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Discussion: I have an idea how can we recycle old tec?

2 points by jamesandthewolf ↗ HN
I want to talk about a potential idea to recycle old tec to help stop contributing to global warming its been ticking over in my head. Can we turn old machines into arcade devices and use the profits from this to buy up more and expand. I can not do this alone and need help as its a very big proejct.

15 comments

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jamesandthewolf
I also need to learn a lot but I am willing to give this a real go as I beleive it can work I just need a good serious group to get into this.
gregjor
I suspect that the number of arcade machines the world might need would require only a small fraction of the discarded hardware available. Much of the discarded hardware will require labor-intensive repair work, offsetting any profits, and then there's the maintenance of those recycled machines to consider. You might have noticed that arcades have disappeared now that people can game with consoles and PCs at home.
jamesandthewolf
Yes and my thinking is to leverage this recycling old tec to reassign it one household one machine that only requires part replacement not full replacement and these parts are made from recycled hardware. Discarded Cellphones, computer, gaming consoles, all tec repurposed. Stopping waste a more effective renewable solution little to no waste
gregjor
Good luck with that. I think you’ll find out why no one is doing this. Recycling costs more than building new.
jamesandthewolf
Maybe it costs more but I'm not sure in the long run it will, if it can be brought down to just upgrading parts of a system it will be cheaper to maintain. Also governments are starting to look for the green alternative so it could in fact offset costs. It's a big idea I don't even know where or how to start but I know that on the current state of things it would take hold.
smoldesu
I'm going to humor you, and give you the "Elon Musk" solution here. Take it, leave it or run with it, I couldn't care less.

- Start small, establish yourself on a site like Etsy and sell directly to the consumer. You cannot scale this up until you prove that it's possible to turn dead electronics into consoles quickly, efficiently, and cheaply.

- Focus on a single hardware architecture. x86 would be the easiest, as it gives you a super-solid base for running Linux and all of it's trappings, as well as a huge range of computers to pick from (2005-present day).

- Automate your software solution early. Make sure that your entire install process takes minimal interaction, this will be crucial for your scaling. Write a bash script to automate the installation of Linux and all of your emulation software.

If you can figure that out, you might have a cute home business and a fun alternative revenue source. Saving the planet though? Every little bit counts, but you're hardly saving the Earth by turning trash into slightly more fun trash. You'd hardly even be competing against other manufacturers, and they'd simply continue to pump out consoles faster than you can transform computers. If you want sustainability, go for the high-end market and drive insane margins with fancy wooden cabs. If you want to make a difference, you're going to need to optimize your manufacturing process to an impossible level of efficiency. I say this as someone who has home-made several arcade cabs at this point: I simply don't see a project like this making an impact. But it's your time, so feel free to chase it.

gregjor
Yeah use wood cabinets and then ship the arcades around by plane and truck. That will move the needle on climate change.
smoldesu
Oh, I'm definitely not coming at this from a save-the-earth perspective. Like I said, this is a fun side hobby at best, definitely not some eco-warrior type deal.
jamesandthewolf
You could come at this from a save the earth perspective though it's actually kind of possible if you establish your recycling depos in their respective countries. The arcade machine part does not scale that is more to get a proof of concept off the ground you then expand into a limited product line, arcade for gaming, computers for gaming I guess and business, cell phones, you could do audio and other tec but you make a solid product that last a long long time and only requires you replace parts of the system which is where you could make money. Think about if there is heaps and heaps of tec that gets dumped into land full as waste you are taking that waste and using parts to make a renew able tec line that does not break down. The reason why it's not done now is that people want to make money so maybe you rent this or something but it will and would work. It could majorly cut down on consumption the game aspect is just to prove it works.
smoldesu
It sounds like you're not very well-acquainted with the logistics of this scenario, which is fine: like I said, you could very well do this if it's something you care about, and nobody would bat an eye. Doing this to save the environment is totally the wrong reason though, especially in the long-term.

Consider the following: you can run an SNES emulator off a 45-watt laptop from 2009, but you could also run the same software on a 1.2-watt Raspberry Pi. That's a 10-50x reduction in power consumption, which is hugely significant when it comes to reducing energy use. Conversely, we could take that same 45-watt laptop and melt down it's component parts, stripping it for the trace amounts of copper, aluminium and gold it contains, and turn it into 5 Raspberry Pis. I'm all-for reusing older equipment, but the overwhelming majority of trashed tech is not worth saving.

I really recommend doing your research before you hop into a project like this. I've worked on engineering teams with 20-30 people before, and I can tell you right now that managing your expectations is crucial for a project of this scale. Like I said earlier, you'd only really be turning trash into slightly more useful trash. Unless you've got some hard numbers here that I've somehow missed, I've got a hard time seeing how you'd put this together.

jamesandthewolf
the end result would be to run the tec as modern as possible but creating it by recycling old tec, eventually that would be to totally melt down and rebuild, the numbers are already there in the number of sales that each house hould makes for electronic devices, also the amount of tec in landfulls

Here is an artice https://time.com/5594380/world-electronic-waste-problem/

Here is another article https://www.popsci.com/recycle-tech-e-waste-centers/

These devices are not made to last long perionds of time, Like for example you can see this light bulb here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light#:~:text=The%2....

Its been going for a long time and I truly believe we can make a tec stack that can in fact lead to less waste as you are clearnly saying with the Raspberry Pi watt usage. We should be upgrading old tec to use these more effective stacks with out needing to replace the entire systems. That should be the end game, to get there I do not know and I do need to start to look into more. I expect to fail and learn and fail and learn.

Look I do not know all the Hardware logistics I do know that it should be possible to upgrade your phone with out needing to buy a full new phone and you should be able to just pay for the parts to do this, at the moment you can not do that well you can but its totally cheaper to just buy a whole new phone and this should not be the case. So again the numbers for this do not exist as the idea does not really exist on scale that will impact the environment by making a more sustaiable resouce out of tec.

I do not have all the logistics I do not beleive I will get everything right first attempt but I know that I can learn and fail and build along the way to make an end product actually really really really impactful. I know its possible I just can not work it all out in my head and alone its very difficult to achieve this. But the hard things in life are the ones we should go after other wise what is the point in this life?

As for working with 30 or 40 developers in a team....easy as, this is a good problem to face but just work with them how you would work with any one just do it on a larger scale. I do not need to be telling 40 people what to do, All that would need to happen is these people are imspired to find answer to questions and things where there is no answer for. Simple as that. It would work I know it would and everyone would need to get stuck in and solve very difficult things. All will need to have an input to achieve something amazing. Its possible I know it is

gregjor
Logistics. Collecting, storing, and distributing — all labor-intensive and expensive at scale — will turn into the biggest costs. Unless recycling happens at scale it doesn’t make a big enough difference.
gregjor
Years ago I volunteered with Free Geek in Portland (https://www.freegeek.org/shop). They collect old technology, refurbish what they can, recycle what they can't. Working computers are given to or sold cheap to people who need a PC. They also have classes and other activities.

That's a small-scale example of recycling hardware that would otherwise go in the trash. I imagine programs like Free Geek exist in other cities.

Lots of companies and organizations offer free computer hardware recycling: Apple, Dell, Goodwill, BestBuy. I don't know how much recycling they actually do.

You're describing something more ambitious and labor-intensive. It costs more (in terms of labor and logistics) to recycle old or broken hardware than it does to replace it with new hardware. Breaking hardware down into reusable components or metal scrap is both labor and technology intensive (and so happens in developing-world countries).

Given the huge variation in hardware, peripherals, drivers, etc. I don't think you can just set up some kind of automated process to transform random hardware, possibly broken, into a working arcade machine (or a working anything). Besides the logistics and labor issues, a lot of modern hardware is designed and manufactured to prevent removing parts without destroying them, or replacing parts. Do you have the equipment to replace soldered components on modern circuit boards, and the people to run that equipment?

jamesandthewolf
Come on man I'm alone at the moment I struggle to brush my teeth in the morning let alone solder mother boards. However I've been investigating further, televisions and cd players seam to be quite easily acquired, maybe its more about approaching it from an angle that just gets some traction, the technology of a parts based system kind of exists but would need streaming like Netflix's and just supply the Hardwear to achieve this with parts that could be replaced.

Gaming consoles would be just proof of concept, and it would start to not recycle old computers but repurpose them with emulators to play old games at first. The expand from here. Big wheels turn slowly

jamesandthewolf
I actually think I have it worked out how to recycle older games and legally sell them, it would be to collectors to start, this would be the base to start moving into recycling.

I don't mind if others try or take this idea but it would work, you can't legally sell the ROMs. You can sell second hand copies of old games you own. I believe you are allowed the ROMs legally only if you own the game so you bundle it up ROMs and physical copy of old game.

How can you ensure that the user won't share the ROM with others.... That part Ive worked out as well. I just can't do everything on my own it's to much with all my other projects as well.