Recycling

Recycling can go a long way and is more energy efficient. In addition to the immediately useable materials that are preserved it would be useful to have a big pile of just miscellaneous junk close to your settlement, because you never know what you might need. I would recommend the stockpiling of selected raw materials for use in manufacturing:

Beads of borosilicate glass (Pyrex). For manufacturing tubes for lighting and many other uses. A stockpile of glass tubing as is.

Metal stock and tubing, all shapes and sizes.

Nylon beads. Can be used to manufacture tubing, machine parts, fibers, oil-less seals, very versatile.

HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) beads. Can be used as containers, items that don't need to be as durable as the Nylon. Plumbing parts, valves etc.

Polyetheleneterepthalate (Chopped up soda bottles) High strength, high transparency, widely available, very versatile.

A good tip from the Biosphere 2 project: Use food grade machine oil for lubrication, like canola oil. All these resins and beads don't need to be just taking up space in storage. They can be used as packing fill to protect items we want to preserve. All these items are recyclable. If it wears out, breaks, melt it down and make a new one. We could go on like that for quite a while before having to figure out how to make the stuff from scratch, if we haven’t found a better way by then.

There is a low practical limit to the web of technologies we would have to integrate to have a workable, life sustaining system. For some things we may have to go back 100 years or more to find a practical solution, but here are the criteria as I see them. Depend as little as possible on items that are consumable and not recyclable. As much as possible, integrate items that use the same materials. That way when it comes time to recycle you have fewer processes to maintain. Integrate items that use the same parts. You can use one type of part on many different devices, you don't have to know how to make as many different parts. If you do need special devices to get over the hump make sure they have a long lifespan, 20-30 years or more if possible. Priorities: Shelter, air, water, food, energy, very basic medicine, maintenance of the previous priorities, new solutions, growth.

Offered by Steve