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I highly suggest reading the book "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things" by Michael Braungart & William McDonough. Essentially the book explains ho

I highly suggest reading the book "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things" by Michael Braungart & William McDonough. Essentially the book explains how things currently are made in a "Cradle to Grave" style, meaning products are sourced from the earth and then deposited back in an unusable form. Cradle to cradle would be where a product is made and when it's life is up we reuse the product's materials to build a new product. This is not how recycling works. Recycling could be better described as "downcycling" in that every time say plastic is recycled it's grade is lowered and it becomes less useful due to being mixed with other plastics and contaminates. The book explains this much better than I and is also a great primer on material science. Here's a simple example of how a consumer product can be created in a cradle to cradle fashion. 1) Raw materials are sourced from the earth. 2) Raw materials are manufactured together in a way where they can easily be seperated. 3) Product ends up with a consumer. 4) Product lifecycle ends. 5) Manufacturer pays consumer for the product. 6) Manufacturer uses product's raw materials for step 2.

bch 12y ago
This sounds really interesting; I'll check that book out. That said, I'm sympathetic to your parents sentiment. If I was taught correctly, the "reduce, reuse, recycle" arrow diagram is meant to be exercised in order: 1) reduce (your consumption) 2) reuse (a product or material in its existing state; repair if necessary.) 3) recycle (as a last resort - it's expensive, and if the usefulness of the current <thing> isn't completely used, you're wasting it.) This is why I (for better or worse), don't take the Prius owners seriously when they look down their noses at my still 100% viable 40-year-old air-cooled VW. Edit: formatting, bracket-matching. )))))))))
- brc 12y ago
  I'm convinced the push for greater recyclability of vehicle parts is having a worse effect. A new VW is full of plastic parts which seem to have a ten year lifespan at best. Too many of these breaking render the vehicle uneconomic to repair. The result is that eh vehicle is scrapped and parts recycled. Great- except that recycling takes an enormous amount of energy, and building a new car and getting it to the consumer takes another enormous amount of energy (and materials). It would have been better if the original vehicle had a longer economic life.
patcon 12y ago
That is the book that got me so excited about the premise of Google's Project Ara a few years before it started. I really want that sort of initiative to succeed..!

bch 12y ago

This sounds really interesting; I'll check that book out. That said, I'm sympathetic to your parents sentiment. If I was taught correctly, the "reduce, reuse, recycle" arrow diagram is meant to be exercised in order: 1) reduce (your consumption) 2) reuse (a product or material in its existing state; repair if necessary.) 3) recycle (as a last resort - it's expensive, and if the usefulness of the current <thing> isn't completely used, you're wasting it.) This is why I (for better or worse), don't take the Prius owners seriously when they look down their noses at my still 100% viable 40-year-old air-cooled VW. Edit: formatting, bracket-matching. )))))))))

brc 12y ago
I'm convinced the push for greater recyclability of vehicle parts is having a worse effect. A new VW is full of plastic parts which seem to have a ten year lifespan at best. Too many of these breaking render the vehicle uneconomic to repair. The result is that eh vehicle is scrapped and parts recycled. Great- except that recycling takes an enormous amount of energy, and building a new car and getting it to the consumer takes another enormous amount of energy (and materials). It would have been better if the original vehicle had a longer economic life.

patcon 12y ago

That is the book that got me so excited about the premise of Google's Project Ara a few years before it started. I really want that sort of initiative to succeed..!