[Apreche]

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.

[Pfhortune]

This 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 There's billions of old phones and IoT devices out there locked to outdated software.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.

[KellyCriterion]

> 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]

Re-install? Just set the bootloader, and rsync the stuff over?

[KellyCriterion]

Not sure: Its a Windows machine? :-D

[pabs3]

With Linux you could probably just move the drives over and it would work.

[hulitu]

Probably.

[KellyCriterion]

I 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)

[Gud]

Nuke it from orbit

[jltsiren]

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.

[benhill70]

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]

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.

[refulgentis]

I'm genuinely curious about your position, it's interesting.

But I can't figure it out what it'd look like in practice, might be hangover, might be I need more caffeine, whatever it is, it's on me. Don't read following as "you're saying X and thats silly!"

(A) Are consumption rates in general unsustainable?

(B) If (A) is no, are consumption rates of specific items unsustainable? For example, is the legislation you're thinking of like the deprecation of plastic bags for paper? Or something that covers a much wider amount of consumption?

(C) If (A) is "yes" or (B) is "more global", at huge scales like an economy, legislating quotas or rationing or anything at all, in practice pushes activity onto black markets.

If the concern is changing individual behavior, and individual behavior isn't changing on it's own sufficiently, what sort of legislation would change it?

[hulitu]

> It's misleading because it focuses on actions that are clearly not working

Of course it is not working. The bloat and planned obsolescence of "modern software" is legendary. I had to replace the hard drive on an older computer becsuse Win 10 is slow as a dog on it, even with LTSC version and even with most of the crap disabled. And making things require the incompatible latest and greatest instead of fixing things (hello Google) , does not help either.

[estimator7292]

Maybe it's because people spread FUD about the effectiveness of "reduce and reuse" instead of convincing others that "reduce and reuse" has value as a concept.

[mcswell]

In addition to the volume issue, there's the composition issue. When I was a kid, we recycled all our flint cores. Well, not quite that far back... Milk came in glass bottles, and the person who delivered the bottles of milk to our house picked up the empties to take back to the dairy. There were also steel cans for canned food and soft drinks (which eventually rusts away), and of course lots of other glass bottles. Now more and more of those kinds of things come in plastic, of which little gets recycled. And cans are often aluminum, which doesn't rust away.

Furniture was wood and fabric and (maybe) springs, with a little bit of pressboard (which was itself recycled paper and textile, usually used on the back of desks etc.). Now furniture is particleboard (made from sawdust), with lots of glue and some kind of plastic veneer if it's in a place that shows. Wood is genuinely recyclable (or re-usable as antiques!); I don't think particleboard is recyclable, although I could be wrong.

Automobiles were steel, fabric, glass and copper wire (with rubber insulation); plus of course rubber tires. Now they are those things plus a lot more plastic. Tires, both then and now, are essentially un-recyclable (although occasionally turned into artificial reefs).

I could go on, but there are probably more authoritative (= better) studies of this. But I suspect in general that we have lots less recyclable "stuff" these days than we used to.

[mcswell]

(Replying to myself...) I should have added that back then, automobiles started recycling themselves even before you were done using them: they rusted something awful, at least where I lived (in northern US). My parents owned one car where if you were sitting in the back seat, you could watch the road go by under your feet.

[kalleboo]

When I grew up in Sweden, soda was sold in standardized glass bottles. All brands used the same bottles and they just put paper labels on. You'd return the glass bottles for a deposit, they'd take them in, remove the label, wash then and refill them. You could tell how old the glass bottle you were drinking out of was by how scratched the label was.

In the 90's, they were all replaced by PET bottles. We were told at the time that this was because the oil used in the plastic bottles was still less than the extra oil used to ship the heavy glass bottles back and forth.

[refulgentis]

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]

Durability also cuts consumption. One can make the parts that break easy to replace and/or learn to do it at scale.

[smileysteve]

To 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]

Interestingly lead acid batteries are the most recycled consumer goods.

Of course that’s not to say there are no problems with the process.

[brudgers]

Reusing 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.

[porise]

I heard they changed it to 5Rs.

Refuse, reduce, reuse, recyle, rot.

[renewiltord]

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.

[fainpul]

  $ 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]

Some say that `git rerere` was invented for this purpose.

[marcosdumay]

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.

[mcswell]

I 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/en...), and apparently when done right it produces a whole lot less methane than letting organics get buried and decompose in landfills.

[Ekaros]

There 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.

[reverius42]

I 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.

[AlexandrB]

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.

[imglorp]

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]

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]

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

[AlexandrB]

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...

[coryrc]

They also sometimes coat your "compostable" bowls/plates/boxes in PFAS: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/pfas-compostable-food-packag...

[happymellon]

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.

[charcircuit]

500 years is only a blink in Earths lifespan.

[happymellon]

But its a lot longer than most people expect biodegradable to mean.

[ssl-3]

Organic waste can be reused. Ever watch Human Centipede?

[skipants]

I like that a lot -- going to start using it