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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

June 27, 2021

We still underperform. We use too many resources and dispose of them too quickly. We are ruining our planet. Not for us, but for our children's children, or worse, for our grandchildren's grandchildren.

Still, from time to time, we make some progress, and we should be proud of that. Let me boast a little bit about my accomplishments.

An anecdote: to hell with that damn DIY repair kiddo!

I recently prolonged the 20 year lifetime of my washing machine with hopefully another 10 years by replacing its bearings, brushes, dampers, joints and its pump. I was proud of that.

Therefore, I posted a message on linked-in, taking the opportunity to complain that it was hard to find good documentation. Boy, did I get roasted by some die-hard nitwits that claimed that (1) ordinary people better leave repairs to the professionals, and (2) that my machine was way less energy and water efficient than the new ones.

Fortunately, both claims are wrong. By the way, the company the guy of the first claim worked for, by accident was (due to an international lawsuit) asked to diagnose one of the windows of my house, and - you may laugh out loud - simply failed to diagnose the state of the glass ruler that was suspected to be weak: "it's too complicated and I might damage your window". That much for experts!

It's hard to admit, but the amount of true repair experts is not growing. I experienced that when renewing my kitchen. I promised myself to rant about that, but I'm still too upset to do so.

Anyway, we should invest in good technicians. For every 12-year old that enters TSO or BSO (the more vocational-oriented programmes in Flanders), I give a big round of applause. Ata boy! Ata girl!

We should praise our technicians more and become more of a technician ourselves. In that way, we will better appreciate them!

Good quality gear helps reducing waste!

Today I upgraded my 8 year old Samsung Galaxy Note3 from Android 5 to Android 11. Android 5 was still doing a decent job, but many apps don't support this old an Android version anymore. The Coronalert app being one of them. So instead of condemning my phone to oblivion by sending it to the recycling company, I upgraded it. And to my own supprise: it works!

What enables such an upgrades?

  • good and durable hardware by Samsung
  • not bying the cheapest phone you can get, but one that will last, also performancewise and comfortwise
  • a removable battery (they should impose that by law)
  • a top-quality open source operating system that's based on the rock foundations of GNU/Linux.
  • a lot of volunteers (GNU/Linux, the LineageOS project, the TeamWin Recovery Project, a.s.o.). Thanks to all of them!

What can improve?

  • In both cases: good documentation: either it is not available or you only find the good documentation after shoveling through loads of prozaic dirt and ads.
  • Less lazyness, both from other people (lazyness and sceptiscism are interwoven), but also from ourselves.

We screwed up our planet, let's repair it all together!