4 ms·

It’s funny seeing so many people promote “use them as rags!”! Sure that’s possible but it’s not an absolute. We can use old electronics as a paper weight (“and

It’s funny seeing so many people promote “use them as rags!”! Sure that’s possible but it’s not an absolute. We can use old electronics as a paper weight (“and more!”) if we want to but people don’t normally promote that. Presumably natural fibers (wool, cotton, hemp etc) can be composted (conveniently ignoring buttons etc) and everything synthetic can just be landfilled (what else can we do with plasitcs). Im a bit of a cynic but it’s acceptable to “dispose of” items. Hopefully we can keep in mind reduce, reuse, and recycle but there’s a functional limit to those things. It seems likely any “trash handling technology” to arise to settle this has bigger fish to fry than just clothing - if any “plastic eating microbe” was employed commercially it makes more sense to me to stick it on the landfills rather than an old laundry basket

quadrifoliate 4y ago
> We can use old electronics as a paper weight (“and more!”) if we want to but people don’t normally promote that. The reason for this is that people don't usually buy paperweights that are indistinguishable from, say, an old and discarded mobile phone. They do, on the other hand, often buy things like hand towels or dish rags that are indistinguishable from home-made ones that are just old clothes torn up.
- klondike_klive 4y ago
  My 4-yr old kid calls them "broken-down t-shirts" - very useful to have a bag of them in the kitchen and bathroom for spills and messes. Before I was always torn between wasting a dishcloth or using a load of paper kitchen towel which might disintegrate.
  - dieselgate 4y ago
    I was torn by whether or not to comment on any wordplay
    - klondike_klive 4y ago
      Purely accidental!
- dieselgate 4y ago
  For sure, am not saying people shouldn’t reuse their clothing for x, y, z. I prefer to make patches for holes in clothes with other old clothes and just think the message should be more about reduce reuse recycle in general rather than “make rags”. Edit for clarity

quadrifoliate 4y ago

> We can use old electronics as a paper weight (“and more!”) if we want to but people don’t normally promote that. The reason for this is that people don't usually buy paperweights that are indistinguishable from, say, an old and discarded mobile phone. They do, on the other hand, often buy things like hand towels or dish rags that are indistinguishable from home-made ones that are just old clothes torn up.

klondike_klive 4y ago
My 4-yr old kid calls them "broken-down t-shirts" - very useful to have a bag of them in the kitchen and bathroom for spills and messes. Before I was always torn between wasting a dishcloth or using a load of paper kitchen towel which might disintegrate.
- dieselgate 4y ago
  I was torn by whether or not to comment on any wordplay
  - klondike_klive 4y ago
    Purely accidental!
dieselgate 4y ago
For sure, am not saying people shouldn’t reuse their clothing for x, y, z. I prefer to make patches for holes in clothes with other old clothes and just think the message should be more about reduce reuse recycle in general rather than “make rags”. Edit for clarity