Repair cafés waging war on throwaway culture
I get longer life out of things than most people.  My Subaru is 18 years old and still going just fine.  Unfortunately, its gas tank -- residing above both the power train and parts of the suspension, is otherwise intact but starting to leak at its horizontal seam.  An open-ended, expensive job to replace -- you have to drop everything below it and its unclear how many of those suspension parts would have to be replaced due to age and deterioration.<p>I&#x27;d like to spray a fuel-tolerant liner into it.  If I can find the product and someone -- or the tools -- to do it.<p>Anyway, the point I wanted to make:  We are making <i>so damned much</i> of this stuff.  And I also think we may become &quot;energy rich&quot; as solar and other &quot;next generation&quot; power come online.  In my opinion, as much of this stuff as possible should be made to be as fully recycle-able as possible.  If it can be made a matter of just having enough energy, then melt it down wholesale and separate, ensuring that ensuing volatiles are stripped of their metals and then heated into component atoms or molecules we can collect or tolerate the release of.<p>We can&#x27;t do it, yet.  And certainly not at scale.  But, especially with control of the inputs, maybe we are closer than we think.<p>Closed loop use would also mean less mining and destruction of the environment from production (as opposed to disposal).<p>Meantime, DRM and the like that artificially limits recycling?  A pox.  Counterbalanced against real needs for security, e.g. those replacement iPhone and Android screens that have spyware written into their firmware.<p>P.S.  And are the last two concerns really in opposition to each other, or the same?  If it&#x27;s open and we can confirm what it is, then we can assess its security.