Sustainable

[Jolly]

A riff off of the older home thread...

Seems to me, the greenest, most sustainable practice for the planet, would be to build with an eye for durability and ease of repair. The longer something lasts, the less materials we are using to make its replacement.

Look at houses...Why can't we build them to last for hundreds of years without huge amounts of maintenance? Stone, brick, reinforced concrete. Slate or concrete tile roofs. Wiring and plumbing done with easy maintenance or replacement in mind

Or cars? Wouldn't the most green car be something like a durable diesel, with an engine and transmission that could go a half-million miles, then be easily overhauled and last for several more 100,000 miles?

Or maybe something as simple as refillable or recyclable glass containers? QWe suck up a lot of oil just to make plastics. There are easy and simple ways to use other, more durable containers than plastic for many applications.

[Horace]

Perverse incentives of the subscription model that is planned obsolescence probably has a lot to do with it.

[Mik]

I'd love to see much less use of disposable plastic.

[taiwan_girl]

people have very short term outlooks.

And the initial cheaper price makes the difference for them, even if long term it is more expensive.

It is like that experiment that was done. I dont remember it exactly, but it was something like:

They asked X number of people: You have two choices

A. I give you $1,000,000
B. I give you $0.01 on day one, $0.02 on day 2, $0.04 on day 3, doubling every day for 30 days.

Most people take choice A.