zerowaste

As tons of plastic waste continue to build up in landfills every day, researchers have developed a way to convert this waste into fuels and other valuable products efficiently and cheaply.

The study: Selective electrified polyethylene upcycling by pore-modulated pyrolysis

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/49609301

I’ve found that a crankset that comes with rivet-attached sprockets costs the same as cranksets with no sprockets. So we get ripped off either way. The all-in-one piece wastes a crankset everytime the sprocket wears out and probably overspends on sprockets. And the universal crank fleeces you up front by cheating you out of a set of sprockets.

The rivets on my crankset are 72mm apart. Is there any reason I shouldn’t ragefully take an angle grinder to them?

Will I merely have to find sprockets with aligned holes, or could I run into other compatibility issues like mismatched hole sizes or other mating problems?

The bcd cribsheet shows a standard “Shimano 2003 XTR MX960 4-arm middle” has the bolts 72.1mm apart. So it seems I could get lucky though it’s a bit scary that a specific year (2003) is mentioned.

Not my website! Just a cool thing I encountered. I no longer have periods, but when I did, my flow was incredibly heavy and I spent a lot of money on pads (and of course threw away hundreds of them). I know reusable pads aren't an option for everybody, but they're definitely a great way to reduce waste! Of course, another good option would be buying menstrual underwear etc, but as someone who sews I thought I'd share this for other people who sew <3

(Also you can do cute patterns!)

A few fun facts:

• Cotton cloth pads smell better because they allow moisture to evaporate (rather than it being trapped in by plastic)
• You can wash them by hand or just rinse them to throw in with the rest of your clothes
• Research estimates that people who menstruate use about 11,400 pads in their lifetime

Hope this is helpful for someone!

Proving Zero Waste Works—even in Islands 08 June 2025 - Philippines - Island communities face extra challenges in waste management, but the success of

Lauren Mason decided to take action after witnessing huge amounts of camping gear abandoned at festivals

I have been buying the 20 or 25 pound sacks of Blue Bird flour. But my son's cat scratches the bags and eventually tears them. I currently have the sack in an old pop corn tin. However, when the sack is too full I cannot put on the lid. I am looking for ideas for something larger to use, without having to dump the flour into the tin.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21937555

A box of really old TomToms (softball sized) appeared at a street market a year ago, two for a dollar. I doubt anyone was interested in any and I doubt the seller would bother to return with them. They were probably be wasted.

In principle, old TomToms could be used to feed a smartphone. If you use a smartphone for navigation, these components compete to suck the battery dry:

• the color LCD
• GPS radio receiver
• WiFi¹
• GSM¹

(1) only applies to Google boot-lickers who enable location tracking in order to avoid the wait to acquire satellites.

The GPS is a significant drain because it’s heavy on non-stop calculations, which generates heat (wasted energy), and the heat itself hits the battery even harder.

We can do better. TomToms with bluetooth tend to suppot NMEA (I think). So the old TomTom w/outdated maps could be used purely to get a fix using its own battery supply, which it then transmits over bluetooth. So you toss TT in your backpack. Disable the GPS on your smartphone and enable bluetooth. Bluetooth is like 1 tenth the energy consumption of GPS. Then you enable mock GPS in advanced settings and run a FOSS bluetooth app that serves as middleware to feed the mock location.

The problem: OSMand and Organic Maps are both incapable of using mock GPS locations. And even if they add the capability, it would only be in their recent version which has already left behind older phones. (edit: well Organic Maps is not that bad… their latest version supports AOS 5)

Refusing to support Google means using airplane mode with location svcs off and being wholly dependent on GPS. And for whatever reason it takes me around 20—30 min to get a fix despite being in a large major city; every time. This must make Google happy. The old TomToms were faster at getting a fix. IIRC, they would take 20—30″ only the first time but quickly got a fix after subsequent power cycles in the same area thereafter.

Smartphones have the sensors to do inertial nav if you calibrate a starting point. But the apps don’t have their shit together yet. I vaguely a recall a FOSS app doing inertial nav, but not too useful if it results in a mock location that OSMand cannot handle.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21474632

All my local junkyards accept e-waste but they bounce anyone who shows up with a screwdriver. Once a machine is dumped, it becomes the property of the junkyard who sees repairers who remove stuff as a threat to their bottom line, which comes from the melt value of the metals. I cannot even pay for the parts even if I wanted. I have been kicked out of junkyards enough times that the whole staff recognises me now. It’s really fucked up that the shitty melt value of the metals is prioritised above consumers will to repair.

The disposal chain goes like this:

1. consumer dumps appliance waste (sometimes straight to the dump, sometimes to an org in step 2)
2. some org that decides if the thing is broken or not
3. if it works → goes to a charity to resell
4. if reparable → goes to a charity to fix and resell
5. if “non-repairable” → broken down for proper disposal

That last step uses scare quotes because they are piled under such an unsurmountable stock pile of disposed appliances that only trivially repairable things get repaired. Countless things that are either repairable or good for parts get destroyed. I suspect there is a blanket assumption that inkjet printers are never regarded as repairable.

The idea of repurposing is completely absent from this process. E.g. they would never remove a broken LCD panel from a flat screen device and use it to make a lightbox / table for a stained glass artist or photographer who looks at slides.

Step 5 needs a mod. Everything not put through the charity should go to a weather-protected staging area where the general public can walk through and take what they want. Every item should be there for at least a week or two before breakdown.

Freeloaders might use such a mechanism to grab things with a high melt value. But I’m not sure a petition to the city needs to address that -- it’s the city’s problem to solve.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21474636

If I have a Whirlpool machine model XYZ, broken or not I should be able to add a record to a DB that says notify me if a machine of that model is disposed of so I can pick it up for parts or come and just remove a part that I need.

Yes, this means staff in the e-waste disposal services would need to look up the model of every item disposed to see if a repairer wants to be contacted. Is that too much to ask?

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?