![Interior Jacobsen House Bathroom Earthship 2009](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Interior_Jacobsen_House_Bathroom_Earthship_2009.JPG)
Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose (conventional reuse) or to fulfill a different function (
creative reuse or
repurposing
Repurposing is the process by which an object with one use value is transformed or redeployed as an object with an alternative use value.
Description
Repurposing is as old as human civilization, with many contemporary scholars investigating t ...
). It should be distinguished from
recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
, which is the breaking down of used items to make
raw material
A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedst ...
s for the manufacture of new products. Reuse – by taking, but not reprocessing, previously used items – helps save time, money, energy and resources. In broader economic terms, it can make quality products available to people and organizations with limited means, while generating jobs and business activity that contribute to the economy.
Examples
Reuse centers and virtual exchange
![Craft stuff mt angel restore 22798459](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Craft_stuff_mt_angel_restore_22798459.jpg)
These services facilitate the transaction and redistribution of unwanted, yet perfectly usable, materials and equipment from one entity to another. The entities that benefit from either side of this service (as donors, sellers, recipients, or buyers) can be businesses, nonprofits, schools, community groups, and individuals. Some maintain a physical space (a reuse center), and others act as a matching service (a virtual exchange). Reuse centers generally maintain both warehouses and trucks. They take possession of the donated materials and make them available for redistribution or sale.
Virtual exchanges do not have physical space or trucks, but instead allow users to post listings of materials available and wanted (for free or at low cost) on an online materials exchange website. Staff will help facilitate the exchange of these materials without ever taking possession of the materials.
Addressing issues of repair, reuse and recycling
One way to address this is to increase product longevity; either by extending a product's first life or addressing issues of repair, reuse and recycling. Reusing products, and therefore extending the use of that item beyond the point where it is discarded by its first user is preferable to recycling or disposal, as this is the least energy intensive solution, although it is often overlooked.
The EU Circular Economy Package recognises the importance of extending product lifetimes and includes repair and reuse of products in its action plan to ensure products reach their optimum lifespan. If targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are to be reached, then reuse needs to be included as part of a whole life cycle approach.
A strong second hand market-place exists, with charity shops on most high streets, car boot(trunk) sales and online auction sites maintaining popularity and regular TV shows featuring both buying and selling at auction.
Business models providing opportunities
This would not necessarily be a poor strategy for businesses, there are business models that provide opportunities to retain ownership of valuable products and components through leasing, servicing, repair and re-sale.
While it is choices made by consumers that will ultimately determine the success of such ventures, there is huge potential for the reuse of goods and materials to deliver social and economic and environmental benefits. The EU Circular Economy Package, the Scottish Circular Economy Strategy and the national reuse target set by the Spanish Government are examples of governments recognising that second-hand goods should be a good value mainstream option and are working towards making reuse easier for consumers.
In environmental terms, reuse ought to be more common than recycling and
energy recovery
Energy recovery includes any technique or method of minimizing the input of energy to an overall system by the exchange of energy from one sub-system of the overall system with another. The energy can be in any form in either subsystem, but mos ...
, with both the financial and environmental costs of simple refurbishment of some products being a fraction of original manufacturing costs. If we are going to be serious about living in a Circular Economy we need to recognise the value of our waste and ensure resources are kept in the economy for longer, slow down the use of valuable raw materials and ensure that products are reused and materials are recycled rather than landfilled.
Remanufacturing
The most involved reuse organizations are "repair and overhaul" industries which take valuable parts, such as
engine block
In an internal combustion engine, the engine block is the structure which contains the cylinders and other components. In an early automotive engine, the engine block consisted of just the cylinder block, to which a separate crankcase was attac ...
s,
office furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating ( tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). ...
,
toner cartridges,
single-use cameras,
aircraft hulls, and
cathode ray tube
A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms ( oscilloscope), pictu ...
s (CRTs) and refurbish them in a factory environment in order to meet the same/similar specifications as new products.
When the item is resold under the same OEM name, it is informally considered a "gray market" item - if it is sold as used, it's legal, if it's represented as an OEM product eligible for
rebates and
warranties
In contract law, a warranty is a promise which is not a condition of the contract or an innominate term: (1) it is a term "not going to the root of the contract",Hogg M. (2011). ''Promises and Contract Law: Comparative Perspectives''p. 48 Cambri ...
, it is considered "counterfeit" or "black market". The automobile parts industry in the USA is governed by laws on the disclosure of "used" parts and, in some states,
mattresses which have been used are required to be sanitized or destroyed.
Package deposit programs
Deposit programs offer customers a financial incentive to return
packaging
Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a co ...
for reuse. Although no longer common, international experience is showing that they can still be an effective way to encourage packaging reuse. However, financial incentive, unless great, may be less of an incentive than convenience: statistics show that, on average, a milk bottle is returned 12 times, whereas a lemonade bottle with a 15p deposit is returned, on average, only 3 times.
Refillable bottles are used extensively in many European countries; for example in
Denmark
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, 98% of bottles are refillable, and 98% of those are returned by consumers. These systems are typically supported by
deposit laws and other regulations.
Sainsbury Ltd have operated a
plastic carrier bag cash refund scheme in 1991 - “the penny back scheme”. The scheme is reported to save 970 tonnes of plastic per annum. The scheme has now been extended to a penny back on a voucher which can be contributed to schools registered on the scheme; it estimates this will raise the savings in plastic to 2500 tonnes per annum.
![Garrafa cerveja](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Garrafa_cerveja.jpg)
In some developing nations like India and Pakistan, the cost of new bottles often forces manufacturers to collect and refill old glass bottles for selling
cola
Cola is a carbonated soft drink flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils and other flavorings. Cola became popular worldwide after the American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton invented Coca-Cola, a trademarked brand, in 1886, which was imita ...
and other drinks. India and Pakistan also have a way of reusing old newspapers: "Kabadiwalas" buy these from the readers for scrap value and reuse them as packaging or recycle them. Scrap intermediaries help consumer dispose of other materials including metals and plastics.
Closed-loop programs
These apply primarily to items of packaging, for example, where a company is involved in the regular transportation of goods from a central manufacturing facility to warehouses or warehouses to retail outlets. In these cases there is considerable benefit to using reusable “transport packaging” such as plastic crates or pallets.
The benefits of closed-loop reuse are primarily due to low additional transport costs being involved, the empty lorry returning with the empty crates.
There have been some recent attempts to get the public to join in on closed loop reuse schemes where shoppers use reusable plastic baskets in place of carrier bags for transporting their goods home from the supermarket; these baskets fit on specially designed trolleys making shopping supposedly easier.
Refilling programs
There have been some market-led initiatives to encourage packaging reuse by companies introducing
refill pack
"Refill" is a song by American singer-songwriter and R&B recording artist Elle Varner. The song, produced by Andrew "Pop" Wansel, was released on January 31, 2012 as a digital download, and serves as the second single from her debut studio ...
s of certain commodities (mainly soap powders and cleaning fluids), the contents being transferred before use into a reusable package kept by the customer, with the savings in packaging being passed onto the customer by lower shelf prices. The refill pack itself is not reused, but being a minimal package for carrying the product home, it requires less material than one with the durability and features (reclosable top, convenient shape, etc.) required for easy use of the product, while avoiding the transport cost and emissions of returning the reusable package to the factory.
Regifting
The average American, for example, throws away 67.9 pounds of used clothing and rags.
Repurposing
Repurposing is to use a tool for use as another tool, usually for a purpose unintended by the original tool-maker. Typically, repurposing is done using items usually considered to be junk or garbage. A good example of this would be the
Earthship
An Earthship is a style of architecture developed in the late 20th century to early 21st century by architect Mike Reynolds (architect), Michael Reynolds. Earthships are designed to behave as Passive solar building design, passive solar earth s ...
style of house, that uses tires as insulating walls and bottles as glass walls. Reuse is not limited to repeated uses for the same purpose. Examples of repurposing include using tires as
boat fender
In boating, a fender is a bumper used to absorb the kinetic energy of a boat or vessel berthing against a jetty, quay wall or other vessel. Fenders, used on all types of vessels, from cargo ships to cruise ships, Ferry, ferries and personal yacht ...
s and
steel drum
The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists.
Descript ...
s or plastic drums as
feeding troughs and/or composting bins.
Reuse of waste water and excreta in agriculture
The nutrients, i.e. nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients, and organic matter contained in
wastewater
Wastewater is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. Another definition of wastewater is "Used water from any combination of domestic, industr ...
, excreta (
urine
Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excretion, excreted from the body through the urethra.
Cel ...
and
feces) and
greywater
Greywater (or grey water, sullage, also spelled gray water in the United States) refers to domestic wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination, i.e., all streams except for the wastewater from ...
have traditionally been reused in agriculture in many countries and are still being reused in agriculture to this day - unfortunately often in an unregulated and unsafe manner. This is particularly a problem in many developing countries (e.g. Mexico, India, Bangladesh, Ghana) where untreated or poorly treated wastewater is used directly in agriculture. The WHO Guidelines from 2006 have set up a framework how this reuse can be done safely by following a multiple barrier approach.
Waste valorization
Measuring the impact of reuse, reuse metrics
Determining the balance of how the several effects of reuse interact is often best accomplished by a formal
life cycle assessment
Life cycle assessment or LCA (also known as life cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case o ...
. For example, research has shown that reusing a product can reduce CO2 emissions and
carbon footprint
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
by more than 50% relative to the complete product life cycle. A relatively unknown effective way to reduce CO2 emissions and carbon footprint is reusing products. Often the relative carbon footprint of manufacturing and the
supply chain is unknown.
Internalized environmental costs
![PS 109 rehab 215 E](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/PS_109_rehab_215_E._99th_St_jeh.jpg)
A
Pigovian tax
A Pigouvian tax (also spelled Pigovian tax) is a tax on any market activity that generates negative externalities (i.e., external costs incurred by the producer that are not included in the market price). The tax is normally set by the government ...
is an
environmental tax
An environmental tax, ecotax (short for ecological taxation), or green tax is a tax levied on activities which are considered to be harmful to the environment and is intended to promote environmentally friendly activities via economic incentives. ...
: a charge on items that reflects the environmental costs of their manufacture and disposal. This makes the environmental benefit of using one reusable item instead of many disposable ones into a financial incentive. Such charges have been introduced in some countries.
See also
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Code reuse
In software development (and computer programming in general), code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software, following the reusability principles.
Code reuse may be achie ...
*
Computer recycling
Computer recycling, electronic recycling or e-waste recycling is the disassembly and separation of components and raw materials of waste electronics. Although the procedures of re-use, donation and repair are not strictly recycling, these are oth ...
*
Micro-sustainability
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Rechargeable battery
*
Remanufacturing
*
Resealable packaging
Resealable packaging is any type of packaging that allows the consumer or user to reseal or reclose the packaging. Often packaging needs to be resealed in order to maintain product freshness or prevent spillage. Reusable packaging allows for mul ...
*
Resource recovery
Resource recovery is using wastes as an input material to create valuable products as new outputs. The aim is to reduce the amount of waste generated, thereby reducing the need for landfill space, and optimising the values created from waste. Reso ...
*
Reusable launch vehicle
A reusable launch vehicle have parts that can be recovered and reflown, while carrying payloads from the surface to outer space. Rocket stages are the most common launch vehicle parts aimed for reuse. Smaller parts such as rocket engines and boos ...
*
Reusable shopping bag
A reusable shopping bag, sometimes called a bag-for-life in the UK, is a type of shopping bag which can be reused many times, in contrast to single-use paper or plastic shopping bags. It is often a tote bag made from fabric such as canvas, natu ...
*
Reusable spacecraft
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Reuse of bottles
A reusable bottle is a bottle that can be reused, as in the case as by the original bottler or by end-use consumers. Reusable bottles have grown in popularity by consumers for both environmental and health safety reasons. Reusable bottles are one e ...
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Reuse of human excreta
Reuse of human excreta is the safe, beneficial use of treated human excreta after applying suitable treatment steps and risk management approaches that are customized for the intended reuse application. Beneficial uses of the treated excreta may ...
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Scrap
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Used good
Used goods mean any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps.
Risks
Furniture, in particular bedding or upholstere ...
*
Waste minimization
Waste minimisation is a set of processes and practices intended to reduce the amount of waste produced. By reducing or eliminating the generation of harmful and persistent wastes, waste minimisation supports efforts to promote a more sustainab ...
References
{{Sharing economy
Waste management concepts