Recycling
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Automated recycling
Combined with sensible design, automated recycling should be capable of recovering the majority of the material from goods and products when they come to the end of their useful life, and re-used to make the next generation. This minimises what needs to be extracted from the ground, and reduces the energy required for material processing.
Automated recycling does not really exist yet in any significant form compared to what will be possible. Increasing amounts of product disassembly do occur, but it is a task better left to machines.
- Production of all parts with indelible barcodes or embedded RFID tags.
- Recycling plants that can disassemble any product whether it's components are tagged or not. Tags identifying components are likely to speed up the process if present.
Re-using
Also relevant in the big picture is making maximum use of an artifact by letting someone else have it after it has finished being useful to the current owner, rather than binning it. People often hoard, or dispose of, many items that would be perfectly useful to other people. More use of eBay, charity shops and initiatives such as Freecycle would significantly improve mankind's resource efficiency.
