2) Creating in house recycling programs. 3) Making equipment more durable and longer lasting I read as 1)Reuse 2)Recycle 3)Reduce. The best thing a manufacturer could do is create a bomb proof smartphone that will be usable forever.

shwestrick 6y ago
I think you and @stretchcat are saying the same thing. Ease-of-repair and durability are more important than recycling.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  Yes exactly. Recycling is better than nothing in cases where reuse or reduction aren't possible (many medical products probably fall under this category.) But reduction and reuse are preferable where possible.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> The best thing a manufacturer could do is create a bomb proof smartphone that will be usable forever. This is illogical. Smartphones become obsolete for technology reasons even if they're bomb proof and usable forever. So they need to recyclable (or components reusable) as the priority. Old Nokias were built to last and still work.. but they're e-waste because they're obsolete for the purposes almost everyone needs a phone for. Maybe it'd be better if they'd be more recyclable instead of more robust?
- michaelt 6y ago
  Presumably for smartphones, 'reuse' would mean devices that get software updates for long enough they can go through 2 or 3 users.
- riversflow 6y ago
  I’ve broken far far more phones than I’ve had to replace because they became obsolete. If we came anywhere close to most phones lasting until they are outmoded we’d be doing good.