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Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#111

Post by Ekaros »

landl0rd wrote: post #92
ajb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one seems like it should fall foul of thermodynamics, I guess. Just melting everything together probably increases entropy to the extent that it's at best like extracting elements from mining ore. Whereas before you do that, there is organisation and substances are more concentrated. Well, that's a bit hand-wavy - perhaps someone with actual knowledge of thermodynamics will comment. I think what recyclers do cur…

It'd work fine if you just ionize everything; easy to separate then. Just hilariously inefficient given the amount of energy required.

And even if you can collect those ions to relatively high purities. It is not often particularly useful. Most of the mass is probably carbon, silica, oxygen, hydrogen and so on. In the end not that much value there compared to virgin or other sources.

Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#112

Post by edoceo »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #98
Apreche wrote: post #11

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 p…

> 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)

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

Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#113

Post by KellyCriterion »

edoceo wrote: post #112
KellyCriterion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

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

Not sure: Its a Windows machine? :-D

Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#115

Post by kube-system »

AngryData wrote: post #104
kube-system wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for repairability, but as labor costs go up and manufacturing costs go down, the window for which there is incentive to repair narrows. e.g. there's no amount of repairability design that you could apply to a $3 light bulb which would encourage people to pay someone western wages to repair. I think we're better off lobbying for better standards to communicate the quality of a bulb's design. The whole reason w…

If you could disassemble and diagnose a failing $3 bulb in 60 seconds, you wouldn't need to hire someone at western wages to fix it. But because it is glued together to not be taken apart, and there are no diagrams for how anything in it works or is put together, it isn't worth the time even if you have a station and equipment all ready setup and replacement component on hand. 95% of the time fixing electronics is ju…

> If you could disassemble and diagnose a failing $3 bulb in 60 seconds, you wouldn't need to hire someone at western wages to fix it.

Sure, I would. Maybe a lot of people on this forum would. But we're 0.0001% of people that use light bulbs. Our personal persuasions are pretty irrelevant in context. And most of the time it doesn't make financial sense for us to do it, it is just personally satisfying.

The vast majority of people have no interest in repairing their own electronics, period. If it is cheap to replace, they will just get a new one. If it was a big investment, then it's important enough to call a professional to fix. In the middle ground you've got people who will ask their handy nephew to try to fix it before they run out to the store, and he'll open it up and look for a blown fuse or a loose wire before giving up. The type of people who can do board level repairs are so rare as to be completely irrelevant to the waste stream of electronics.

Even if we repaired 100% of broken electronics, we'd only make a tiny dent in the volume of waste electronics. Most electronics simply fall out use before they ever break.

Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#116

Post by mcswell »

jltsiren wrote: post #40
Apreche wrote: post #11

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 p…

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 import…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#117

Post by mcswell »

marcosdumay wrote: post #53
porise wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard they changed it to 5Rs. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recyle, rot.

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.

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.

Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#119

Post by lacker »

In general electronics aren't recycled because people don't care about recycling them.

The easiest piece of electronics equipment to recycle is probably an iPhone. You can give an old iPhone to Apple and they will recycle it for free. But still most end-of-life iPhones are not recycled.

Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?

#120

Post by addaon »

xyst wrote: post #44
matt_heimer wrote: post #38

Ease of recycling is not prioritized during design or manufacturing because there is no monetary incentive (for the manufacturer) to do so it most cases. It would eat into profits. Simple as that. Unless a component is expensive to manufactory and recycling/reuse could save the manufacturer money it won't happen. The only real solution are laws requiring it.

It should be regulated to make devices repairable and upgradeable. End soldering of components to motherboard. Make service manuals publicly available. Components sold and available.

> End soldering of components to motherboard.

What do you see as the alternative here? Conductive epoxy is way less repairable than solder. Sockets are… components; and tend to be more expensive and higher failure rate than what’s socketed in them, except for extreme cases of very large ICs. Press fit requires special tooling, so repairability is much worse… what’s left?

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