TL;DR
Empty Barrel Recycling to steelWhat ?
When I was learning Factorio, I wanted to ship barrels of fluids then disassemble the empty barrels to reclaim the steel. My suggestion is to add an assembler(/hand) recipe next to the empty barrel recipe to disassemble it back to steel (or two empty barrels to one steel to represent loss/prevent abuse).Why ?
Complete transit of goods and to prevent a glut of empty barrels. It is somewhat easier in many circumstances to make a controlled number of new barrels from steel supply at source, then disassemble them all at destination into existing steel lines.WHY do you think it increases the value of Factorio as a game?
In addition to being environmentally friendly it will help make barrels more attractive as people won't need to worry about having nothing to do with "too many" barrels...
[0.17.32] as of writing (this should not require any code changes, just a new icon+recipe).
https://wiki.factorio.com/Barrel
Barrel thoughts
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=15330