#resourceful recycling

[the-raven-and-the-tower]

NAILS: [I] salvage scrap metal, exchange it for gold, exchange that for off-cuts from the butcher. The cats love me.

Not just the cats, Nails, I think I love you too ♡

[empiireans]

studies 🍉

[betterbemeta]

I think something interesting about the star trek world is its combination of both replicator and holodeck technology. I understand these are literal 'plot devices' to explain the availability of food, materials, and the ability to visit locations for sci-fi premises that can't be found on an alien planet. However, they are worth thinking about in terms of how they change the world.

(Let's assume 'ideal' circumstances where we have a stable renewable non-polluting source of lots and lots of energy and aren't rationing it like on Voyager or something)

Replicators can use energy and raw materials to configure items, and presumably dis-configure items. While the potential for '3D printing' basically anything so long as its materials aren't too rare is really cool, it is also a near-perfect recycling machine. Beyond making sure your replicated dishes and cups don't infinitely pile up, that's SO IMPORTANT. Not only does that mean many items are 'temporary' that otherwise would be 'forever', you can instantly refresh the wear on many items without having to replace them and generate trash.

For example, tennis balls. It's currently really hard to recycle tennis balls, and serious players wear them out extremely quickly. Every serve you make after the first will be with a slightly worn, degraded tennis ball until you replace it, which generates trash. The production facilities to make all those tennis balls have to exist, they have to be shipped, the space to store them exists, the space to store their waste exists, the waste must be transported to a tennis ball recycling facility or a landfill...

but with replicators, you could play tennis without owning/paying a club to access a single tennis ball, without wasting a tennis ball.

And then there's the possibility of holodeck sports where you don't even need to make ANY material items. You could program the tennis ball to never run out. As long as you have the power to run it, maybe the most you'd need to 'own' is a tennis outfit. I am not sure if it's consistent that holodecks can 'dress you' or if you always must bring in costumes from the outside. And the costume itself could be replicated and then recycled!

There's a vast amount of stuff that we retain as personal property that just has to do with accessing activities or amenities. It's not really property that has emotional significance to us, but we still have attachments to it as its a facilitator of our active identity. Our dishes and cookware. Sports equipment. Certain kinds of clothing items. Some types of personal care items. Non-heirloom/generic holiday decorations. Stuff that is usually sacrificed first when we become homeless, when losing access to what they enable is more devastating than the items themselves.

If we could basically conjure and dismiss these things at-will, or access them on a temporary basis for free, we wouldn't need to own them or keep them around in our homes. No supply chain would be dedicated to them. Their waste would be completely eliminated. Ideas of 'what stuff I need to have as a person, to have a dignified life' would change completely.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were people in the star trek universe running around on earth with basically nothing we consider permanent physical property. Not because they're homeless and have no place to put them, and not because they're rich and their assets are liquid-- because the only reason to 'keep' mundane items, even something as complex as a communication device or computer, might be because they are emotionally important to you. And not everybody has 'stuff' like that at every time in their lives.

[biteable-pink-pixie]

Just watched a women throw a half full glass bottle of coke in the rubbish bin. That's wasteful you bitch and also glass is recyclable! The recycling bin was right next to the rubbish bin. You fucking selfish dumb cunt.

[00venator]

I info dump about my worlds economy.

Mum says something like “that can’t work like that.”

I beat another capitalist with a hammer.

[un-pearable]

why are 99% of crochet animal patterns just vague blobs. cmon. i know we can do better as a community. have you seen the shit the national parks service put out? yeah, the NPS. there are grandmas on the frontlines of the most formally accurate critters this side of a 3D printer. we can do better than orb with two triangles sewn on. we can make a more accurate cat. that is NOT what a turtle looks like. step AWAY from the axolotl

[dumpster-divers-unite]

Ask yourself before you commit!

How badly do I need this?

How often will this get used?

If I am using this one time, why? Can this be reasonably reused by me again?

Can I get this second hand?

Why do I want this from a name brand store in the first place, is it out of habit? Is it because everyone around me is doing it?

If it’s a single use item, can I use a component of it for something else? (Ex: diversion safe, pen holder)

Will I need or use it in the next 6 months?

Does a friend or a family member have one of these that I can borrow?

WAIT! There are tons of this at the thrift store, why am I going to waste lots of money here? Is this a habit?

Why do I feel like I need this? Will this impulse buy make beneficial changes in my life?

[petula-xx]

It was time to throw out a threadbare pyjama top. I removed the buttons from the top first though. They might come in handy one day for a mending job and plastic buttons don't really belong in landfill.

[skunkes]

do u ever get scared people will know the reference picture u use and call u out for it.....how 2 combat dis fear

i sometimes do! but i acknowledge that literally all (or most!) artists do this so nobody wld really have a leg to stand on/it wldnt be that serious....plus in my case my refs arent really direct? I always transform em enough to where its its own thing... like who would take this sort of call out seriously when I used a ref of a skinny nude man to help pose a big cow guy ykwim....

even beyond that it doesnt matter much, i always see jokes about ppl Knowing what pinterest ref pic another person used. my college printmaking professor's professional works are literally all collaged from different sources to create a new thing, etc (<- i know this last one is a further Leap but its adjacent to me ykwim... like...you made it your own thing....its fine)

[iamthepulta]

Making my own post because now capitalism is just revolving in my brain and I want to respond, but I've intruded more than enough. ^^"

I do think capitalism can be solved, and history actually gives me hope because it shows the fundamental need of society. Humans aren't inherently greedy or cruel. The greed and the cruelty are symptoms of a long-standing human need to make things better than they were before: to live comfortably, and without fear.

Capitalism is merely the current expression of this need that we live in.

Solving the need is absolutely possible by establishing a baseline standard of living and resource allotment. And that's comparable to an amount of 'work' that we deem acceptable in our daily lives. Because if you think about it, making coffee every morning with a Keurig gets you a similar product to making coffee every morning with a hand grinder and cold press: one just takes more resources and time than the other.

However, this needs to be flexible because humans are individuals with different needs, and the premise is also questionable because who's setting this baseline anyway?

I personally think it has more to do with government setting a cap on resource imports. (I think it should be stronger than tariffs, personally. Just a hard cap for the year.)

You can't really control demand. That's what most socialists do, and it always fails because humans fundamentally want to make their lives easier. But you can control resource management. If the government says we can only import 20 tons of cotton this year, and we produce 80 tons of cotton, so companies get 100 tons of cotton to do whatever with, and that's it. If we want more cotton, we have to axe some other import.

It 1) makes management visual. 2) gives citizens a personal reason to be invested in their government. 3) will not allocate resources fairly, but will show the true value of a product for the region it's in and prioritize local resources [i.e. if your country does not produce garnets, garnets will be more expensive than gold]. 4) increases jobs since there's far less incentive to outsource work, overall decreasing inequality. 5) encourages a circular economy.

In which case, I suppose I'm for some form of socialist autarky and I think that would solve a decent number of capitalist problems. Companies could no longer overrun workers and there's individual choice behind jobs, work, and some form of style of living.

It IS bad in like- fifty million other ways though. You can't just go from a country used to living in a capitalist society to imposing tariffs and screaming about autarky. Natural resources WILL be destroyed on your own soil and the biggest nation will have the highest quality of living. Imports have to be on a factor of population growth and this might only be possible with nations for a declining population rate. If at all. You also have to add a judicial angle for the people who will inevitably try to take over that system. And, most of all, you have to commit to not going to fucking war over state expansion for resources. Looking at you, Russia.

So I suppose we COULD solve capitalism, at the expense of a whole lot of other problems that are equally meh-to-bad.

Governments are fundamentally resource management machines though, and it's really stupid to pretend they aren't. With resource management, comes capping the fuck out of companies (specialists) that abuse the system (monopolies/oligarchies). When a government doesn't do that (whatever the method), it's failed its purpose as a government and also needs to be put down (revolution).

[emaginationproductions]

cool thing i learned about while looking up what to do with old torn clothes that can't be donated to Goodwill

also, while Goodwill is a good option for quality clothes, if you're dumping and replacing half your wardrobe for the same reasons I am, you might find this interesting

[tilbageidanmark]

(I never ever throw away food...)

[alphabetwarrior]

Demand Sustainability at Waffle House!

Please check this out and support it! Sign it and give it a share! Kisses!

[regrettablemeasure]

a friend of a friend of the family needed an aid, so i went and met her! SHE'S SO SWEET and she lives in a beautiful little desert cabin with a ton of plants and painted flowers on her walls. i can't wait to work w her starting next week!!!

[cafffine]

people who free themselves of corporation-inflicted consumer guilt by deciding that they don’t need to ‘waste time’ on small actions like recycling or avoiding fast fashion when they can or trying to shop local ect. congrats that’s the saddest shit I ever heard. Yes, you’re allowed to take long hot showers, you’re not destroying anything, but to think that average people stop for a moment to wash out their cans and recycle them is proof of a successful propaganda campaign and not genuine hope and care is not how I’m gonna live.