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Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

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Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#61

Post by eesmith »

saalweachter wrote: post #34
ponector wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be true for small cities. But try to find an empty space suitable for landfill near NYC.

Up until 2001, it was inside NYC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobro_4000

> The Mobro 4000 was a barge owned by MOBRO Marine, Inc. made infamous in 1987 for hauling the same load of trash along the east coast of North America from New York City to Belize and back until a way was found to dispose of the garbage. ...

> In 1987, the City of New York found that it had reached its landfill capacity. The city agreed to ship its garbage to Morehead City, North Carolina, where there were plans to convert it into methane.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#62

Post by fodkodrasz »

progne wrote: post #57

I've heard that the biggest barrier to reuse is the expense of purifying the inputs of the various recycling processes. A few stray baked beans can gum up the works. If so the economics would be greatly changed by a robot running AI software that can just sort and wash trash the way we're supposed to at home.

How cost effective is washing trash at home, to using packaging that is either biodegradable, or inert (paper, and glass for example, as it has been done for decades before plastics got widespread)?

Compared to this I keep hearing the bullshit that reusing glass is not environmentally friendly and a PET flask has lower carbon footprint, etc. I say bullshit. Also we should transport and sell less water (either with added sugar and CO2 or without), we have those pipes in the ground/walls at most places in the developed world, which supply us clean drinking water. We should rather focus on providing clean tapwater to everybody where it is not available, instead of selling water for 100x price in small single use containers.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. These are the priorities.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#63

Post by jrmg »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42
jrmg wrote: post #19

One of the protagonists of Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ trilogy (starting in ‘Blue Mars’ onwards IIRC) is a billionaire who made his billions by starting ‘dumpmines’, a landfill mining company.

> starting in ‘Blue Mars’ Starting with Red Mars . Blue Mars is last in the trilogy.

I think the character was not in the first book. Maybe he appears in Green Mars? It’s been so long since it read them.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#64

Post by gosub100 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11
gosub100 wrote: post #7

I've wondered why they haven't implemented a compromise between recycling and tossing, which would just be segregating certain materials for later sale or recycling. If they put all the plastic bottles in one section of landfill, all the glass, etc it would be a bet toward there someday being a change in technology, materials science, or market prices that might make it worth mining. It would also be cheaper because…

You should visit the average landfill to get a firsthand impression of the sheer volume of trash that arrives every day. Sorting at that point would require a huge investment in infrastructure and technology on-site. Individuals sorting their own trash at the other end of the stream is quite easy and costs only a few minutes of their time. It's like diverting the flow of a tributary stream vs. diverting the Mississip…

Big City: "Hey WM, we appreciate the valuable service you provide us just like you appreciate the monopoly on business we grant you. Trouble is, your industry doesn't seem to innovate at the same pace as other industries. Starting next year, we are going to levy taxes and fees on your business model. You can avoid paying these fees if you invest in technology to meet the following requirements: lower miles driven by your fleet, segregate 95% of plastic bottles, glass bottles, and food cans (they still go to the landfill, just in a particular place). Don't want to change? Fine, we'll bust your monopoly and you can compete with firms that will innovate."

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#65

Post by gosub100 »

hinkley wrote: post #20
gosub100 wrote: post #7

I've wondered why they haven't implemented a compromise between recycling and tossing, which would just be segregating certain materials for later sale or recycling. If they put all the plastic bottles in one section of landfill, all the glass, etc it would be a bet toward there someday being a change in technology, materials science, or market prices that might make it worth mining. It would also be cheaper because…

Seattle has a sorting facility for recycling in SODO, you can see it from I5 and 99 if you know where to look. It’s around half the size of the stadium. And that’s just recycling.

I'm not talking about recycling though. I'm talking about tossing the same category of waste into the same pile, so that at a future date it may be economical to retrieve and recycle. Haven't you seen the expose's (sorry I dont know how to type the accent char) about how the "recycled" plastic is shipped to china and burnt in a bonfire? But someday if there's a million tons of plastic soda bottles, someone might find it economical to make jet fuel out of them, whereas they wouldn't if they were mixed in with metal and organic waste.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#66

Post by anonymouskimmer »

ianburrell wrote: post #51
lm28469 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, the burning creates CO2 When burning trash CO2 is way down the list of things I worry about personally.

We need to reduce carbon emissions to zero in couple decades. Burning trash isn't an issue now, but we need to keep in mind that isn't really "green" when deciding to build more plants. The problem with burning trash is that it turns all of the carbon into CO2. Trash in landfill does produce methane which is worse greenhouse gas, but it sounds like landfill are starting to capture or burn methane. The best option is…

> The best option is likely to separate biologic waste and compost it. That produces some CO2 but puts the remaining carbon back where can be used. Plastic doesn't degrade, paper can be recycled, which means most of the carbon is sequestered or reused.

There are also technologies that turn biologic waste and plastics back into a high-quality oil that has a variety of uses. On balance I don't know if this is better than direct burning for energy production, but for more robust plastic recycling it might be.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#67

Post by gosub100 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11
gosub100 wrote: post #7

I've wondered why they haven't implemented a compromise between recycling and tossing, which would just be segregating certain materials for later sale or recycling. If they put all the plastic bottles in one section of landfill, all the glass, etc it would be a bet toward there someday being a change in technology, materials science, or market prices that might make it worth mining. It would also be cheaper because…

You should visit the average landfill to get a firsthand impression of the sheer volume of trash that arrives every day. Sorting at that point would require a huge investment in infrastructure and technology on-site. Individuals sorting their own trash at the other end of the stream is quite easy and costs only a few minutes of their time. It's like diverting the flow of a tributary stream vs. diverting the Mississip…

I've been to landfills before, thank you. It's certainly possible with technology or manpower to separate the garbage. Sorting would require a "huge investment" ? well good thing WM is a XXX-billion dollar corporation, right? I mean, otherwise that might hurt their bottom line. Think of the corporations, amirite?

The real concern is how much energy that would require, but luckily many landfills can capture the methane emitted by previous disposal and what better way to use it than power on-side sorting facilities.

My main point is that WM (and any other trash haulers, I know someone will say "WM isn't the only company - as if that adds any value to the conversation) is stagnating instead of innovating. Thinking ahead that within a decade or two, we might have a bacteria that eats plastic (and maybe even turns it into fuel!) or that burning more diesel (to pick up recyclables) might not be such a good idea. In other industries, they have real-time cameras that can sort tiny shards of broken glass (or grains of wheat!) to keep out contaminants. Theres no reason to think WM can't innovate similarly, they just have no pressure/incentive to.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#68

Post by anonymouskimmer »

Gud wrote: post #52
bregma wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> eventually will leak lovely chemicals into groundwater Far better to transform them into even worse chemicals through exothermic reactions and send them invisibly through the air to all your neighbours.

Is this really what happens? My home country Sweden does the same thing, burning garbage, if that was really the case I doubt it would be allowed.

It depends on the temperature they burn at. You need pretty high heats to combust dioxins, for example, and from some very light skimming of the USA's standards I think you also need various filters and scrubbers for heavy metals (especially mercury which will boil away at these temperatures).

This stuff can be done, but it's expensive. I also don't know how close to 100% it gets even if everything is done properly. And of course to fully remediate this all of the equipment has to be operating properly.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#69

Post by justinator »

gruez wrote: post #26
bradley13 wrote: post #9

Some years ago, Switzerland completely stopped using landfills. All garbage is incinerated. The resulting slag is then processed to reclaim nearly all metals as well as some other important elements. Of course, the burning creates CO2. However, you don't have to mine and refine metal ores, and the incinerators also generate electricity and district heating. So the ecological balance is actually pretty good. As a fina…

>you don't have literal square miles of landfills that occupy land Land area is a non-issue. Google says Switzerland produces "80 to 90 million tonnes" of garbage per year. Assuming that garbage has the same density of water, and a landfill is 10 meters deep, a 1 sq mi landfill will last 287 years. Moreover, Wikipedia says Switzerland has 15,940 square miles of land, so that will only take up 0.006% of the country's…

>Assuming that garbage has the same density of water

It is probably much less dense.

>Moreover, Wikipedia says Switzerland has 15,940 square miles of land, so that will only take up 0.006% of the country's land area.

I do not think many landfills are located in mountains and Switzerland is fairly mountainous. The available livable and arable land is a fraction of its total land area.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#70

Post by sneed_chucker »

"Trash economy. The abundance of trash. What are we gonna do with it? Are we gonna put it on an island? Are we gonna make it somebody else’s problem? Or are we going to take the initiative, and take this problem by the horns? Trash economy. You use cubes of trash as money. Everybody becomes rich, it’s a gold rush."
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