• Caboose@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Fiber optic cables are very much not recyclable, at least with the current recycling technologies.

      • xradeon@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Sure, but the glass core is only 8–9 µm wide, it’s a minuscule amount of glass compared to copper cables so it’s not really worth it to melt it down.

        • Caboose@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Most optical fiber is 125um of glass with 250um coating. The coating and the jacketing that make up the cable (mostly non-recyclable plastic) are the real problem.

        • Strykker@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          But it’s still dirt fucking cheap to produce.

          The expensive parts of fibre are the transmitters/receivers at each end and the labour to splice/terminate it properly.