121–130 of 228 posts
There is this strange belief that landfills are taking up a ton of space and we need to reduce landfill usage because of it. This is simply not true. Landfills don't take up much space, we have plenty.
I want to believe that, but then we have this 65 meter trash pile in Delhi. https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/india-trash-mo...
There is this strange belief that landfills are taking up a ton of space and we need to reduce landfill usage because of it. This is simply not true. Landfills don't take up much space, we have plenty.
I want to believe that, but then we have this 65 meter trash pile in Delhi. https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/india-trash-mo...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably a combination of NIMBYism and poor land-use planning. Back when many of these landfills were created, they were on the outskirts of urban areas, where "outskirts" = 15-20 miles away. After the wave of suburbanization in the 1950s-80s, suddenly those outskirts are right next to someone's home. Now it's a crisis. Most people's conception of what land is available is limited to their local metropolitan area, an…
Shipping over water is cheaper than shipping over land.
Other than the diplomatic issue of sending it back, "Asian countries take a stand against their own recycling industries" seems more accurate. There was someone buying it on the other end.
Why can't the US develop domestic waste-processing capabilities? We could be generating power from incineration plants.
https://kjzz.org/content/859146/phoenix-convert-plastic-wast...
"The City of Phoenix announced Wednesday it will soon begin converting certain plastic waste into liquid fuel.
The fifth most populous city in the country has partnered with a waste management company and Renewlogy, a technology firm, to convert plastics 3-7 into fuel.
Plastic items with a number between 3 and 7 in the recycling symbol are considered “low-value” and are expensive to recycle. The city expects the project to divert 10 tons of plastic waste from landfills every day, producing 60 barrels of liquid fuel."
Other articles:
https://inhabitat.com/renewlogy-turns-low-grade-plastic-into...
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900014582/utah-based-ren...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Glass is another (the other?) material which is worthwhile to recycle. Like plastic, glass never decomposes. Unlike plastic and unlike paper/cardboard, it can be endlessly remelted and remade into new products without a loss in quality. It's a huge savings in material and energy cost to use recycled glass in the manufacture of new glass. If you have a recycling bin labeled "glass", absolutely do throw (place) glass b…
That it can be recycled without "waste" doesnt mean its worthwhile. Making glass costs a large amount of energy. As far I know, when plastic is recycled, it is better for the environment than using glass.
There is this strange belief that landfills are taking up a ton of space and we need to reduce landfill usage because of it. This is simply not true. Landfills don't take up much space, we have plenty.
I want to believe that, but then we have this 65 meter trash pile in Delhi. https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/india-trash-mo...
As far as I can understand it, the recycling industry is a well-intentioned waste of resources. It would be much better for the environment for all this waste to be sequestered in a landfill than for people to pay to ship it around the world only for most of it to be dumped or rejected (which, even when the Asian countries in question do accept it, they are likely to do anyway). These materials (plastics) are so chea…
Well-intentioned is a stretch. We really just shouldn’t be using plastic for disposable products, and corporations take advantage of peoples’ lack of knowledge of recycling to neglect their responsibility of proper disposal and pricing. Given the effect of plastic on the environment single use plastics should be priced higher than their (eg) metal counterparts. (This is assuming those have priced in externalities, so…
Huh... I would've expected to read we very much should be using plastics for disposables. (Do you want a metal or cloth trash bag?) Rather the problem I see is disposing so much in the first place.
I'm fed up of sorting and "recycling" plastic, it's such bullshit, it's a feel good activity for individuals or a check box exercise for governments. If anything it's damaging to continue pretending to recycle plastics, it makes it seem ok to continue producing them. One day in the future it will be banned at the source, packaging will be replaced with something non-hazardous and efficient to recycle or biodegrade, a…
As a counter-example, British Columbia recycles its post-consumer waste. There are state of the art sorting facilities near Vancouver that receive this material, sort it, grind it, clean it, and pelletize it. It's then bought and used to produce various industrial and consumer goods. The recycler receives a subsidy (set through open bid) because the cost of sortation, grinding and cleaning is somewhat less than the r…
One of the things I don't like about these kinds of issues is the lack of understanding that garbage is as much a social problem as it is a technical problem. We assume that people can't/won't do things and evolve a culture where it is true.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a counter-example, British Columbia recycles its post-consumer waste. There are state of the art sorting facilities near Vancouver that receive this material, sort it, grind it, clean it, and pelletize it. It's then bought and used to produce various industrial and consumer goods. The recycler receives a subsidy (set through open bid) because the cost of sortation, grinding and cleaning is somewhat less than the r…
The city where I live has 14 sorts of garbage. You have to sort, clean, put it in clear special bags and write your name on it. If you don't do it right, it doesn't get removed (and your neighbours gang up to figure out who screwed it up if you don't write your name). Of course, it's Japan and people are used to following rules, but the system works quite well. One of the things I don't like about these kinds of issu…
So far, that hasn't happened, so we just got high recycle rates but terrible streams of material that are not economic to recycle.
I agree that the Japanese approach would be a better one, even though it would take large social change, and would result in lower recycle rates for quite a while.