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Can We Make Bicycles Sustainable Again?

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Illustration: [Diego Marmolejo](https://www.instagram.com/ddidak/).

Cycling is sustainable, but how sustainable is the bicycle?

Cycling is one of the most sustainable modes of transportation. Increased ridership reduces fossil fuel consumption and pollution, saves space, and improves public health and safety. However, the bicycle itself has managed to elude environmental critique. ¹² Studies that calculate the environmental impact of cycling almost always compare it to driving, with predictable results: the bicycle is more sustainable than the car. Such research may encourage people to cycle more often but doesn’t encourage manufacturers to make their bicycles as sustainable as possible.

For this article, I have consulted academic studies that compare different types of bicycles against each other or focus on the manufacturing stage of a particular two-wheeler. That kind of research was virtually non-existent until three or four years ago. Using the available material, I compare different generations of bicycles. Set in a historical context, it becomes clear that the resource use of a bike’s production increases while its lifetime is becoming shorter. The result is a growing environmental footprint. That trend has a clear beginning. The bicycle evolved very slowly until the early 1980s and then suddenly underwent a fast succession of changes that continues up to this day.

There are no studies about bicycles built before the 1980s. Life cycle analyses, which investigate the resource use of a product from “cradle” to “grave,” only appeared in the 1990s. However, the benchmark for a sustainable bicycle stands in the room where I write this. It’s my 1980 Gazelle Champion road bike – now 43 years old. I bought it ten years ago in Barcelona from a tall German guy who was leaving the city. He had tears in his eyes when I walked away with it. I have a second road bike, a Mercier from 1978. That is my spare vehicle in case the other one breaks and I don’t have the time for immediate repairs. I have two more road bikes parked in Belgium, where I grew up and where I still travel a few times a year (by train, not by bike). These are a Plume Vainqueur from the late 1960s and a Ventura from the 1970s.

The main reason why I have opted for old bicycles is that they are much better than new bicycles. Most people don’t realize that, so they are also much cheaper. My four bikes cost me just 500 euros in total. That would buy me only one low-cost new road bike, and such a vehicle surely won’t last 40 to 50 years – as we shall see. Of course, it’s not just old road bikes which are better. The same goes for other types of bicycles built before the 1980s. I ride road bicycles because I cover relatively long distances, usually between 35 and 50 km round trip.

Image: The bicycle I use most often, a Gazelle Champion from 1980. It has covered at least 30,000 km since I bought it in 2013.

What bicycles are made of

The first significant change in the bicycle manufacturing industry was the switch from steel to aluminium bicycles. Before the 1980s, virtually all bikes were made from steel. They had a steel frame, wheels, components and parts. Nowadays, most bicycle frames and wheels are built from aluminum. The same goes for many other bike parts. More recently, an increasing number of cycles have frames and wheels made from carbon fibre composites. Some bike frames are built from titanium or stainless steel. All of these materials are more energy intensive to produce than steel. Furthermore, while steel and aluminum can be recycled and repaired, composite fibres can only be downcycled and have poor repairability. ³

Several studies have compared the energy and carbon costs of bicycle frames and other components made from these different materials – which all have different strength-to-weight ratios. That research has some limitations. Scientists use crude methods because they lack detailed energy data from bike manufacturing processes, and some studies come from manufacturers who pay researchers to review the sustainability of their products. Nevertheless, all put together, the results are pretty consistent. For the sake of brevity, I focus on emissions (CO2 = CO2-equivalents) and ignore other environmental impacts.

Before the 1980s, virtually all bicycles were made from steel.

Reynolds, a British manufacturer known for its bicycle tubing, found that making a steel frame costs 17.5 kg CO2, while a titanium or stainless steel frame costs around 55 kg CO2 per frame – three times as much. ⁴ Starling Cycles, a rare producer of steel mountain bikes, concluded that a typical carbon frame uses 16 times more energy than a steel frame. ⁵ (That would be 280 kg CO2). An independent 2014 study – the first of its kind – calculated the footprint of an aluminum road bike frame with carbon fork from the “Specialized” brand and found the cost to be 2,380 kilowatt-hours of primary energy and over 250 kg of carbon – roughly 14 times that of a steel frame (without fork) as calculated by Reynolds. ²

A bicycle is more than a frame alone. Life cycle analyses of entire bikes show that the carbon footprint of all the other components is at least as large as that of a steel frame. ⁶ Scientists have calculated the lifetime carbon emissions of a steel bike at 35 kg CO2, compared to 212 kg CO2 for an aluminum bicycle. ⁷⁸ The most detailed life cycle analysis sets the carbon footprint for an 18.4 kg aluminum bicycle at 200 kg CO2, including its spare parts, for a lifetime of 15,000 km. The main impact phase is the preparation of materials (74%; aluminum, stainless steel, rubber), followed by the maintenance phase (15.5% for 3.5 new sets of tires, six brake pads, one chain, and one cassette) and the assembly phase (5%). ⁹

Where & how bicycles are made

My steel bicycles date from a time when most industrialized countries had long-established domestic bicycle industries serving their national market. ³ These industries collapsed in Europe and North America following neoliberal globalization in the late 1970s. China opened to foreign investment and quickly became the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world. During the last two decades, China has made two-thirds of the world’s bicycles (60-70 million of 110 million annually). Most of the rest come from other Asian countries. Europe is back to producing ten million bikes annually, but the US only manufactures 60,000 bicycles per year. ³

Throughout the twentieth century, manufacturing bicycles required substantial inputs of human labor. ³ According to the Routledge Companion to Cycling, “wheels were spoked and trued manually; frames were built by hand; saddle making was laborious; headsets, gear clusters (blocks), brake cables and gears were physically bolted on.” Since the 2000s, automation has considerably reduced the need for human labor. The largest Chinese bike manufacturer, which builds one-fifth of the world’s bicycles, has 42 bicycle assembly lines making 55,000 bicycles a day – almost as much as the US in a year. ³

Domestic bicycles industries in Europe and North America collapsed following neoliberal globalization in the late 1970s.

The globalization and automation of the bicycle industry make bikes less sustainable. First, they introduce extra emissions for transportation (from raw materials, components, and bicycles) and for producing and operating robots and other machinery. Second, producing steel, aluminum, carbon fiber composites, and electricity is more energy and carbon-intensive in China and other bike-producing countries than in Europe and North America. ¹⁰ Most importantly, however, is that large-scale automated production represents sunk capital that needs to be working most of the time to spread overhead costs, driving overproduction. ³

How long bicycles last

How much energy and other resources it takes to build a bicycle and to deliver it to a cyclist is just half the story. At least as importantly is how long the bike lasts. The shorter its lifetime, the more vehicles need to be produced over the lifetime of a cyclist, and the higher the resource use becomes.

For a long life expectancy, some parts of a bicycle need replacement. These are typically smaller parts such as shifters, chains, and brakes. ¹¹ Until a few decades ago, component compatibility was a hallmark of bicycle manufacturing. ¹² My bicycles are a perfect example of this. Most components – such as wheels, gear set, and brakes – are interchangeable between the different frames, even though every vehicle is from another brand and year of construction. Component compatibility allows for easy maintenance and repairability, thereby increasing the lifetime of a bicycle. Bike shops in even the smallest villages can repair all types of bicycles using a limited set of tools and spare parts. ¹² Cyclists can do minor repairs at home.

Unfortunately, compatibility is hardly a feature of bicycle manufacturing anymore. Manufacturers have introduced an increasing number of proprietary parts and keep changing standards, resulting in compatibility issues even for older bicycles of the same brand. ¹³ For example, if the shifter of a modern bike breaks after some years of use, a replacement part will probably no longer be available. You need to order a new set from a new generation, which will be incompatible with your front and rear derailleur – which you also need to replace. ¹² For road bikes, the change from cassette bodies with ten sprockets (around 2010) to cassette bodies with eleven, twelve, and most recently thirteen sprockets have made many wheelsets obsolete, and the same goes for the rest of the drivetrain including shifters and chains. ¹²¹

Before the 1980s, most bicycle components were interchangeable between frames of different brands and generations.

Disc brakes, which are now on almost every new bicycle, all have different axle designs, meaning that every vehicle now requires proprietary spare parts. ¹ Disc brakes also required new shifters, forks, framesets, cables, and wheels, making such bicycles incompatible with earlier designs. ¹² The rise of proprietary parts makes it increasingly hard to keep a bike on the road through maintenance, reuse, and refurbishment. As the number of incompatible components grows, it becomes impossible for bike shops to have a complete stock of spare parts. ¹²

Component incompatibility is accompanied by decreasing component quality. An example is the saddle, which hardly ever outlasts a frameset because it cracks at the bottom of the shell. ¹² A little extra material would make it last forever – as proven by all saddles of my 40 to 50-year-old road bikes. Low quality affects some parts of expensive bicycles but is especially problematic for cheap bicycles made entirely of low-quality components. Cheap bicycles – bike mechanics refer to them as “built-to-fail bikes” or “bike-shaped objects” – often have plastic parts that break easily and cannot be replaced or upgraded. These vehicles typically last only a few months. ¹³¹⁴

Illustration: [Diego Marmolejo](https://www.instagram.com/ddidak/).

How bicycles are powered

So far, we have only dealt with entirely human-powered bicycles, but bikes with electric motors are becoming increasingly popular. The number of e-bikes sold worldwide grew from 3.7 million in 2019 to 9.7 million in 2021 (10% of total bike sales and up to 40% in some countries like Germany). Electric bikes reinforce both trends that make bicycles less sustainable. On the one hand, electric motors and batteries require additional resources such as lithium, copper, and magnets, increasing the energy use and emissions of bike manufacturing. Researchers have calculated the greenhouse gas emissions caused by manufacturing an aluminum e-bike at 320 kg. ⁸ This compares to 212 kg for the production of an unassisted aluminum bicycle and 35 kg for an unassisted steel bicycle.

On the other hand, the life expectancy of an electric bicycle is shorter than that of an unassisted two-wheeler because it has more points of failure. The breakdown of the extra components – motor, battery, electronics – leads to a shorter lifecycle due to component incompatibility. An academic study on circularity in the bike manufacturing industry observes a significant increase in defective components compared to unassisted bicycles and concludes that “the great dynamics of the market due to regular innovations, product renewals, and the lack of spare parts for older models make the long-term use by customers much more difficult than for conventional bicycles.” ¹⁵

Electric bikes reinforce both trends that make bicycles less sustainable.

On top of this, electric bicycles require electricity for their operation, further increasing resource use and emissions. This impact is relatively small when compared to the manufacturing phase. After all, humans provide part of the power, and the electricity use of an electric bike (25 km/h) is only around 1 kilowatt-hour per 100 km. The average greenhouse gas emission intensity of electricity generation in Europe in 2019 was 275 gCO2/kWh. ¹⁶ If an e-bike lasts 15,000 km, charging the battery only adds 41 kg of CO2, compared to 320 kg for producing the (aluminum) bicycle. Even in the US and China, where the carbon intensity of the power grid is 50-100% higher than the European value, electric bicycle production dominates total emissions and energy use.

Cargo cycles

Combining energy-intensive materials, short lifetimes, and electric motor assistance can increase lifecycle emissions to surprising levels, especially for cargo cycles. These vehicles are larger and heavier than passenger bicycles and need more powerful motors and batteries. There are very few life cycle analyses of cargo cycles. However, a recent study calculated the lifecycle emissions of a carbon fiber electric cargo cycle to be 80 gCO2 per kilometer – only half those of an electric van (158 gCO2/km). ¹⁷ The researchers explain this by the difference in lifetime mileage – 34,000 km compared to 240,000 km for the van – and the carbon fiber composites in many components, including the chassis of the vehicle. The lifecycle emissions of the cargo cycle, including the electricity used to charge its battery, amount to 2,689 kg. That is almost 40 times the lifecycle emissions of two steel bicycles (each with a 15,000 km lifecycle mileage).

Extending the useful life of electric bicycles has less impact on lifecycle emissions when compared to unassisted bikes. That’s because the battery needs to be replaced every 3 to 4 years and the motor every ten years, which adds to the resource use of spare parts. ¹¹ This is demonstrated by a life cycle analysis of an electric steel cargo cycle with an assumed life expectancy of 20 years. ¹⁸ During its lifetime, the vehicle uses five batteries (each weighing 8,5 kg), two motors, and 3.5 sets of tires. Most lifecycle emissions are caused by these spare parts, with the batteries alone accounting for 40% of the total emissions. In comparison, the emissions for the steel frame are almost insignificant. ¹⁸ This particular cargo cycle was built for African roads and is not entirely representative of the average cargo cycle, mainly because of its heavy tires.

Cargo cycles have another disadvantage. Passenger bicycles and cars usually carry only one person, meaning that one passenger kilometer on a bike roughly equals one passenger kilometer in an automobile. However, for cargo, the comparison of ton-kilometers is more complicated. If the load is relatively light – usually up to 150 kg – the electric cargo cycle will be less carbon-intensive than a van. However, heavier loads require several cargo cycles to replace one van, which multiplies the embodied emissions. ¹⁸ Switching to cargo cycles without significantly reducing the cargo volume is unlikely to save emissions. Obviously, cargo cycles with steel frames and without electric motors and batteries – for now still the majority – will have much lower carbon emissions over their lifetimes.

How bicycles are used

In recent years, many cities have introduced shared bicycle services. In theory, shared bicycles could lower the number of bikes produced and thus decrease the environmental impact of bicycle production. However, building and operating bike-sharing services adds significant energy use and emissions. Furthermore, shared bicycles don’t last as long as privately owned bicycles. Consequently, shared bike services further reinforce the trends that make bicycles less sustainable.

A 2021 study compares the environmental impact of shared and private bicycles while including the infrastructure that each option requires. It concludes that personal bikes are more sustainable than shared bicycles. ⁸ The research is based on the Vélib system in Paris, France, which has 19,000 vehicles, roughly half with an electric motor. Vehicle manufacturing and bike-sharing infrastructure cause more than 90% of emissions and energy use. The remaining emissions are due to the construction of cycle lanes (3.5%), the rebalancing of the bicycles to keep all stations optimally supplied (2%), and the electricity used for charging the batteries of the electric bikes (0.3%). Altogether, a shared bicycle from the Vélib system has an emissions rate of 32g CO2/km, which is three to ten times higher than the rate of a personal bike (between 3.5 gCO2/km for a steel bicycle and 10.5 g CO2/km for an aluminum bicycle. ⁸

Building and operating bike-sharing services adds significant energy use and emissions

The scientists found that the bike-sharing service led to a 15% drop in bike ownership. However, they also calculated that the average lifespan of a shared bicycle is only 14.7 months, with an average lifetime mileage of 12,250 km. In comparison, the average lifetime of a personal bike in France, based on a 2020 survey, is around 20,000 km – almost 50% higher than for shared bicycles. The Vélib system includes 14,000 bike-sharing stations with a total surface of 92,000 m2 and an estimated lifetime of ten years. Each of the 46,500 docks consists of 23 kg steel and 0.5 kg plastic. The power consumption of each bike-sharing station is around 6,000 kWh per year. Due to the high impact of the infrastructure, the lifecycle emissions of shared electric bikes are only 24% higher than those of shared non-electric vehicles. ⁸

The environmental footprint of bike-sharing systems can vary significantly between cities. A life cycle analysis of bike-sharing services in the US found carbon emissions of 65g CO2/km – twice as high as in Paris. ¹⁹ This is largely because the US systems rebalance the bicycles using diesel vans, while the French service employs electric tractors. The US study also looks at the newer generation of “dockless” bike-sharing services, which score even worse. Dockless shared bikes can be parked anywhere and located through a smartphone application. Although this removes the need for stations, each bicycle requires energy-intensive electronic components, and the system also generates emissions through communication networks. ¹⁹¹⁰ Furthermore, dockless systems require more bicycles and involve more rebalancing.

A life cycle analysis of Chinese bike-sharing services, many dockless systems, shows high damage rates and low maintenance rates for bicycles. The annual damage rate is 10-20% for reinforced bicycles and 20-40% for lighter vehicles which have become more common. In practice, a shared bicycle becomes scrap when the bike part with the worst durability breaks down. Repair is virtually not happening. ¹⁰ Finally, when the companies go bankrupt, bike sharing creates mountains of waste – including bicycles in good condition. ¹⁰ ¹

Image: Lifecycle carbon emissions per kilometre of riding a bicycle. Graph: Marie Verdeil. Data sources: [^8][^17][^19][^26].

Not every bicycle replaces a car

None of this should discourage cycling. Even the most unsustainable bicycles are significantly less unsustainable than cars. The carbon footprint for manufacturing a gasoline or diesel-powered car is between 6 tonnes (Citroen C1) and 35 tonnes (Land Rover Discovery). ²⁰ Consequently, building one small automobile such as the C1 produces as many emissions as making 171 steel bicycles or 28 aluminum bicycles. Furthermore, cars also have a high carbon footprint for fuel use, while bikes are entirely or partly human-powered. ²¹ Electric cars have higher emissions for production but lower emissions for operation (although that depends entirely on the carbon intensity of the power grid).

The bicycle even holds its advantage when its much shorter lifetime mileage is taken into account. ²² Gasoline and diesel-powered cars now reach more than 300,000 km, double their lifetime in the 1960s and 1970s. ²³ If a bicycle lasts 20,000 km, it would take 15 bikes to cover 300,000 km. If those are steel bicycles without an electric motor, the total carbon footprint for manufacturing is still six times lower than for a small car: 1,050 kg of CO2. If the bikes are made from aluminum and have electric motors, then emissions grow to 4,800 kg CO2, still below the manufacturing carbon footprint of the small car.

However, not every bicycle replaces a car. That is especially relevant for shared and electric bikes: studies show that they mainly substitute for more sustainable transport alternatives such as walking, using an unassisted or private bicycle, or traveling on the subway. ¹⁹ ²⁴ In Paris, shared bikes have three times higher emissions than electric public transportation. ⁸ In addition, many carbon-intensive bicycles are bought for recreation and are not meant to replace cars at all – they may even involve more car use as cyclists drive out of town for a trip in nature. In all those cases, emissions go up, not down.

How to make bicycles sustainable again?

In conclusion, there are several reasons why bicycles have become less sustainable: the switch from steel to aluminum and other more energy-intensive materials, the scaling up of the bicycle manufacturing industry, increasing incompatibility and decreasing quality of components, the growing success of electric bicycles, and the use of shared bike services. Most of these are not problematic in themselves. Rather, it’s the combination of trends that leads to significant differences with bicycles from earlier generations.

For example, based on data mentioned earlier, manufacturing an electric bicycle made from steel would have a carbon footprint of 143 kg. Although that is four times the emissions from an unassisted steel bicycle, it is below the carbon footprint of an aluminum bicycle without an electric motor (212 kg). Especially if the battery is charged with renewable energy, riding an electric bike can thus be more sustainable than riding one without a motor. Likewise, an aluminum bicycle with a long life expectancy – for example, through component compatibility – could have a lower carbon footprint than a steel bicycle with a more limited lifespan.

Many researchers advocate switching back to producing bicycles from steel instead of aluminium and other energy-intensive materials. That would bring significant gains in sustainability for a relatively low cost – slightly heavier bicycles. Steel frames would also make electric and shared bikes less carbon intensive. Some researchers promote bamboo bike frames, but the benefit compared to old-fashioned steel or even aluminium frames is unclear. ²⁵ A “bamboo bicycle” still requires wheels and many other parts made out of metal or carbon fibre composites, and the frame tubes are usually held together by carbon fibre or metal parts. ⁶ Furthermore, the bamboo is chemically treated against decay and becomes non-biodegradable. ¹

Reverting to local and less automated bike manufacturing is a requirement for sustainable bicycles.

Better component compatibility would increase the life expectancy of bicycles – also electric ones – through repair and refurbishment. It would bring no disadvantages for consumers, even on the contrary. However, unlike a switch to steel frames, better component compatibility would hurt the sales of new bicycles. A study concludes that “the abandonment of standardization is a profitable business model because it ensures that bicycles can only be ridden for so long.” ¹ The decreasing sustainability of bikes is not a technological problem, and it’s not unique to bicycles. We also see it in manufacturing other products, such as computers. One bike mechanic observes: “The problem here is capitalism; it’s not the bikes.” ¹⁴

Reverting to local and less automated bike manufacturing is a requirement for sustainable bicycles. The main reason is not the extra energy use generated by transportation and machinery, which is relatively small. For example, shipping from China adds around 0.7 to 1.2 gCO2/km for shared bicycles. ⁸ More importantly, domestic and manual bike manufacturing is essential to make repair and refurbishment the more economically attractive option. By definition, repairing is local and manual, so it quickly becomes more expensive than producing a new vehicle in a large-scale, automated factory. ¹⁰ Locally made bicycles would increase the purchase price for consumers. However, better repairability would allow for a longer life expectancy and a lower cost in the long term. Addressing bike theft and parking problems is also essential because they are often a reason for buying cheap, short-lasting bicycles. ²⁶

Finally, shared bicycle services can have their place, and we will probably see further improvements in their resource efficiency – the newest bike-sharing stations in Paris have reduced their power consumption by a factor of six. ⁸ However, shared bicycles are unlikely to become more sustainable than private bicycles because they always require rebalancing and a high-tech infrastructure to make the service work. Furthermore, getting attached to your bike can be a strong incentive to take care of it well and thus increase its life expectancy, as I can testify.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car ↩︎
Bicycles are entirely or partly powered by food calories. Some people argue that the life cycle energy requirements of bicycles are higher than other modes, when one considers the impact of food require to provide additional calories that are burned during the bicycle use. However, the majority of people in car-centered societies take in more calories than their sedentary lifestyle requires. Increased cycling would lead to lower obesity rates, not to higher calorie intakes. ↩︎
This a purely theoretical calculation, because cars encourage much longer trips than bicycles. ↩︎
Ford, Dexter. “As Cars Are Kept Longer, 200,000 Is New 100,000.” New York Times, March 16, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-kept-longer-200000-is-new-100000.html?_r=2&ref=business&pagewanted=all& ↩︎
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A comparison of the life cycle emissions of a bamboo versus an aluminium bicycle showed little difference (233 vs. 238 kg CO2). [6] ↩︎
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When Lethal Weapons Grew on Trees

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Image: Tanimber islander with very large bow and arrow in leather armor, Dutch Indies. Source unknown.

Many bows and arrows ago

The bow is one of humanity’s most essential and fascinating technologies, perhaps only eclipsed by the controlled use of fire. Despite endless academic speculation on the subject for almost 200 years, we don’t know when archery originated. ¹ Bows and arrows were made from organic materials, which do not preserve for long. The oldest archaeological finds come from peat bogs, glaciers, and water-logged lake sediments – oxygen-free environments that prevent organic materials from decaying. ² In the 1930s, in Stellmoor, Germany, archaeologists found roughly 100 arrow shafts dated to between 8,000 and 10,000 BC. ³ The oldest bow came to light in the 1940s in Holmegaard, Denmark. Scientists dated it to between 6,500 and 7,000 BC.

The bow and arrow are much older than these records indicate. One reason is that prehistoric bows were of a very sophisticated design, a point we return to later. Second, archaeologists have unearthed much older projectile points. The arrowhead is the only part of the bow and arrow made of inorganic material and thus preserves much longer. However, it can be hard to distinguish arrowheads from projectile points used with other weapons, most notably the spearthrower or atlatl. ⁴⁵ While keeping this in mind, some studies have pushed back the date for the first bow and arrow use to between 35,000 and 70,000 years ago. ⁶ But even arrowheads cannot tell us the whole story because fire-hardened wooden points may have preceded bone and stone points.

Human powered springs

In mechanical terms, the bow is a spring made up of two flexible, elastic limbs held under tension by a string. When the archer pulls the string back, energy accumulates in the bow. When the archer releases the string, the energy transmits to the arrow, which flies out of the bow. The bow is a highly efficient technology: the arrow’s kinetic energy (usable energy) is close to the total energy expended. ⁷⁸ Arrows are also very efficient, much more so than bullets: they lose little speed in flight and require little energy to penetrate a target. ⁹

The bow is a highly efficient technology: the arrow’s kinetic energy is close to the total energy expended.

The bow and arrow is a missile (or ranged) weapon for striking from a distance. Simple missile weapons are launched using unassisted bodily force, for example, thrown stones, throw sticks, or hand-cast spears (“javelins”). Complex missile weapons interpose a launcher between the human and the missile. Such weapon systems include the bow as well as the sling, the blowgun, the spearthrower, and the firearm. ⁴ In the hands of a skillful and muscular archer, the (pre)historical bow was a powerful and accurate weapon. The firearm replaced the bow because it was easier to use, not because it was technically superior. ⁹

Diversity of bow designs

Our forebears have used the bow and arrow on every continent except Australia (where spearthrower and throw stick prevailed) and Antarctica. The large geographical distribution and long history led to a wide diversity of bow designs determined by the local circumstances – the available materials and tools, the landscape, the climate, the use of the weapon, the social context, and so on. All bows consisted of a stave and a string, but the materials, dimensions, forms, shooting styles, and other features varied considerably. ¹⁰¹¹ That is not the case with modern firearms, which are the same everywhere.

Essentially, there are two types of bows, opposites on a scale: the self-bow and the composite bow. Self-bows are made from a single stave of wood, while composite bows consist of several layers of various materials (usually wood, horn, and sinew). Other bows are somewhere in between. For example, laminated bows consist of several layers of the same material, and backed self-bows are hybrids between self-bows and composite bows. Self-bows dominated forested continents (Europe, the Americas, and Africa). Composite bows ruled in the drier regions (Middle East and Eurasia). Many intermediate forms probably emerged because of contact between different cultures.

Self-bows

The self-bow distinguishes itself by its durability and ease of construction, maintenance, and repair. It consists of a single (often straight) stave of wood. The most famous design is the longbow. As its name implies, the longbow is known for its length. It was about as tall as (or taller than) the archer who drew it. People often associate this bow type with the English longbow, which became an important battlefield weapon in the late middle ages. However, the longbow was used across Europe and other continents, while its design is much older. For example, Ötzi, the mummy found in the Italian Alps in 1991, carried a 182 cm longbow dating back to 3,300 BC. ¹²

Image: Longbow archers. Image by Peter Trimming. Source: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archery_at_Appuldurcombe_(1)_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1983840.jpg). CC BY SA 2.0.

The historical longbow differs from the so-called longbows still used at archery ranges in the Western world. The British Longbow Society, formed in 1951, restricts the term longbow to a Victorian and Edwardian ideal when archery had become a recreational activity. Ironically, their narrow criteria exclude all historical longbows – even the famous medieval English war bows. ¹⁰¹³ “Modern” longbows are usually laminated bows with a stiff center section, while (pre)historical longbows were self-bows bending with a continuous arc. Modern longbows have an arrow rest cut out in the middle part of the bow (either left or right), but with historical longbows, the arrow often rested on the archer’s bow hand.

The second type of self-bow is the flat bow. It is only slightly shorter than the longbow but has a different cross-section. The longbow either has a circular shape or a D-shape. The English longbow, for example, has a flat “back” and a rounded “belly” – the belly being the side of the bow that faces the archer. In contrast, a flatbow is flat on both sides. Compared to the longbow, which has narrow limbs and is usually the widest at the handle, the flatbow has wider limbs but a narrow handle. ¹⁴

Image: An ash flatbow, made by [Sagittaria Handcrafts](http://sagittaria-handcrafts.com/en/1-en-pokus/bows/detail_22/).

In the 1930s, American scientists set out to discover the optimal shape of a bow. To their surprise, they found that the D-shaped profile of the longbow – the only known historical western design at the time – is not the most efficient one. ¹⁴ Rather, a rectangular cross-section works best because it induces more uniform strain across the limb’s width. That makes the bow less prone to breakage.

The scientific discovery led to the design of the (recreational) American flatbow, which the scientists considered new. ¹⁵ In the 1940s, however, archeologists discovered the oldest prehistoric bow. It was a flatbow – the earlier mentioned Holmegaard. The Meare Heath bow, discovered in 1961 and dated to roughly 4,500 years ago, was also a flatbow. ¹⁶¹⁷ The American researchers also failed to notice that their innovation had been used for centuries by Native Americans. ¹⁴

Historically, the powerful draw of tall self-bows served for combat and hunting large animals. For hunting small game at close range, shorter hand bows (known as “small bows” or “birding bows”) were sufficient. These weapons were less powerful, used shorter and lighter arrows (often with blunt arrowheads), and were drawn to the breast instead of the ear. ¹³

Image: Historical bows from the African continent, showing the large size differences. Source: Leakey, Louis Seymour Bazett. “A New Classification of the Bow and Arrow in Africa.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 56 (1926): 259-299.

Tension and compression

For a bow limb to store energy, the wood must have both strength (to withstand tension) and elasticity (to withstand compression). If a bow is overdrawn, two things can happen. If the wood is stronger in tension than in compression, as it is usually, the wood fibers in the belly of the bow will compress, and the bow will not fully return to its original form. The wood has exceeded its elastic limit, and the power of the bow is forever reduced. On the other hand, if the wood is stronger in compression than in tension, overdrawing the bow will result in a splintered back or a fracture. ¹⁸

Some wood species are especially well-suited to make bows. Historical bowyers considered yew to be one of the best materials. ¹³ Yew grows (slowly) across many parts of the world. Its sapwood (the white wood on the outside of the tree just below the bark) excels under tension. Its heartwood (the redwood that makes up the center) excels under compression. Therefore, in a yew bow, sapwood forms the back, and heartwood forms the belly. ¹⁹ Another excellent bow wood is osage orange, native to North America, but it can thrive in many climates. Only heartwood is used – osage orange has high bending strength and elasticity. ²⁰ Both wood species are also highly resistant to decay.

Image. A yew selfbow, showing hardwood and sapwood, made by master bowyer Jack Pinson, Under Warden, Ireland. Source: [Living Longbows](https://www.facebook.com/LivingLongbows).

Image: an osange orange flatbow, built by master bowyer Simon Sieß. It’s nearly impossible to find a straight stave of osage orange long enough for a bow, because the wood is full of twists, knots, and thorns. The bowyer works around these defects. Source: [Stonehill Primitive Bows](https://primitive-bows.com/category/bows/).

However, not all bows were made from yew or osage orange wood – far from that. Self-bows have been and can be made out of almost any type of wood, even wood that looks unlikely to make a bow. More important than the choice of wood is to match the design of the bow to the compression and tensile strength of a specific wood species. ²¹ A bow made of an inferior wood species can be protected from breaking or exceeding its elastic limit by adding more wood in the form of a longer or a wider bow. Bows made from excellent bow woods such as yew and osage orange have very narrow limbs, but bows made from weaker and less elastic woods can perform just as well with wider limbs. Less suitable bow wood also benefits from a rectangular cross-section (a flatbow design).

How to make a self bow

A self-bow can be made in a couple of hours – excluding the time to season the wood. It takes skill to make an excellent weapon, but building a crude self-bow is within everyone’s reach. Before metal tools were available, it was much easier to work wood that was still fresh and green. Therefore, seasoning wood took place after the bow was largely shaped. Once the wood had dried, the bow was finished with stone scrapers. The authors of the Bowyer’s Bible (a series of books that revived the interest in traditional archery during the 1990s) describe an experiment. They enter the forest with empty hands and come out with a bow that took them only six hours to make with stone-age tools: a rock, a self-made wood axe, and a fire. ¹⁴

Without metal tools, it took a lot of effort to cut down large trees to obtain bow wood. Some Native Americans invented an ingenious technique that involved prying bow staves from trunks and branches of living trees. ²²They cut two V-shaped notches at the upper and the lower end of the intended stave, which was then left in the tree for several years until it had seasoned. Finally, they wrenched the stave from the tree using a lever and shaped the bow. Some old trees still show the scars of this process. Bowyers could exploit the same tree for bow staves over many centuries.

Image: Prying bow staves from living trees. Source: Wilke, Philip J. \"[Bow staves harvested from Juniper trees by Indians of nevada](https://escholarship.org/content/qt4v5249w9/qt4v5249w9.pdf%C2%A0).\" Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 10.1 (1988): 3-31.

I could not find any references to bow stave trees in other regions, but coppicing and pollarding could also provide bow wood without cutting down entire trees. Yew trees were often pollarded. Another method was to plant them together in groups so they would grow straight up for perfect bow staves. When metal tools became available, harvesting bow wood and shaping a bow became easier. From then on, most bows were made from seasoned wood. However, the essential tools for a traditional bowyer have remained limited: a sharp hand axe, a wood rasp, and a scraper. ¹³¹⁴²³²⁴

Shaping a self-bow comes down to following the grain and character of the wood. If using logs, the first step is to split them into halves or quarters, using a wedge so that the crack follows the grain. Each piece of wood dictates the style and shape of a self-bow. For example, if there’s a twist in a part of the bow stave, the design will follow it, resulting in a partly twisted bow. The central part of the self-bow-making process is “tillering”: the bow limbs are made thinner and thinner by taking wood away from the belly side, little by little, and taking care not to take away too much. The back of the bow remains unchanged and follows the split-off growth ring of the stave. ¹³²⁵

Image: Freshly cut wood split into bow staves. Source: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bow_staves.JPG). Image by MartinFields (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Image: A self bow in the making by master bowyer Jack Pinson, Under Warden. Ireland. Source: [Living Longbows](https://www.facebook.com/LivingLongbows).

The composite bow

The composite bow is the opposite of the self-bow in almost any respect. Rather than taking material away, the composite bow consists of several layers of material glued together – usually wood, horn, and sinew (animal tendon or ligament). The bow is covered with bark or leather and sealed with lacquer. Rather than a long, straight stave, the composite bow is short (110 cm on average) and nearly always a recurve bow – a combination of reflex bow limbs (which bend away from the archer) and deflex bow limbs (which bend towards the archer). ⁷²⁶²⁷²⁸²⁹³⁰³¹³²

In a composite bow, the wood mainly serves as a framework for building up the other layers. Horn (which is excellent in withstanding compression) formed the belly of the bow, and sinew (which has very high tensile strength) formed the back of the bow. The horn usually came from the water buffalo, abundant in regions where the composite bow was adopted. The sinew came from the backs of deer, antelope, or cattle (thick pieces lying along both sides of the ridge bones of the spine) or from the Achilles heel of cattle.

Because the combination of these materials performs better than even the best bow woods, a composite bow can bend with a larger arc in proportion to its length than a self-bow. Consequently, it can be made shorter than an equally powerful self-bow. That made it perfect for horseback, as the archer can easily switch the bow from side to side. Most cultures who adapted the composite bow were horse archers, and the weapon is also known as a horse bow. The composite bow was also the weapon of choice for the chariot archer, who predates the horse archer.

Left: Tatar composite bow, showing the shape assumed in the unstrung and the strung state. Right: Persian composite bow, exhibiting extreme reflex curvature in the unstrung state. Source: Balfour, Henry. “The Archer’s Bow in the Homeric Poems.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 51 (1921): 289-309.

Image: Horse bow (strung and unstrung) made by master bowyer Bjørn Schmidt. Source: [Bjørn Schmidt](https://www.facebook.com/groups/161983523940600/user/100026327045649/).

Image: A collection of composite bows in various sizes. Source: Peter Dekker, [Mandarin Mansion](https://mandarinmansion.com).

It seems most likely that the composite bow developed in Central Asia and then spread into India, North Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Japan. We do not know how old the composite bow is. The oldest archeological finds date to 3,000 BC, but the region has less ideal conditions for preservation than Europe, where archeologists found the oldest self-bows. Unlike the self bow, which is usually a straight stave and only varies in its cross-section, the composite bow appears in an extraordinary diversity of bow designs. ²⁶ Many composite bows had siyahs – non-bending levers at the end of the bow limbs that further increased the draw length and reduced the muscular power required to pull the bow.

How to make a composite bow

The composite bow is superior in performance to the self-bow. It can shoot arrows faster and farther with less effort. However, it takes more skill to use and requires a very elaborate manufacturing process. Making a composite bow takes 50 to 100 hours, spread over months or even years. ¹⁸²⁶ The more powerful the bow, the more time it takes to make it. The bowyer dips bundles of sinew in warm glue and lays them lengthwise across the bow. Each layer of sinew has to dry before the next one can be put on. The bowyer gradually pulls the bow to longer and longer draw lengths, a few centimeters at a time until the bow tips touch or cross. Once the bow is complete, it is cured over a low fire.

The composite bow is also less durable and requires more maintenance than the self-bow. Its susceptibility to humidity requires continuous care – a composite bow needs to be kept warm and dry. In cold weather, archers stuffed the bows inside clothes and took them to bed. If possible, they warmed the bow over a fire before shooting. The Chinese (who built the largest composite bows) used dedicated warming cabinets to maintain or restore the recurve form lost during use. Composite bows also had to be protected from animals eating the sinew parts. Worms may eat the horn. ⁷²⁶²⁷²⁸²⁹³⁰³¹³²³³

Image: making a composite bow. Source unknown. Via [Mihkel Tammet](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=294008220709631&set=g.161983523940600).

Image: A composite bow in the making. Source: [The modern reproduction of a Mongol era bow based on historical facts and ancient technology research](https://exarc.net/issue-2017-2/at/modern-reproduction-mongol-era-bow-based-historical-facts-and-ancient-technology-research). Jason Wayne Beever & Zoran Pavlović, EXARC Journal Issue 2017/02.

Backing: fusing the self and composite bow

To a certain extent, the advantages of the composite bow can be transferred to the self bow. Making a bow longer or wider is not the only way to make a powerful weapon from inferior wood. The other method is reinforcing or “backing” a bow. ³⁴³⁵ That involves gluing a material with high tensile strength on the back – the side of the bow facing away from the archer. The backing material can be sinew like in the composite bow. However, other materials work as well, or even better: rawhide, gut, skin, silk, and many vegetable fibers such as flax, hemp, or jute. Some reinforced bows were built of sinew-backed antler.

Backing allowed designs that were impossible to make in wood alone, such as short but powerful bows. Reinforced self-bows were common to indigenous peoples of North America ³⁶³⁷ When the Spanish introduced horses on the continent, Native Americans were quick to note the advantages of shooting from horseback, and adapted their bows by making them shorter – 90 to 110 cm. Being a simplified form of the Asiatic three layer construction, sinew-backed bows share some of the disadvantages. Backing increases the production time of a self bow to between eight and twenty hours, spread out over a period of two weeks to a month, and a reinforced bow needs protection against humidity.

In addition, adding a backing was a common way to repair a self-bow. If a bow developed a splinter on the back, gluing on rawhide, flax, or sinew could fix the problem. ³⁵ If a bow had taken too much set – if it had exceeded its elastic limit – another technique could be used. The bowyer turned the bow around, letting the back become the belly, and applied backing to the new back (which used to be the belly).

Image: A wide limbed bow with sinew backing. Source: [National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian](https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/search?page=26&edan_q=BOW).

Image: [juniper west coast style bow](https://primitive-bows.com/juniper-west-coast-style-bow-hld-no-7/), built by master bowyer Simon Sieß. Only the nocks are strengthened with sinew. Source: [Stonehill Primitive Bows](https://primitive-bows.com/category/bows/).

Image: sinew preparation. Source: [Making the sinew-backed bow](https://primitivelifeways.com/2019/05/making-the-sinew-backed-bow/), Jeff Martin, Primitive Lifeways.

Image: sinew backing. Source: [Making the sinew-backed bow](https://primitivelifeways.com/2019/05/making-the-sinew-backed-bow/), Jeff Martin, Primitive Lifeways.

Cable-backed bows

The prize for the most inventive bow-making method goes to the Inuit, who faced two problems. First, they had a limited choice of bow wood. This was either driftwood, or spruce and fir, very brittle woods that lack elasticity. ¹⁴³⁸ Second, animal glue is difficult to use in cold air, jelling almost instantly. The Inuit solved this by making bows from materials such as sheep horn, caribou antler, and baleen, which they reinforced by “cable backing”. This was the use of elevated sinew cables that ran up and down the limbs, fixed by an elaborate system of knots.

The backing consisted of a continuous stout twine made of sinew up to 45 meters long. The bowyer wrapped it around one of the bow nocks, ran it down the back of the bow, then wrapped it around the other bow nock, ran it up the back again, and so on, until several dozens of strands were on the bow. Next, the strands were twisted and fixed to the bow with knots in sometimes very complex patterns. Little flat rods served for twisting the cords. They were used in pairs, holding one in each hand to secure the same amount of twist in the two. ¹⁴³⁸

Any backing must be proportional to limb mass across the bow, meaning it has to be thicker at the grip and thinner towards the bow tips. With a glued-on backing, this is easy to achieve: add more backing layers in the middle of the bow. However, it’s hard to reduce the diameter of a cable from grip to tip. The Inuit solved this by running part of the cables for just a portion of the limb length. Up to a dozen threads only extended across the middle of the bow. Most cable-backed self-bows were short flatbows – at most 125 cm long. ¹⁴³⁸

Image: Cable-backed bows. Source: Murdoch, John. \"A study of the Eskimo bows in the US National Museum.\" Report of the United States National Museum for the year 1884.

Cord bindings

Yet another method for making a bow out of inferior wood was the use of cord bindings. Rather than gluing a backing on the back of the bow, or stretching cables from one end to the other, cord bindings consisted of backing material that was wrapped around the bow.

A famous example of this technique is the Meare Heath bow. Found in 1961 in the peat bogs of Somerset, England, it dates back to about 2,690 BC. This flatbow – 6 cm wide and 190 cm long – had both transverse and criss-cross leather and sinew bindings. A replica of the bow – made with stone age tools – showed that it was an excellent weapon, surpassing the performance of the English longbow that appeared a few thousand years later. ¹⁷ Cord bindings continued to be used in the middle ages, also on some composite bows. ¹³ For example, the Hunza in Afghanistan wrap their entire bows with sinew. ¹⁰

Finally, there’s the Japanese bow, the yumi, which is a category of its own. The yumi is a laminated bow – made from at least seven layers of bamboo and wood – but its construction and design is clearly influenced by the composite bow. The yumi distinguishes itself by its length (it can surpass two metres) and its assymetry – the upper limb is two-thirds the overall length. The longer limb allows a longer draw while the shorter limb allows to shoot the bow from horseback or while kneeling. Making a yumi required the bowyer to use his hand and feet, working quickly with fast-drying glues that could be softened again in a steam tent. ¹⁰

Image: drawing of the Meare Heath bow. Source: Clark, J. G. D. \"Neolithic bows from Somerset, England, and the prehistory of archery in north-western Europe.\" Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Vol. 29. Cambridge University Press, 1963.

Image: A replica of the Meare Heath bow, made by master bowyer Greg Anderson. Source: [North Wood Traditional Archery](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067570410615).

Image: The Penobscot bow. Yet another method to build a bow from inferior wood. The bow’s draw weight is increased by adding a second limb. Source: [National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian](https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/objects/NMAI_27561).

Growing arrows

By itself, the bow is not a useful weapon. It requires ammunition in the form of arrows. Finding wood for arrows was much easier than obtaining wood for bows. ¹³³⁹⁴⁰ Most wood species make good arrows, and the wood can be shorter. Arrows were usually less than a metre long, except in the tropics, where they could be much longer. ⁴¹ Before the arrival of metal tools, arrow shafts were made from either shoots and saplings or cane, bamboo, and reeds – depending on what was available locally. These materials already have the shape of arrow shafts and grow in different lengths and diameters. ⁴¹

Shoots and saplings were debarked, straightened over a fire, finished, and then seasoned for a few weeks or months. These arrow shafts were solid and relatively heavy, which increased mass and penetration. Canes, bamboo, and reeds did not require debarking and were waterproof without further treatment. On the other hand, they were hollow and much lighter than shafts made from shoots and saplings. A separate foreshaft made from wood or bone was inserted into the hollow shaft to give them sufficient strength and mass. The nock was reinforced to prevent the bowstring from splitting the arrowshaft. ³⁹⁴⁰

Metal cutting tools gave birth to a new method, which allowed arrow shafts made from sawn timber. Wooden boards are cut into small squares the size of arrow shafts and then have their four corners shaven off, making them octagonal. These shafts are then rounded with sandpaper or sandstone. “Split timber shafting” reduced the time to make arrow shafts, made it possible to produce arrows in large numbers, and improved their ballistic capabilities. ³⁹⁴⁰⁴²

Image: A set of arrows with wooden points and blunts. Source: [National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian](https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/objects/NMAI_31682?destination=edan_searchtab%3Fpage%3D5%26edan_q%3DARROWS)

Image: Replicas of prehistoric arrows, made by master bowyer Greg Anderson. Source: [North Wood Traditional Archery](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067570410615).

Image: Replicas of medieval arrows, made by Heritage Longbows. Source: [Heritage Longbows](https://www.heritagelongbows.com).

Arrows and bows from Africa. Source: Leakey, Louis Seymour Bazett. “A New Classification of the Bow and Arrow in Africa.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 56 (1926): 259-299.

The shaft is the structural element of the arrow to which the arrowhead, the fletching, and the nock are attached. Historically, the nock was often cut into the shaft, sometimes reinforced with bone, horn, or hardwood. The fletching usually consisted of three feathers, which could come from many birds (such as goose and turkey). They were glued to the shaft and bound with sinew thread. ¹³

Arrowheads were made from many materials, including stone, bone, antler, teeth, and metal (bronze, wrought iron, steel). Metal arrowheads appeared most recently but did not perform better than arrowheads made from primitive materials. However, they were faster and more economical to manufacture. Wooden points remained in use through history alongside more durable but labour-intensive materials. ⁴³ The shape of an arrowhead varied along with its use – hundreds of different types have existed. Arrowheads were fixed to the shaft with glue and a sinew binding, or inserted into a hollow shaft.

Reuse and repair of arrows

Making a set of arrows took considerably more time than making the average self-bow. However, archers routinely reused their projectiles. You can’t shoot a bullet, then put it back in a firearm and fire it a second time. However, you can launch the same arrow over and over again. That is evident in practice shooting, but it happened just as well during the hunt and on the battlefield. Arrows could change sides several times in a battle. They were picked up from the ground or extracted from dead enemies or comrades. ¹⁰²⁹⁴⁴

Because they were valuable, even impaired arrows were routinely collected for repair. Limited repairs happened on the battlefield or during the hunt, and some fletchers could be attached to armies, extending the ammunition supply. If an arrow shaft broke close to the arrowhead – a common point of failure – attaching a new arrowhead was a quick fix to make a new, slightly shorter arrow. Even if the projectile became undersized for one archer, it could still serve a somewhat smaller archer. The Hazda, a tribe in Africa, used arrows that were longer than necessary and were cut shorter several times after breakage. ²

If the shaft broke in another place, it could be repaired by a more elaborate process called “footing.” This technique, which required metal tools, involved splicing with fishtail joints. Finally, arrowheads and feathers could be reused to make new arrows.

Image: Tools of the arrow maker. Source: Mason, Otis T. North American bows, arrows, and quivers. JM Carroll, 1893.

Growing bowstrings

The combination of a bow and a set of arrows is still not a weapon. The missing part is the bowstring, which brings the two together. Like bows and arrows, you can make strings from many different materials, and a suitable source of fiber is never far away. Historically, most bow strings were either made from vegetable fibers (hemp, flax, milkweed, ramie, nettle) or animal fibers (silk, sinew, rawhide, gut). Even human hair makes bow strings. Bowyers can grow their bow string material by planting some hemp or flax, which also provides material for backing bows and for making linseed oil – a traditional bow and arrow finish. ⁴⁵

The Bowyer’s Bible dedicates a long chapter to making completely serviceable strings in the field even under the most primitive conditions: “Pull a fiber-bearing plant from the ground, pull a twig from a tree – for use as a spindle – and with this caveman’s gear, a thread can be spun finer and stronger than the finest machine-spun equivalent. With a little bit of practice, using a drop spindle, it takes about one and a half hours to spin a bowstring’s worth of thread. Using a spinning wheel, it can be done in twenty minutes. When spinning is complete, you are about fifteen minutes away from a flawless, first-class bowstring.” ⁴⁵

Turning a thread into a bow string can be done in different ways. The “endless string” is the easiest to make. You drive two nails into a wooden board, and the distance between them equals the desired string length (a bit shorter than the bow itself). The string is winded back and forth around the nails until you reach the desired strand number – usually 12 to 16 strands. The two loose ends are then tied together, reinforced with a separate thread, and made into loops that can be attached to the bow nocks. In some regions, archers used knots rather than loops to attach the string to the bow, which allowed them to adjust the length of the bowstring. ⁴⁵

Image: Bow strings made by master bowyer Greg Anderson. Source: [North Wood Traditional Archery](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067570410615).

Image: A bowstring made by master bowyer Jack Pinson, Under Warden. Ireland. Source: [Living Longbows](https://www.facebook.com/LivingLongbows).

Do weapons need to be sustainable?

Historic and prehistoric bows and arrows were entirely made from natural and locally available materials. These came from plants and trees (wood, cane, bamboo, flax), animals (tendon, bone, feathers, glue), and minerals (stone and metal points). Nowadays, just like 10,000 years ago, one can walk into a forest or any other natural environment with empty hands and come out with a functional weapon. Even the tools to make it are in nature. The manufacturing is entirely human-powered, only aided here and there by a fire. Ammunition can be reused, repaired, and recycled.

That raises some questions. First, should weapons be sustainable? The use of bows and arrows was a perfect example of what we nowadays call the “circular economy.” In contrast, the manufacturing of modern firearms depends on a highly complex, globally interconnected, and interdependent supply chain, which consists of mines, factories, transport and power systems, fossil fuels, and parts of the economy such as finance and communication technology. Few of the materials required to make modern firearms are available locally or naturally, and the production creates waste and emissions. The same holds for modern bows and arrows made of metals, plastics, and synthetic composites.

Second, if it’s relatively easy to make lethal weapons, especially self-bows, why are we not plagued by waves of bow violence analogous to gun violence? There’s a lot of unease about 3D-printed firearms and “ghost guns” (unregistered firearms built up from anonymous gun parts), but how is that different from entering a forest with bare hands and coming out with a weapon that could kill an elephant? These days the choice of local materials has only grown. Any modern material that bends and returns can become a bow. You can make arrowheads from window or bottle glass, electronic modules, or old saw blades. ¹⁸ No firearm user can achieve the self-sufficiency of the preindustrial archer.

Third, if modern firearms depend on fossil fuels and a global supply chain, what if this context disappears? Could low-tech, artisanally made firearms compete with longbows, flatbows, and composite bows? In the following article, I try to answer these questions, and make a proposal: “What if we replace guns and bullets with bows and arrows?”.

Bergman, Christopher A. “The development of the bow in Western Europe: a technological and functional perspective.” Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 4.1 (1993): 95-105. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/ap3a.1993.4.1.95 ↩︎
Cattelain, Pierre. “Hunting during the Upper Paleolithic: bow, spearthrower, or both?.” Projectile technology. Springer, Boston, MA, 1997. 213-240. ↩︎ ↩︎
Meadows, John, et al. “Dating the lost arrow shafts from Stellmoor (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany).” (2018): 105-114. https://quartaer.obermaier-gesellschaft.de/pdfs/2018/2018_05_meadows.pdf ↩︎
Lombard, Marlize, and John J. Shea. “Did Pleistocene Africans use the spearthrower‐and‐dart?.” Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 30.5 (2021): 307-315. ↩︎ ↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower ↩︎
Grund, Brigid Sky. “Behavioral ecology, technology, and the organization of labor: How a shift from spear thrower to self bow exacerbates social disparities.” American Anthropologist 119.1 (2017): 104-119. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/am-pdf/10.1111/aman.12820 ↩︎
Randall, Karl Chandler. Origins and Comparative Performance of the Composite Bow. Diss. University of South Africa, 2016. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/79170491.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Denny, Mark. Their arrows will darken the sun: the evolution and science of ballistics. JHU Press, 2011. ↩︎
See the second part of this article: “What if we replace guns and bullets by bows and arrows?”. ↩︎ ↩︎
Loades, Mike. War Bows: Longbow, crossbow, composite bow and Japanese yumi. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Baker, Tim. “Bows of the world”. “The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, Volume Three.” 1994. 43-98. ↩︎
https://www.primitiveways.com/Otzi’s_bow.html ↩︎
Roth, Erik. With a Bended Bow: Archery in Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe. The History Press, 2011. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Hamm, Jim. “The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, Volume Three.” 1994. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
“Archery: The Technical Side” Edited by C. N. Hickman, Forrest Nagler & Paul E. Klopsteg, 1939. ↩︎
Clark, J. G. D. “Neolithic bows from Somerset, England, and the prehistory of archery in north-western Europe.” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Vol. 29. Cambridge University Press, 1963. See also: Comstock, Paul. “Ancient European Bows”. The Traditional Bowyers Bible (1993): 113-154. ↩︎
Prior, Stuart. “The skill of the neolithic bowyers—reassessing the past through experimental archaeology.” Somerset archaeology. Papers to mark 150 (2000): 19-24. https://www.somersetheritage.org.uk/downloads/publications/150years/HES_150_Years_Chapter_4.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎
Hamm, Jim. “The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, Volume One.” (1992). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Strunk, John. “Yew Longbow.” The traditional bowyer’s bible, Volume One.(1992): 117-130. ↩︎
Hardcastle, Ron. “Osage Flat Bow.” The traditional bowyer’s bible, Volume One. (1992): 131-148. ↩︎
Comstock, Paul. “Other Bow Woods”. The traditional bowyer’s bible, Volume One. (1992):149-164. ↩︎
Wilke, Philip J. “Bow staves harvested from Juniper trees by Indians of nevada.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 10.1 (1988): 3-31. https://escholarship.org/content/qt4v5249w9/qt4v5249w9.pdf ↩︎
Clay Hayes, Traditional Bowyer’s Handbook: How to Build Wooden Bows and Arrows. ↩︎
Comstock, Pail. “Tools”. The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, Vol. 3. Globe Pequot, 1994: 17-42 ↩︎
Hamm, Jim. “Tillering”. The traditional bowyer’s bible, Volume One. (1992): 257-287. ↩︎
Loades, Mike. The Composite Bow. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Balfour, Henry. “On the structure and affinities of the composite bow.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 19 (1890): 220-250. ↩︎ ↩︎
Nieminen, Timo A. “The Asian war bow.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1101.1677 (2011). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Hurley, Vic. Arrows against steel: the history of the bow and how it forever changed warfare. Cerberus Books, 2011. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Grayson, Bert. “Composite bows.” The Traditional Bowyers Bible, Volume Two (1993): 113-154. ↩︎ ↩︎
Schmidt, Jeff. “Korean archery”. The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, Volume Three. 1994: 99-114. ↩︎ ↩︎
https://www.mandarinmansion.com/article/qing-bow-glossary ↩︎ ↩︎
http://www.manchuarchery.org/content/composite-bow-care-and-maintenance ↩︎
Hamm, Jim. “Sinew-backing”. The traditional bowyer’s bible (1992): 213-232. See also: Comstock, Paul. “Other backings”. The traditional bowyer’s bible (1992): 233-257. ↩︎
Bergman, Christopher A., and Edward McEwen. “Sinew-reinforced and composite bows.” Projectile Technology. Springer, Boston, MA, 1997. 143-160. ↩︎ ↩︎
Allely, Steve. “Eastern Indian Bows”. The traditional bowyer’s bible volume one (1992): 165-194. Herrin, Al. “Eastern Woodland Bows”. The traditional bowyer’s bible volume two (1993): 51-80. Hamm, Jim. “Plains Indian Bows”. The traditional bowyer’s bible volume 3 (1994): 115-142. ↩︎
Edinborough, Kevan Stephen Anthony. Evolution of bow-arrow technology. University of London, University College London (United Kingdom), 2005. ↩︎
Murdoch, John. “A study of the Eskimo bows in the US National Museum.” Report of the United States National Museum for the year 1884 (Pt. 2 of the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smitshonian Institution for the year 1884) (1884). https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/29824/1884_Murdoch_307-316.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Massey, Jay. “Self arrows”. The traditional bowyer’s bible, volume one (1992): 299-320. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Lotz, Mickey. “Arrows of the world”. The traditional bowyer’s bible, volume four (2008): 213-254. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Longbow arrows usually weighed around 70-90 grammes, while composite bow arrows were between 20 and 40 g. Large composite bows, such as the Manchu bow, shot 100 g arrows. ²⁸ Arrows measured between 45 and 150 cm, depending on the culture and the materials available. For example., South Americans used long arrows in the jungle, to find their arrows back and to not deflect the arrow in the undergrowth. ¹⁴ ↩︎ ↩︎
Sadło, Maciej. “Experimental Studies in the Field of Ballistics on Different Types of Arrow Shafts.” Chronika, Volume XI (2021): 76. http://www.chronikajournal.com/resources/Chronika%20volume%2011.pdf#page=82 ↩︎
Waguespack, Nicole M., et al. “Making a point: wood-versus stone-tipped projectiles.” Antiquity 83.321 (2009): 786-800. ↩︎
Dougherty, Martin J. The Medieval Warrior: Weapons, Technology and Fighting Techniques: AD 1000-1500. Lyons Press, 2011. ↩︎
Baker, Tim. “Strings”, The traditional bowyer’s bible volume two (1993): 187-259. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

How and Why I Stopped Buying New Laptops

Sun, 20 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Image: Low-tech Magazine is now written and published on a 2006 ThinkPad X60s.

Being an independent journalist – or an office worker if you wish – I always reasoned that I needed a decent computer and that I need to pay for quality. Between 2000 and 2017, I consumed three laptops that I bought new and which cost me around 5,000 euros in total – roughly 300 euros per year over the entire period. The average useful life of my three laptops was 5.7 years.

In 2017, somewhere between getting my office, I decided not to buy any more new laptops. Instead, I switched to a 2006 second-hand machine that I purchased online for 50 euros and which does everything that I want and need. Including a new battery and a simple hardware upgrade, I invested less than 150 euros.

If my 2006 laptop lasts as long as my other machines – if it runs for another 1.7 years – it will have cost me only 26 euros per year. That’s more than 10 times less than the cost of my previous laptops. In this article, I explain my motivations for not buying new laptops, and how you could do the same.

Energy and material use of a laptop

Not buying new laptops saves a lot of money, but also a lot of resources and environmental destruction. According to the most recent life cycle analysis, it takes 3,010 to 4,340 megajoules of primary energy to make a laptop – this includes mining the materials, manufacturing the machine, and bringing it to market. ¹

Each year, we purchase between 160 and 200 million laptops. Using the data above, this means that the production of laptops requires a yearly energy consumption of 480 to 868 petajoules, which corresponds to between one quarter and almost half of all solar PV energy produced worldwide in 2018 (2,023 petajoules). ² The making of a laptop also involves a high material consumption, which includes a wide variety of minerals that may be considered scarce due to different types of constraints: economic, social, geochemical, and geopolitical. ³⁴

The production of microchips is a very energy- and material-intensive process, but that is not the only problem. The high resource use of laptops is also because they have a very short lifespan. Most of the 160-200 million laptops sold each year are replacement purchases. The average laptop is replaced every 3 years (in business) to five years (elsewhere). ³ My 5.7 years per laptop experience is not exceptional.

Laptops don’t change

The study cited dates from 2011, and it refers to a machine made in 2001: a Dell Inspiron 2500. You are forgiven for thinking that this “most recent life cycle analysis of a laptop” is outdated, but it’s not. A 2015 research paper discovered that the embodied energy of laptops is static over time. ⁵

The scientists disassembled 11 laptops of similar size, made between 1999 and 2008, and weighed the different components. Also, they measured the silicon die area for all motherboards and 30 DRAM cards produced over roughly the same period (until 2011). They found that the mass and material composition of all key components – battery, motherboard, hard drive, memory – did not change significantly, even though manufacturing processes became more efficient in energy and material use.

The reason is simple: improvements in functionality balance the efficiency gains obtained in the manufacturing process. Battery mass, memory, and hard disk drive mass decreased per unit of functionality but showed roughly constant totals per year. The same dynamic explains why newer laptops don’t show lower operational electricity consumption compared to older laptops. New laptops may be more energy-efficient per computational power, but these gains are offset by more computational power. Jevon’s paradox is nowhere as evident as it is in computing.

The challenge

All this means that there’s no environmental or financial benefit whatsoever to replacing an old laptop with a new one. On the contrary, the only thing a consumer can do to improve their laptop’s ecological and economic sustainability is to use it for as long as possible. This is facilitated by the fact that laptops are now a mature technology and have more than sufficient computational power. One problem, though. Consumers who try to keep working on their old laptops are likely to end up frustrated. I shortly explain my frustrations below, and I’m pretty confident that they are not exceptional.

Image: The three new laptops I used from 2000 to 2017.

My first laptop: Apple iBook (2000-2005)

In 2000, when I was working as a freelance science and tech journalist in Belgium, I bought my first laptop, an Apple iBook. Little more than two or three years later, the charger started malfunctioning. When informed of the price for a new charger, I was so disgusted with Apple’s sales practices – chargers are very cheap to produce, but Apple sold them for a lot of money – that I refused to buy it. Instead, I managed to keep the charger working for a few more years, first by putting it under the weight of books and furniture, and when that didn’t work anymore, by putting it in a firmly tightened clamp.

My second laptop: IBM ThinkPad R52 (2005-2013)

When the charger eventually died entirely in 2005, I decided to look for a new laptop. I had only one demand: it should have a charger that lasts or is at least cheap to replace. I found more than I was looking for. I bought an IBM Thinkpad R52, and it was love at first use. My IBM laptop was the Apple iBook counterpart, not just in terms of design (a rectangular box available in all colours as long as it’s black). More importantly, the entire machine was built to last, built to be reliable, and built to be repairable.

Circular and modular products are all the hype these days, its lifetime could be extended endlessly by gradually repairing and replacing every part that it consists of. The question is not how we can evolve towards a circular economy, but instead why we continue to evolve away from it.

The question is not how we can evolve towards a circular economy, but instead why we continue to evolve away from it.

My Thinkpad was more expensive to buy than my iBook, but at least I didn’t spend all that money on a cute design but a decent computer. The charger gave no problems, and when I lost it during a trip and had to buy a new one, I could do so for a fair price. Little did I know that my happy purchase was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Image: The IBM ThinkPad R52 from 2005.

My third laptop: Lenovo Thinkpad T430 (2013-2017)

Fast forward to 2013. I am now living in Spain and I’m running Low-tech Magazine. I’m still working on my IBM Thinkpad R52, but there are some problems on the horizon. First of all, Microsoft will soon force me to upgrade my operating system, because support for Windows XP is to end in 2014. I don’t feel like spending a couple of hundred euros on a new operating system that would be too demanding for my old laptop anyway. Furthermore, the laptop had gotten a bit slow, even after it had been restored to its factory settings. In short, I fell into the trap that the hardware and software industries have set up for us and made the mistake of thinking that I needed a new laptop.

Having been so fond of my Thinkpad, it was only logical to get a new one. Here’s the problem: in 2005, shortly after I had bought my first Thinkpad, Lenovo, a Chinese manufacturer that is now the largest computer maker in the world, bought IBM’s PC business. Chinese companies don’t have a reputation for building quality products, especially not at the time. However, since Lenovo was still selling Thinkpads that looked almost identical to those built by IBM, I decided to try my luck and bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T430 in April 2013. At a steep price, but I assumed that quality had to be paid for.

My mistake was clear from the beginning. I had to send the new laptop back twice because its case was deformed. When I finally got one that didn’t wobble on my desk, I quickly ran into another problem: the keys started breaking off. I can still remember my disbelief when it happened for the first time. The IBM Thinkpad is known for its robust keyboard. If you want to break it, you need a hammer. Lenovo obviously didn’t find that so important and had quietly replaced the keyboard with an inferior one. Mind you, I can be an aggressive typist, but I have never broken any other keyboard.

I grumpily ordered a replacement key for 15 euros. In the months after that, replacement keys became a recurring cost. After spending more than 100 euros on plastic keys, which would soon break again, I calculated that my keyboard had 90 keys and that replacing them all just once would cost me 1,350 euros. I stopped using the keyboard altogether, temporarily finding a solution in an external keyboard. However, this was impractical, especially for working away from home – and why else would I want a laptop?

There was no getting around it anymore: I needed a new laptop. Again. But which one? For sure it would not be one made by Lenovo or Apple.

Image: Replacing all keys on my Lenovo T430 would have cost me 1,350 euros.

My fourth laptop: IBM Thinkpad X60s (2017-now)

Not finding what I was looking for, I decided to go back in time. By now, it had dawned on me that new laptops are of inferior quality compared to older laptops, even if they carry a much higher price tag. I found out that Lenovo switched keyboards around 2011 and started searching auction sites for Thinkpads built before that year. I could have changed back to my ThinkPad R52 from 2005, but by now, I had become accustomed to a Spanish keyboard, and the R52 had a Belgian one.

In April 2017, I settled on a used Thinkpad X60s from 2006. ⁶ As of December 2020, the machine is in operation for almost 4 years and is 14 years old – three to five times older than the average laptop. If I loved my Thinkpad R52 from 2005, I adore my Thinkpad X60s from 2006. It’s just as sturdily built – it already survived a drop from a table on a concrete floor – but it’s much smaller and also lighter: 1.43 kg vs. 3.2 kg.

My 2006 Thinkpad X60s does everything I want it to do. I use it to write articles, do research, and maintain the websites. I have also used it on-stage to give lectures, projecting images on a large screen. There’s only one thing missing on my laptop, especially nowadays, and that’s a webcam. I solve this by firing up the cursed 2013 laptop with the broken keys whenever I need to, happy to give it some use that doesn’t involve its keyboard. It could also be solved by a switch to the Thinkpad X200 from 2008, which is a newer version of the same model and has a webcam.

Image: My ThinkPad X60s.

How to make an old laptop run like it’s new

Not buying any more new laptops is not as simple as buying a used laptop. It’s advisable to upgrade the hardware, and it’s essential to downgrade the software. There are two things you need to do:

1. Use low energy software

My laptop runs on Linux Lite, one of several open-source operating systems specially designed to work on old computers. The use of a Linux operating system is not a mere suggestion. There’s no way you’re going to revive an old laptop if you stick to Microsoft Windows or Apple OS because the machine would freeze instantly. Linux Lite does not have the flashy visuals of the newest Apple and Windows interfaces, but it has a familiar graphical interface and looks anything but obsolete. It takes very little space on the hard disk and demands even less computing power. The result is that an old laptop, despite its limited specifications, runs smoothly. I also use light browsers: Vivaldi and Midori.

Having used Microsoft Windows for a long time, I find Linux operating systems to be remarkably better, even more so because they are free to download and install. Furthermore, Linux operating systems do not steal your personal data and do not try to lock you in, like the newest operating systems from both Microsoft and Apple do. That said, even with Linux, obsolescence cannot be ruled out. For example, Linux Lite will stop its support for 32-bit computers in 2021, which means that I will soon have to look for an alternative operating system, or buy a slightly younger 64-bit laptop.

2. Replace the hard disk drive with a solid-state drive

In recent years, solid-state drives (SSD) have become available and affordable, and they are much faster than hard disk drives (HDD). Although you can revive an old laptop by merely switching to a light-weight operating system, if you also replace the hard disk drive with a solid-state drive, you’ll have a machine that is just as fast as a brand new laptop. Depending on the storage capacity you want, an SSD will cost you between 20 euro (120 GB) and 100 euro (960 GB).

Installment is pretty straightforward and well documented online. Solid-state drives run silently and are more resistant to physical shock, but they have a shorter life expectancy than hard disk drives. Mine is now working for almost 4 years. It seems that both from an environmental and financial viewpoint, an old laptop with SSD is a much better choice than buying a new laptop, even if the solid-state drive needs replacement now and then.

Spare laptops

Meanwhile, my strategy has evolved. I have bought two identical models for a similar price, in 2018 and early 2020, to use as spare laptops. Now I plan to keep working on these machines for as long as possible, having more than sufficient spare parts available. Since I bought the laptop, it had two technical issues. After roughly a year of use, the fan died. I had it repaired overnight in a tiny and messy IT shop run by a Chinese man in Antwerp, Belgium. He said that my patched fan would run for another six months, but it’s still working more than two years later.

Then, last year, my X60s suddenly refused to charge its battery, an issue that had also appeared with my cursed 2013 laptop. It seems to be a common problem with Thinkpads, but I could not solve it yet. Neither did I really have to because I had a spare laptop ready and started using that one whenever I needed or wanted to work outside.

Image: Three identical 2006 laptops, all in working order, for less than 200 euros.

Image: Inside the Thinkpad X60s. Source: [Hardware Maintenance Manual](https://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/42x3550_04.pdf).

The magical SD-card

Now to introduce you to my magical SD-card, which is another hardware upgrade that facilitates the use of old (but also new) laptops. Many people have their personal documents stored on their laptop’s hard drive and then make backups to external storage media if all goes well. I do it the other way around.

I have all my data on a 128 GB SD-card, which I can plug into any of the Thinkpads that I own. I then make monthly backups of the SD-card, which I store on an external storage medium, as well as regular backups of the documents that I am working on, which I temporarily store on the drive of the laptop that I am working on. This has proven to be very reliable, at least for me: I have stopped losing work due to computer problems and insufficient backups.

The other advantage is that I can work on any laptop that I want and that I’m not dependent on a particular machine to access my work. You can get similar advantages when you keep all your data in the cloud, but the SD-card is the more sustainable option, and it works without internet access.

Hypothetically, I could have up to two hard drive failures in one day and keep working as if nothing happened. Since I am now using both laptops alternately – one with battery, the other one without – I can also leave them at different locations and cycle between these places while carrying only the SD-card in my wallet. Try that with your brand new, expensive laptop. I can also use my laptops together if I need an extra screen.

In combination with a hard disk drive, the SD-card also increases the performance of an old laptop and can be an alternative to installing a solid-state drive. My spare laptop does not have one and it can be slow when browsing heavy-weight websites. However, thanks to the SD-card, opening a map or document happens almost instantly, as does scrolling through a document or saving it. The SD-card also keeps the hard disk running smoothly because it’s mostly empty. I don’t know how practical using an SD-card is for other laptops, but all my Thinkpads have a slot for them.

The costs

Let’s make a complete cost calculation, including the investment in spare laptops and SD-card, and using today’s prices for both solid-state drives and SD-cards, which have become much cheaper since I have bought them:

ThinkPad X60s: 50 euro
ThinkPad X60s spare laptop: 60 euro
ThinkPad X60 spare laptop: 75 euro
Two replacement batteries: 50 euro
240 GB solid-state drive: 30 euro
128 GB SD-card: 20 euro
Total: 285 euros

Even if you buy all of this, you only spent 285 euros. For that price, you may be able to buy the crappiest new laptop on the market, but it surely won’t get you two spare laptops. If you manage to keep working with this lot for ten years, your laptop costs would be 28.5 euros per year. You may have to replace a few solid-state drives and SD-cards, but it won’t make much difference. Furthermore, you save the ecological damage that is caused by the production of a new laptop every 5.7 years.

Image: My laptop needs are met for the foreseeable future.

Don’t take it too far

Although I have used my Thinkpad X60s as an example, the same strategy works with other Thinkpad models – here’s an overview of all historical models – and laptops from other brands (which I know nothing about). If you prefer not to buy on auction sites, you can walk to the nearest pawnshop and get a used laptop with a guarantee. The chances are that you don’t even need to buy anything, as many people have old laptops lying around.

There’s no need to go back to a 2006 machine. I hope it’s clear that I am trying to make a statement here, and I probably went as far back as one can while keeping things practical. My first try was a used ThinkPad X30 from 2002, but that was one step too far. It uses a different charger type, it has no SD-card slot, and I could not get the wireless internet connection working. For many people, it may serve to choose a somewhat younger laptop. That will give you a webcam and a 64-bit architecture, which makes things easier. Of course, you can also try to beat me and go back to the 1990s, but then you’ll have to do without USB and wireless internet connection.

Your choice of laptop also depends on what you want to do with it. If you use it mainly for writing, surfing the web, communication, and entertainment, you can do it as cheaply as I did. If you do graphical or audiovisual work, it’s more complicated, because in that case, you’re probably an Apple user. The same strategy could be applied, on a somewhat younger and more expensive laptop, but it would suggest switching from a Mac to a Linux operating system. When it comes to office applications, Linux is clearly better than its commercial alternatives. For a lack of experience, I cannot tell you if that holds for other software as well.

This is a hack, not a new economical model

Although capitalism could provide us with used laptops for decades to come, the strategy outlined above should be considered a hack, not an economical model. It’s a way to deal with or escape from an economic system that tries to force you and me to consume as much as possible. It’s an attempt to break that system, but it’s not a solution in itself. We need another economical model, in which we build all laptops like pre-2011 Thinkpads. As a consequence, laptop sales would go down, but that’s precisely what we need. Furthermore, with today’s computing efficiency, we could significantly reduce the operational and embodied energy use of a laptop if we reversed the trend towards ever higher functionality.

Significantly, hardware and software changes drive the fast obsolescence of computers, but the latter has now become the most crucial factor. A computer of 15 years old has all the hardware you need, but it’s not compatible with the newest (commercial) software. This is true for operating systems and every type of software, from games to office applications to websites. Consequently, to make laptop use more sustainable, the software industry would need to start making every new version of its products lighter instead of heavier. The lighter the software, the longer our laptops will last, and we will need less energy to use and produce them.

Images: Jordi Manrique Corominas, Adriana Parra, Roel Roscam Abbing

Deng, Liqiu, Callie W. Babbitt, and Eric D. Williams. “Economic-balance hybrid LCA extended with uncertainty analysis: case study of a laptop computer.” Journal of Cleaner Production 19.11 (2011): 1198-1206. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652611000801 ↩︎
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). https://www.irena.org/solar ↩︎
André, Hampus, Maria Ljunggren Söderman, and Anders Nordelöf. “Resource and environmental impacts of using second-hand laptop computers: A case study of commercial reuse.” Waste Management 88 (2019): 268-279. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X19301825 ↩︎ ↩︎
Bihouix, Philippe. The Age of Low Tech: Towards a Technologically Sustainable Civilization. Policy Press, 2020. https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-age-of-low-tech ↩︎
Kasulaitis, Barbara V., et al. “Evolving materials, attributes, and functionality in consumer electronics: Case study of laptop computers.” Resources, conservation and recycling 100 (2015): 1-10. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344915000683 ↩︎
Lenovo took over IBM’s PC business in 2005 and so strictly speaking I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad X60s. However, the hardware had not changed yet, and the laptop only carries the new brand name along that of IBM. My spare laptop, an almost identical model from the same year (X60 instead of X60s), has no reference to Lenovo whatsoever. ↩︎