The result of subscribe is not used

The moment the Activity will be destroyed, the list of Disposables gets cleared and we’re good.

io.reactivex.disposables.CompositeDisposable mDisposable;

    mDisposable = new CompositeDisposable();

    mDisposable.add(
            Single.just(db)
                    .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
                    .subscribe(db -> db.get(1)));

    mDisposable.dispose(); // dispose wherever is required

You can subscribe with DisposableSingleObserver:

Single.just(db)
    .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
    .subscribe(new DisposableSingleObserver<Object>() {
            @Override
            public void onSuccess(Object obj) {
                // work with the resulting todos...
                dispose();
            }

            @Override
            public void onError(Throwable e) {
                // handle the error case...
                dispose();
            }});

In case you need to directly dispose Single object (e.g. before it emits) you can implement method onSubscribe(Disposable d) to get and use the Disposable reference.

You can also realize SingleObserver interface by your own or use other child classes.

The IDE does not know what potential effects your subscription can have when it's not disposed, so it treats it as potentially unsafe. For example, your Single may contain a network call, which could cause a memory leak if your Activity is abandoned during its execution.

A convenient way to manage a large amount of Disposables is to use a CompositeDisposable; just create a new CompositeDisposable instance variable in your enclosing class, then add all your Disposables to the CompositeDisposable (with RxKotlin you can just append addTo(compositeDisposable) to all of your Disposables). Finally, when you're done with your instance, call compositeDisposable.dispose().

This will get rid of the lint warnings, and ensure your Disposables are managed properly.

In this case, the code would look like:

CompositeDisposable compositeDisposable = new CompositeDisposable();

Disposable disposable = Single.just(db)
        .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
        .subscribe(db -> db.get(1)));

compositeDisposable.add(disposable); //IDE is satisfied that the Disposable is being managed. 
disposable.addTo(compositeDisposable); //Alternatively, use this RxKotlin extension function.


compositeDisposable.dispose(); //Placed wherever we'd like to dispose our Disposables (i.e. in onDestroy()).