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The Engineering of Landfills

practical.engineering

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Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#31

Post by darksaints »

mikojan wrote: post #26
bko wrote: post #2

I found this interesting: > Another option is to put it to beneficial use to create heat or even electricity. The Puente Hills landfill I showed earlier has a gas-to-energy facility that’s been running since 1987, and even though the landfill is now closed, it currently provides enough electricity to power around 70,000 homes. And towards the end > Landfills seem like an environmental blight, but really, properly des…

Landfills certainly require more power to operate than that gas scheme can provide later. It all sounds and reads like a fairytale but none of this is sustainable.

70k homes is about 84MW.

You’re gonna have a tough time finding any evidence that running a landfill requires 84MW of electricity.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#32

Post by AnotherGoodName »

newsclues wrote: post #15
bko wrote: post #2

I found this interesting: > Another option is to put it to beneficial use to create heat or even electricity. The Puente Hills landfill I showed earlier has a gas-to-energy facility that’s been running since 1987, and even though the landfill is now closed, it currently provides enough electricity to power around 70,000 homes. And towards the end > Landfills seem like an environmental blight, but really, properly des…

[flagged]

This almost sounds exactly like a knee jerk reaction the op mentioned. Do you have a link to the net benefit vs environmental cost here?

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#33

Post by ajb »

"trash is an inescapable fact of the human condition" Not really. There didn't used to be anything like as much. But what we did before wasn't necessarily better.

Most consumer products were made of organics, like wood, cloth and paper; metals, and clay. Organics were burned or recycled, metals recycled (as now). Only broken clay was really waste.

Cities didn't collect trash - they collected ash. In Britain waste collectors are called "dustmen" because that's what they used to collect. But that meant that people were burning trash in their homes, along with their coal or wood. Then, re-using your trash as winter fuel was a nice economy. Now we know that in-home combustion isn't very healthy.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#34

Post by scoofy »

ajb wrote: post #33

"trash is an inescapable fact of the human condition" Not really. There didn't used to be anything like as much. But what we did before wasn't necessarily better. Most consumer products were made of organics, like wood, cloth and paper; metals, and clay. Organics were burned or recycled, metals recycled (as now). Only broken clay was really waste. Cities didn't collect trash - they collected ash. In Britain waste col…

If you don’t think humans used to make trash, I have plenty of shell mounds to show you.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#35

Post by mikojan »

cm2012 wrote: post #9

So many people misunderstand landfills. All the garbage produced in the U.S. for the next 1000 years could fit into a landfill 100 yards deep and 35 miles across on each side. That is, landfills take a trivial amount of space. Putting stuff in a landfill is way better for global warming since its not burned, the carbon is buried. Almost all plastic waste in developed countries ends up in landfills, not the natural en…

> Putting stuff in a landfill is way better for global warming since its not burned, the carbon is buried.

Landfills release gas. Of course it is better than burning plastic but there is no environmentalist on earth demanding for plastic to be burned.

> Almost all plastic waste in developed countries ends up in landfills, not the natural environment.

This is horrifyingly incorrect! Developed countries process only some of their trash themselves. The rest is shipped into poorer countries. It will end up in the natural environment.

The UK ships off two thirds to other countries.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#36

Post by Iulioh »

barbazoo wrote: post #28
bko wrote: post #2

I found this interesting: > Another option is to put it to beneficial use to create heat or even electricity. The Puente Hills landfill I showed earlier has a gas-to-energy facility that’s been running since 1987, and even though the landfill is now closed, it currently provides enough electricity to power around 70,000 homes. And towards the end > Landfills seem like an environmental blight, but really, properly des…

> I wish more environmentalists would be excited about engineering solving environmental ills and relied less on knee-jerk reactions. Are many ... not? Seems like a weird complaint, I haven't encountered an "environmentalist" (whatever that even is) that is against landfills in general or the engineering of it. I'd rather we didn't produce as much garbage as we are and I hate that our city makes me wrap my garbage in…

Probably OP is thinking of NIMBYs.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#37

Post by briffle »

aziaziazi wrote: post #23
briffle wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My county has one that does 90% of our garbage, and its not an easy problem. The key part is scrubbing the smoke to get rid of the polutants, and then cleaning the ash to also get rid of things like mercury. The only way they can seem to make a buck is to charge high rates to dispose of 'medical waste' that helps with costs.

Curious: why medical wastes? 90% : Sweden or Japan ? https://sensoneo.com/global-waste-index/

Marion County, Oregon..

Medical waste is 'biohazard' waste (think blood, guts, needles, etc) So they can't just throw most of that in a landfill, it has to get burned. They charge a premium partly because they can, and partly because most of that is from outside our county.

https://www.co.marion.or.us/PW/ES/disposal/Pages/mcwef.aspx

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#38

Post by daedrdev »

mikojan wrote: post #26
bko wrote: post #2

I found this interesting: > Another option is to put it to beneficial use to create heat or even electricity. The Puente Hills landfill I showed earlier has a gas-to-energy facility that’s been running since 1987, and even though the landfill is now closed, it currently provides enough electricity to power around 70,000 homes. And towards the end > Landfills seem like an environmental blight, but really, properly des…

Landfills certainly require more power to operate than that gas scheme can provide later. It all sounds and reads like a fairytale but none of this is sustainable.

The gas is generated by the chemistry of the stuff that was put there. Moving the stuff there takes a lot of energy, but everything sitting there mainly just needs a pump and treatment system.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#39

Post by daedrdev »

aziaziazi wrote: post #17
blitzar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plastic pollution in the ocean is from our soda bottles we shipped to developing countries.

IIRC, ~30%[0] of ocean plastic came from fishing nests. They are huge, break often and it’s easier and cheaper to throw aboard an old one than bring it onshore for recycling. (edit) 0: 46% https://www.seashepherdglobal.org/latest-news/marine-debris-... Totally unrelated but since it’s from seashepherd I can’t help adding Paul Watson trial from extradition in Japan is tomorrow.

Additionally, the top 10 rivers, 9 of which in Asia, produce an extremely high precent of land based ocean pollution

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#40

Post by mikojan »

darksaints wrote: post #31
mikojan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landfills certainly require more power to operate than that gas scheme can provide later. It all sounds and reads like a fairytale but none of this is sustainable.

70k homes is about 84MW. You’re gonna have a tough time finding any evidence that running a landfill requires 84MW of electricity.

A single truck requires more energy to operate in a year.
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