Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable? • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by adrianwaj » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 2:11 AM UTC

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #16

Recycling stuff is hard, expensive, and energy-intensive. Why should electronics be uniquely recyclable? We need to get past this idea that just because recycling makes you feel good must mean it IS good. Most of the time recycling stuff uses more CO2 than simply throwing it into a hole and making another one.

Interesting stuff about monofills and green concrete here [1].

Leaching is the big issue. Recycling solar panels is going to keep getting more important. Maybe if there was a way to lock-up the metals with additives [2], or make everything a mushroom substrate?

"Mycologists estimate that we have only catalogued about 5% to 10% of the world's fungi." There's probably some solutions in that world. [3]

[1] https://gemini.google.com/share/a32152a6e84e

[2] https://gemini.google.com/share/9ba36745ea5f

[3] https://gemini.google.com/share/c4682c734b15

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

#142

Post by bbyford » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:20 PM UTC

MengerSponge wrote: post #81

Thermodynamics: it's hard to unmix cake batter.

then we should be making legos, not cakes...

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

#143

Post by mcswell » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 2:41 AM UTC

mcswell wrote: post #116

jltsiren wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

(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.