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Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

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Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#71

Post by justinator »

Solvency wrote: post #24
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has way too much space for incineration to become more cost-effective than just dumping it in a giant hole in the ground.

Until you go to your local landfill and see the massive fuming hellscape spanning thousands of acres with mountains of garbage just laying there and mentally extrapolate how it will look even 10 more years from now.

The landfill here in town has a sledding hill, swimming pool, jungle gym, and a skate park. It was in the hinterlands of the town, but the town grew fast.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#72

Post by sbierwagen »

calamari4065 wrote: post #56
Loughla wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ringworld. That's the basic idea of the underlying society wide failure in that book.

Except that bacterium was introduced as a weapon specifically to destroy that society. Weren't they trying to take control of the ring once society collapsed?

Not precisely.

https://larryniven.net/puppeteer/puppol.shtml

>The Puppeteers mistook the City Builders to be the Ringworld's engineers and become suddenly afraid to encounter so powerful a species. The Puppeteers examined the Ringworld's superconductor material and created a technophytic bacterium to seed the Ringworld and destroy the superconductor. The strategy was to follow the probes with trading ships and come to the profitable rescue of the City Builders. However, the Puppeteers soon realized that the City Builders could not possibly have created the Ringworld, and discovered several Pak artifacts. The Puppeteers feared the Pak above nearly all other threats.

>The Conservatives took control of the government and the Ringworld project was abandoned.

Puppeteers don't colonize. They trade, and destroy threats, but the Conservative majority doesn't actually want to own or operate the Ringworld. (Remember, they're flying through space on a rosette of five planets... with over a trillion puppeteers crowded onto just one of them, and the other four covered with automated farms. Elbow room isn't something a herd animal values.)

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#73

Post by fisherjeff »

morsch wrote: post #55
gruez wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Is your math right? 90 million tons of water/10 m gets me 1.7 km2, so a 1 sq mi landfill would last around ... 1 year, not 287. That said, of the 90 million of waste, 60-70 million is construction waste, and just 6 million tons is municipal waste. On the other hand, I'm not sure you can just assume that waste has the same density as water; from a cursory glance it seems to about 1/3. https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en…

Don’t think it’s even a year… should be 8-9e6 m^2 per year, or 3-3.5 mi^2 per year.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#74

Post by lgessler »

morsch wrote: post #55
gruez wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Is your math right? 90 million tons of water/10 m gets me 1.7 km2, so a 1 sq mi landfill would last around ... 1 year, not 287. That said, of the 90 million of waste, 60-70 million is construction waste, and just 6 million tons is municipal waste. On the other hand, I'm not sure you can just assume that waste has the same density as water; from a cursory glance it seems to about 1/3. https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en…

I think you're right. Here's my math:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%281+square+mile+*+1...

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#75

Post by tmountain »

progne wrote: post #60
feoren wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never before heard anyone ever suggest that we're "supposed to" be sorting and washing our trash at home. What an unbelievably wasteful and pointless notion.

See for example the Seattle "tips to recycle right" * Empty, Clean, and Dry * When in Doubt, Find Out * Keep Bags Out The page goes into detail on each. This isn't unusual in my experience. https://www.seattle.gov/utilities/your-services/collection-a... Here's an online tool to help people identify the various kinds of recyclables and direct them correctly. It isn't easy and I doubt few Seattle residents know all of…

How does this align with NPRs fairly recent report that recycling probably isn't even worth it?

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/21/987111675/video-is-recycling-...

How many hours have we (as a species) wasted sorting and meticulously managing our waste when the vast majority of it never gets recycled anyway? I'm asking the question as someone who cares deeply about the environment. I just think recycling is a fake solution invented by the plastic industry to alleviate the consumer guilt that comes with purchasing single-use plastics. If you don't like a bunch of waste in your landfills, buy fewer single-use products. The vast majority of what goes into the bin never gets recycled anyway.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#76

Post by lanna »

morsch wrote: post #55
gruez wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Is your math right? 90 million tons of water/10 m gets me 1.7 km2, so a 1 sq mi landfill would last around ... 1 year, not 287. That said, of the 90 million of waste, 60-70 million is construction waste, and just 6 million tons is municipal waste. On the other hand, I'm not sure you can just assume that waste has the same density as water; from a cursory glance it seems to about 1/3. https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en…

A mile is 1609m

A sq mile is 1609x1609 = 2,588,881 square meters

Times 10m, 25,888,810 cubic meters

A cubic meter of water weighs 1000 Kg

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#77

Post by sanswork »

Solvency wrote: post #24
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has way too much space for incineration to become more cost-effective than just dumping it in a giant hole in the ground.

Until you go to your local landfill and see the massive fuming hellscape spanning thousands of acres with mountains of garbage just laying there and mentally extrapolate how it will look even 10 more years from now.

The largest landfill in the US was only 700acres after almost 60 years in operation supporting LA.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#78

Post by dTal »

grogenaut wrote: post #23
kulahan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology of landfills has massively improved over the years. It's not the old pile of garbage covered in birds forever; they turn them into parks and whatnot. It's probably worth looking up, because there's some cool scientific advancements behind it. I'm pulling this next sentence completely out of my ass, but I also imagine it would be convenient, once we develop bacteria to break this stuff down in an enviro…

I'm super excited for all the plastic in the world and all the devices that we use everyday to rot because we developed a bacteria that eats it and now your iPhone internals have an infection and your phone just disintegrates and the steering wheel falls off your car

I unironically am. Humans are not responsible enough to control a cheap material that doesn't biodegrade; it's everywhere now, including our own blood stream, because we took a material of near-infinite durability and used it for disposable packaging. Madness. We have lost the right to it.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#79

Post by gruez »

morsch wrote: post #55
gruez wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Is your math right? 90 million tons of water/10 m gets me 1.7 km2, so a 1 sq mi landfill would last around ... 1 year, not 287. That said, of the 90 million of waste, 60-70 million is construction waste, and just 6 million tons is municipal waste. On the other hand, I'm not sure you can just assume that waste has the same density as water; from a cursory glance it seems to about 1/3. https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en…

> Is your math right? 90 million tons of water/10 m gets me 1.7 km2, so a 1 sq mi landfill would last around ... 1 year, not 287.

You're right, looks like I forgot to convert liters to tons.

>On the other hand, I'm not sure you can just assume that waste has the same density as water; from a cursory glance it seems to about 1/3.

is this before or after compaction? Intuitively speaking, most things I throw out would sink in water. A garbage bin/trash bag might float because it has a bunch of air, but presumably that will all get pushed out when buried 10 meters deep.

Re: Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

#80

Post by lapphi »

avion23 wrote: post #46
gruez wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

this non-issue happened in a modern landfill near my hometown. They just used a different grade of material and pocketed the difference. The chemicals area leaching now into the groundwater. Any researchers reporting on that are sued. Even police is used for intimidation. Country is Germany.

I think many of us get so used to modeling problems in closed systems that we have a blind spot about human behavior irl.
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