cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21299422

My kitchen scale is powered by a cr2032 lithium button battery. Yes, it was sloppy of me to buy the scale without seeing how it was powered. I only use the scale once or twice per month, yet these shitty button batteries only last a few months. It seems like I only get about ~6—12 measurements before the battery is dead.

WTF? This seems to defy physics. The scale automatically powers off. Of course it must always have some power because there is no ON switch. The scale detects capacitive touch taps or weight before turning on the display.

Digital calipers use a button battery which also only gives a dozen or so measurements before the battery is dead. It seems the calipers power on when the case is snapped shut. Maybe the rattling causes it to power on since it’s very touchy. Turns on with the slightest movement.

My bicycle helmet takes a cr2032, which only lasts a few months. Perhaps because it’s hard to remember to turn off the light. But still, it’s a shitty design because it has no timer or motion sensor. Or would a motion sensor itself use more power than the LEDs?

Questions:

• are button batteries a significant e-waste burden?
• are the batteries themselves really short lived, or are the appliances that use them all just poorly designed?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21002819

Two weeks ago I bought a gallon of pickles, because I thought: Oh, that'll last me a while and its only $7 and I can use the jar for something after. It did not last me a while, but I can still use the jar IG. The only remaining decision is what for? My thought is to store beans in it (so that the beans don't have to be stored up high to be away from mice and so I can do a custom blend more easily, and then if I got a second gallon jar (of pickles or otherwise) I could use that as a dedicated bean soaking vessel, which would make it easier to remember to get beans soaking) or use it for making/storing lemonade (tight sealing lid makes the mixing easier, I can just shake it.) But I wasn't just going to commit to something without asking for recommendations.

Before you ask, no, there's no chance I'll use it for making pickles, I would never want to make that many at a time (though I definitely will get a smaller pickle jar for making fridge pickled onions).

I am in the market for a denim jacket or vest. I checked the three thrift stores in town. Only one even had a men's section. Nothing on ebay was used. Found a couple i liked on depop, Butt wanted to see what other market places exist.

In a northern Tunisian olive grove, Yassine Khelifi's small workshop hums as a large machine turns olive waste into a valuable energy source in a country heavily reliant on imported fuel.

The tiny municipality of Kamikatsu achieved an 81% recycling rate in 2016. Can it serve as a model of sustainable living for the world?

I've got a coat I wore every winter for like eight years but didn't use this fall because a rain of macroplastics would follow me wherever I go. I can strip the pleather, flaking-paint material off to replace it with something but the fabric underneath is sort of thin and stretchy so I'd need to find something that'll help seal it against wind and rain again. I know they sell pleather paint but reviews said it's short lived or meant for patching lesser damage. It's probably a long shot but is there another option for doing the whole outside of the coat?

Otherwise it's still in great shape.

Mentioned in the article is a stunt by Beyond Plastics whereby they put GPS trackers in plastic Starbucks cups to see how many actually went to recycling centers. 32 out of 36 went straight to landfill.

I want to hear about similar stunts that ordinary people can perform to highlight issues! If you have any please share them below!

Many cafés and fast food places these days provide disposable dishes and cutlery when you're eating in. This used to infuriate me, but it seems to be improving slightly now as the trend has moved towards using compostable dishes instead of plastic ones.

However, it's still waste. It makes me wonder, what is more costly in the long run? Providing customers with compostable items or running hot dishwashers and using soap and water all day to reuse dishes?

The fact that it's the consumer's responsibility to sort their waste and to try and minimise its impact on the environment in the first place is completely wrong to me.

Most people in urban areas rely on stores for basic survival, and the vast majority of products we buy there come with unnecessary waste. It doesn't make any sense to then tell these people "by the way, you'd better clean up that mess when you're done because it's bad for the environment". If governments were truly concerned or willing to act, this waste wouldn't make it into our homes in the first place.

If a company wants to sell a product, they should be held accountable for the waste that comes along with it. They should have to prove that they can reuse the waste and be incentivised to reduce it. If they can't, they can't operate.

Ecocide laws need to become commonplace, and the consumer should not be responsible for their waste if they haven't got legitimate alternative options. I understand this community is more willing to do their part in this regard, but I don't think it'll ever be feasible to expect this from the wider population. We need to stem the flow, not just handle the mess.

'Disposables' isn't a perfect term, but essentially I refer to things such as underwear, toilet paper, tissues, and other such things that tend to have a lifespan of either one use, or one person.

I am fortunate enough to have been insulated by the possession of many things from youth, but as the years go by things begin wearing out or needing replacement, and eventually that safety net will fade, so I would like to ask from the zerowaste community, what is your approach to common things that are typically used to short lifecycles?

First off, homemade napalm is in no way illegal, nor does it explode. You've watched too many Vietnam movies. What it does do is burn. Forever. More on campfires to come.

Put a couple of fingers of unleaded in a pickle (wide mouthed) jar, stuff waste Styrofoam in it. You can jam the contents of a 40" TV packaging in a quart jar.

That's it, that easy. Keep cramming the foam in until you get a taffy consistency. Too much and it's too hard to dig out with a stick. Too little and it slips off your stick.

I keep a jar at my campsite and one in the house for starting our little fire pit. A golf ball chunk will start soaking wet kindling.

PRO TIP: Spread the goo on a cookie pan, 1.4" thick, let it dry in the summer sun, cut into little pieces with scissors, put it in a little plastic box (that you had saved already, right?). Now you can pack it out with no mess, no smell!

Never goes bad, as far as I know, can't be too dry.

Here's my original post on Feddit.org, a german instance: https://photon.slrpnk.net/post/17757233

I still made quite some effort to translate it manually for you.

I bought two phalaenopsis orchids about two months ago.

A pink, and a gold one.

First the pink one. I got it from a discounter, and... well it already looked like shit when I bought it. The roots were pretty much all dead.

Now, it recovered, and even put out its' first flower spike!

It still looks a bit dehydrated/ leathery, but otherwise it's in a stable condition and recovers very well.

The other one is from a proper garden center, AND IT LOOKED EVEN WORSE!

Not only were the roots completely mush, but it also had a new buddy in its sleeve, I call him "worm buddy", my new pet.

Now, it looks like this:

It grew new flower pods and already started to bloom! How awesome is that?

On top of that, I showed the pictures a worker in the shop I bought it, and they were so embarrassed, that they gave me a voucher for a new plant, because they called it "inrecoverable". So I got this Oncidium orchid additionally for free:

This post is just a small reminder that plants can be very tolerant to anything, and with some luck and experience, you can save them.

Curious if this would have any noticeable energy savings. Basically thinking of taking old semi-disposable plastic containers (the ones that like deli meat, butter, etc come in), freezing them outdoors, and letting them defrost (absorb heat) in the fridge/freezer. Basically back to the "ice box" model.

Anybody doing that and/or have any results to share? Mostly curious if it would be worth the effort.

I'm in the process of setting up an e-waste bin in my community, but it is separate from the general e-trash bin. I want the sign on it to request specific things that can be useful and repurposed without an insane amount of effort.

I'm looking for additional ideas to put on the list. Here's what I have so far:

-SSDs and HDDs both internal and external

-Laptops, phones, computers

-WIFI cards

-RAM sticks

-Chargers that are still working

Up until a few days ago, I've had a Google Pixel 5.

I used it for about 3-4 years, but I had to replace it due to its' hardware failing and it hitting EOL software support wise. Especially the USB-C port is damaged, and the battery is drained in just one blink of an eye.

Said device is now lying around in the drawer, and I want to find a good use out of it. It's still a fine phone. Like all those phones other people have in their drawer. It's probably faster than my homeserver, has cameras, sensors, wireless connections, and much more.

It has GrapheneOS installed, and is still more or less secure, probably even more than 80% of other android phones right now I guess?

**Do you have any ideas for what I can repurpose it? **

I know that there's Octo4a, which can turn it into an Octoprint server for my 3D-printer, but I already have a Raspberry Pi for that, and as said, the phone has an unstable USB connection.

Maybe I could use it for my photography equipment, e.g. as remote shutter?

We meet every month or two to sew the bags out of donated fabric, and give them out at a local farmers’ market

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/16336190

A small project to help out anyone trying to keep their old devices functional.

I wrote a script to scrape pages of some popular alternative OS projects (such as postmarketOS and LineageOS), and put them into a single list. I'll try to automate and keep this up-to-date. Any additional OS suggestions and comments are welcome!

Something I've been working on recently is collecting old and unused laptops from various people I know. Sometimes they're shitty Chromebooks that can barely be used but sometimes they're still perfectly good and recent laptops and people just got bored of them and decided to upgrade for whatever reason. I then put Linux on these laptops (even the shitty chromebooks) and distribute them to people at my college who need one.

With the date that Microsoft is stopping support for windows 10 approaching quickly, now's a great time to prevent e-waste by upgrading to Linux or collecting people's previous laptops as they upgrade. You can also get distributions that run better than windows on low-end hardware. Even if you don't know someone who needs a laptop, you can always do something like host a Minecraft server to make use of it.

Also, you can do this to phones too. There are plenty of custom ROMs you can load on Android phones to squeeze more life out of them. Let me know if you want recommendations.

Anyway, I hope that this can inspire more people to try and repurpose electronics to prevent them from becoming e-waste.

I hate Christmas trees with passion.

Imagine growing a seedling for many years in a monoculture, just for it to get cut down and used as a dumb decoration.

And it even isn't the "cool" type of dumb decoration. You buy it, you get stung all the time while transporting it, you'll have needles lying around all over your apartment, it's a fire hazard, and after not even a few days or weeks you'll have to throw it out, which is also super annoying too.

Even worse are those ridiculous plastic Christmas trees. Don't even get me started on these ones!

Solution

Get a (big) houseplant instead!

There are many options for you out there.

You can hang your ornamentals on them and enjoy your own "Christmas tree" all year around without any guilt.

Even better, you even aren't bound to any season. For example, why not hang easter eggs on there in the spring?

Ideas

If you don't have pets, a Monstera might be great for you.

Those are very common and super easy to propagate via cuttings. Just ask your friends or neighbours if you can get one for free :)

Indoor trees, like lemon or avocado trees for example, are a great option if you don't want to spend a single cent and grow them from seed, which is what I'm doing at the moment.

You can also decorate smaller plants, like a Pothos for example.

Decorating your own bonsai would also be an eyecatcher ;)

There are literally endless options out there for you to explore!