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This is why the saying has always been “reduce, reuse, recycle” in that order. Reducing is the best. Don’t buy or make surplus stuff, and that reduces waste ov
by Apreche 8mo ago
This is why the saying has always been “reduce, reuse, recycle” in that order.
Reducing is the best. Don’t buy or make surplus stuff, and that reduces waste overall.
Reusing is second best. If we did make something, the best thing to do is get as much use out of it as possible to prevent it from ever becoming trash.
Recycling is the last resort. Regardless of what is being recycled, it is an expensive and difficult process to try to salvage any value from the waste materials rather than just abandoning them.
Because recycling electronics is such a difficult problem, if we want to reduce e-waste a better idea is to increase our efforts to reduce and reuse them as much as possible. Installing Linux on an old laptop to keep it useful for somebody is easy to do, and much more effective than trying to recycle it.
- porise 8mo agoI heard they changed it to 5Rs. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recyle, rot.
- AlexandrB 8mo agoHow confusing. There's no appreciable difference between "refuse" and "reduce". "Rot" is only applicable to organic waste, which is rarely considered part of "recycling" since the other Rs don't really apply. Seems like change for change's sake.
- NooneAtAll3 8mo agoRot is about using bio-degradable options where there is one if all fails, just leave an option for nature to do it for you
- AlexandrB 8mo agoBio degradable packaging is not really suitable for composting yourself. Most of it takes a really long time to break down naturally or requires high composting temperatures that can be hard to achieve in a home compost pile. This is true even for basic stuff like cardboard and paper. You also need a lot of "green"[1] (high nitrogen) composting material to balance out cellulose from packaging. The net result is that this is still an industrial process. Though probably less energy-intensive than recycling. Source: we have a compost pile and it's not all sunshine and roses. [1] https://www.thespruce.com/composting-greens-and-browns-2539485 https://www.thespruce.com/composting-greens-and-browns-25394...
- coryrc 8mo agoThey also sometimes coat your "compostable" bowls/plates/boxes in PFAS: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/pfas-compostable-food-packaging-1.6794550 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/pfas-compostable-food-packag...
- happymellon 8mo agoYou have to be careful with that phrase through. > using bio-degradable options where there is one A lot of "biodegradable" will use a literal interpretation, in that it it degrades in nature. 500 years you say? But it still degrades... Home compostable is really the only one that makes sense. Even industrial composting requires a high heat environment as the catalyst, so if something contaminates the batch and goes into general refuse then it will never break down.
- charcircuit 8mo ago500 years is only a blink in Earths lifespan.
- happymellon 8mo agoBut its a lot longer than most people expect biodegradable to mean.
- imglorp 8mo agoConsumers have the option to "refuse" products from irresponsible or predatory vendors: ones which brick or obsolete devices. Vendors should at a minimum open source APIs for abandoned hardware and allow unlocking it. "Refuse" to buy from those that don't. Ask for legislation forcing it. I have a wonderful old ipad mini that's useless. I'd love to jailbreak it and put my OS on there but Apple wants a new sale instead.
- randusername 8mo agoI read it as refuse categorically and rot regardless of type in a big sweep from best to worst refuse to use any, reduce your usage, reuse yourself, recycle them into new products, or else they'll just rot I like it.
- ssl-3 8mo agoOrganic waste can be reused. Ever watch Human Centipede?
- skipants 8mo agoI like that a lot -- going to start using it
- marcosdumay 8mo agoIgnoring the ambiguity of the word "refuse", that often means "turn into trash", it's also completely redundant with "reduce". To the point that it doesn't add anything new. Anyway, "rot" is a good one.
- Ekaros 8mo agoThere is overlap but I can see some distinction. Refuse might be simply not in first place buying some product group say a smartwatch. Where as reduce would be buying one but updating it less often. One could argue that refusing entire products is easier than reducing use.
- mcswell 8mo agoI hadn't heard the "rot" one, but I imagine it's referring to composting. We have a county-run composting site (https://www.princegeorgescountymd.gov/departments-offices/environment/waste-recycling/residential-collections/pgc-composts https://www.princegeorgescountymd.gov/departments-offices/en...), and apparently when done right it produces a whole lot less methane than letting organics get buried and decompose in landfills.
- reverius42 8mo agoI think the idea is "buy nothing (in that category)" instead of "buy fewer things (in that category)" but I agree it's both ambiguous and ham-fisted.
- renewiltord 8mo agoIt’s even better when you make it 10 Rs: refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, repurpose, rehome, recycle, rot. I think it’s twice as better.
- fainpul 8mo ago$ grep '^re' /usr/share/dict/words | wc -l 5374 rewind, revive, refill, retrieve, retouch and a thousand more... Let's just call it re*
- renewiltord 8mo agoSome say that `git rerere` was invented for this purpose.
- jltsiren 8mo agoI find the "reduce, reuse, recycle" slogan misleading. Everything that is manufactured will eventually become waste that must be disposed of responsibly. The overall volume of manufacturing only goes up if we leave it to the market, and there is no serious political will to legislate it down. That leaves us with an ever-increasing volume of waste that must be dealt with, making waste management an increasingly important issue.
- refulgentis 8mo agoSo the idea of reducing consumption is misleading, the real solution is to reduce consumption (via the law forcing quotas on manufacturers and rationing on consumers)
- 6510 8mo agoDurability also cuts consumption. One can make the parts that break easy to replace and/or learn to do it at scale.
- benhill70 8mo agoI think you are forgetting about time. If the rate of stuff needing to get recycle is lower, then there is more time to recycle. If there the rate is too high then the facilities are overwhelmed and resort to less optimal strategies. This is why reduce and reuse are important.
- jltsiren 8mo agoIt's misleading because it focuses on actions that are clearly not working. People on the average are increasing their consumption, not reducing it. That means the actual problem — the waste at the end of the pipeline — is growing every year. Waste management is the actual problem that needs to be solved. "Reduce and reuse" can be a part of the solution, but people are not doing enough voluntarily to make it a major part.
- estimator7292 8mo ago
- smileysteve 8mo agoTo put this in perspective, there are huge issues recyling lead acid batteries exposed this year. I consider lead acid batteries relatively simple with all materials being large and not particularly binding. But it's somehow easy to outsource this to a smelter with inappropriate smelting, and no controls on worker safety. So anything smaller, more complex, or more interewined, with things like silica involved...
- tonyedgecombe 8mo agoInterestingly lead acid batteries are the most recycled consumer goods. Of course that’s not to say there are no problems with the process.
- KellyCriterion 8mo ago> always been “reduce, reuse, recycle” in that order my dev machine for boring CRUD apps is from 2011 :-D the only thing I upgraded was RAM and a SSD - its a 4x 3Ghz board; it works quite well despite the fact that its 15 years old :) (honestly, the only thing why I do not switch is because of reinstallig the whole setup)
- edoceo 8mo agoRe-install? Just set the bootloader, and rsync the stuff over?
- KellyCriterion 8mo agoNot sure: Its a Windows machine? :-D
- Gud 8mo agoNuke it from orbit
- pabs3 8mo agoWith Linux you could probably just move the drives over and it would work.
- hulitu 8mo agoProbably.
- KellyCriterion 8mo agoI could try but then propably I have to open a thread like: "Tell HN: I crashed my 15 year old machine setup this evening by trying to switch to Linux" :-D But this time would be really a great option to finally switch on this machine, you are right - I thought about it for years now and I found out in the meantime that most of the apps are running without any problems in virtualization (if required) The thing is - by now, I'm too lazy :-) (Esp. I should add a backup machine for this procedure, since this old Windows setup is in productive use)
- Pfhortune 8mo agoThis is why every device should be bootloader-unlockable (with legal enforcement). There's billions of old phones and IoT devices out there locked to outdated software. This has to change. If it can't be unlocked, it can't be sold. That should be the law.
- brudgers 8mo agoReusing is better than reducing because “reducing” is only meaningful in terms of reducing consumption. The only way to reduce what you already have is either disposal or recycling or reuse.