I think one of the exciting byproducts of future long term space travel is how it will change people's expectations of the material world. Currently humans generate a significant amount of material which does not have a downstream constituency, and thus is stored, sometimes in less aesthetically acceptable ways like the pictured scrapyard.
Since the topic of TFA is e-waste, many comments here promote "right to repair" legislation as a panacea. I don't think that "right to repair" addresses the root issue in a broad enough way to make a dent. It only addresses a subset of material, operates at hobby scale, and may mandate certain things, like socketed components, that make full-scale automated recycling more difficult.
Since the topic of TFA is e-waste, many comments here promote "right to repair" legislation as a panacea. I don't think that "right to repair" addresses the root issue in a broad enough way to make a dent. It only addresses a subset of material, operates at hobby scale, and may mandate certain things, like socketed components, that make full-scale automated recycling more difficult.