alt Hacker NewsI think the selfishness here is related to being fine with generating a pile of electronic waste that becomes a problem for everyone else, as long as he can avoid carrying a few ounces extra.
It's hard to recycle electronics, because separating materials that are chemically bonded together is very labor intensive and isn't worth it from the price of aluminum, copper, lithium, etc alone.
It would have to cost more to dispose of a laptop for this to work out financially.
You’ve identified the real problem. This person’s preferences (and yours and mine) are guided by externalities being priced poorly.
If the consumer was responsible for the real cost of disposal and someone said “I don’t care about repairing it” then it wouldn’t be selfish at all.
But it’s extremely hard to do that. Because if you price proper disposal higher you’ll just get improperly disposed stuff.
A tax on the products to account for this is highly regressive. It’s a complicated muddle.