Skip to content

Comment on What if everything we know about recycling is wrong?

Comments

I have a cotton bag in my car. I've been using it for 20 years. It was used 173 times probably in the first 3 years. I have a ceramic coffee mug on my desk. It's moved with me through multiple jobs over the last 25 years. It's been used tens of thousands of times. Some goods are naturally disposable like a Kleenex, but much more could be reusable. The math is right there.

Yes, that is the same point I came in to make about mugs. The author cites "1,000 uses" like its some grand, rarely achieved accomplishment in the life of a mug, when 1/3 of that count represents a single year of once-a-day usage. My two mugs are 20 and 10 years old, and when I use one I use it multiple times a day for weeks. Both have far exceeded "1,000 uses" by now, with probably another 30K (?) uses before I die.

I've never seen a coffee mug, or glass drinking vessel wear out. They always end up broken first.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.