| ▲ | Apreche 3 hours 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. |
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| ▲ | jltsiren 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I 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. |
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| ▲ | benhill70 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I 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 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It'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. |
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| ▲ | refulgentis an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | So 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 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Durability also cuts consumption. One can make the parts that break easy to replace and/or learn to do it at scale. |
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| ▲ | porise 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I heard they changed it to 5Rs. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recyle, rot. |
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| ▲ | marcosdumay 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Ignoring 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. | |
| ▲ | skipants 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I like that a lot -- going to start using it | |
| ▲ | renewiltord an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’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. | |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How 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. | | |
| ▲ | ssl-3 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Organic waste can be reused. Ever watch Human Centipede? | |
| ▲ | imglorp 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Consumers 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 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I 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. | |
| ▲ | NooneAtAll3 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Rot is about using bio-degradable options where there is one if all fails, just leave an option for nature to do it for you | | |
| ▲ | happymellon 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You 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. | | | |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Bio 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-25394... | | |
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