Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by porise | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

porise

I heard they changed it to 5Rs.

Refuse, reduce, reuse, recyle, rot.

View on HN

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.

  $ grep '^re' /usr/share/dict/words | wc -l
    5374

rewind, revive, refill, retrieve, retouch and a thousand more...

Let's just call it re*

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

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

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.

500 years is only a blink in Earths lifespan.

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

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.

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.

Organic waste can be reused. Ever watch Human Centipede?

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com