Suppose this is the article to give that person who chides you for dropping an orange peel on a hike.
life's too short for friends like that
12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
21–30 of 127 posts
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#22It's recently occurred to me how "valuable" today's trash is likely to be considered in the future. I'll focus on organics here but I think the plastics will be equally valuable, too. I have no idea what % of American households compost or live in places which offer municipal compost pickup but I imagine it's in the single digits. As evidenced by this article, compost is/can be an incredibly powerful agent of change:…
The thought occurred to me some 25+ years ago that today's landfills will be tomorrow's mines. I hope it isn't true but taking the very long view I'm afraid it will be.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#23It's recently occurred to me how "valuable" today's trash is likely to be considered in the future. I'll focus on organics here but I think the plastics will be equally valuable, too. I have no idea what % of American households compost or live in places which offer municipal compost pickup but I imagine it's in the single digits. As evidenced by this article, compost is/can be an incredibly powerful agent of change:…
The thought occurred to me some 25+ years ago that today's landfills will be tomorrow's mines. I hope it isn't true but taking the very long view I'm afraid it will be.
Today’s landfills are already used for natural gas generation.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#24Does orange peel not produce any CO2 / methane when left like this? I'm assuming there is some negative carbon footprint before this becomes a positive? The ecological win definitely looks nice on paper, but whenever people talk about compost the carbon footprint / gas emissions is always at the front of people's minds, and I don't really see that discussed in the article. The article does say > Especially since, in…
The orange peel is going to decompose and produce CO2 either way. Methane is produced when there is not enough oxygen available while decomposing, which certainly seems a possibility if it's dumped in big piles.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#25It's recently occurred to me how "valuable" today's trash is likely to be considered in the future. I'll focus on organics here but I think the plastics will be equally valuable, too. I have no idea what % of American households compost or live in places which offer municipal compost pickup but I imagine it's in the single digits. As evidenced by this article, compost is/can be an incredibly powerful agent of change:…
The thought occurred to me some 25+ years ago that today's landfills will be tomorrow's mines. I hope it isn't true but taking the very long view I'm afraid it will be.
We already mine landfills -- mostly for land reclamation but sometimes to recover resources.
In the longer run, when there's been more compaction, settling, and densification (and changes in what things are valuable), and more need to reclaim land that was previously landfilled, we will do this more.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#26It's recently occurred to me how "valuable" today's trash is likely to be considered in the future. I'll focus on organics here but I think the plastics will be equally valuable, too. I have no idea what % of American households compost or live in places which offer municipal compost pickup but I imagine it's in the single digits. As evidenced by this article, compost is/can be an incredibly powerful agent of change:…
Proud to report residential composting is now mandatory in NYC.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#27Does orange peel not produce any CO2 / methane when left like this? I'm assuming there is some negative carbon footprint before this becomes a positive? The ecological win definitely looks nice on paper, but whenever people talk about compost the carbon footprint / gas emissions is always at the front of people's minds, and I don't really see that discussed in the article. The article does say > Especially since, in…
You're getting downvoted but it's a reasonable question if posed in good faith. The tl;dr is that there are really a few options for what could happen to those orange peels:
(1) Landfill burial
(1a) Without methane capture and use: Produces methane, relatively high short term warming potential.
(1b) With methane capture and use: Ends up as CO2 after burning the methane.
(2a) Mostly aerobic: Produces CO2
(2b) Mostly anaerobic: Produces methane
And perhaps more to the point: There isn't really a purely "no co2" way of disposing of organic matter other than perhaps burying it at the bottom of a deep mineshaft (but the co2 or methane will be produced anyway). Landfilling it is strictly worse - you still get the decomposition products, _or worse_ because you'll mostly get methane, but without producing useful soil byproducts.
Overall this project is a huge win on a carbon perspective and a waste reduction perspective.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#28Does orange peel not produce any CO2 / methane when left like this? I'm assuming there is some negative carbon footprint before this becomes a positive? The ecological win definitely looks nice on paper, but whenever people talk about compost the carbon footprint / gas emissions is always at the front of people's minds, and I don't really see that discussed in the article. The article does say > Especially since, in…
CO2 is going to be neutral for the peels. You're just transporting it from where the oranges grew to where they were dumped. The CO2 benefit is purely from the trees and other biomass that grow where they wouldn't be growing before.
As for methane, that's a good question. Orange peels are better than most things because the limonene inhibits methane producing bacteria. But you'd still get quite a bit in the deeper piles (that produce the anaerobic conditions needed for methane production).
Spreading them out more would help, but might interfere with the beneficial effects.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#29Suppose this is the article to give that person who chides you for dropping an orange peel on a hike.
It depends on where the hike is:
Dropping an orange peel in a humid, temperate, low-elevation place is vastly different than a desert, high-alpine, tundra or other environment where organics take a long time to decompose.
Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
#30It's recently occurred to me how "valuable" today's trash is likely to be considered in the future. I'll focus on organics here but I think the plastics will be equally valuable, too. I have no idea what % of American households compost or live in places which offer municipal compost pickup but I imagine it's in the single digits. As evidenced by this article, compost is/can be an incredibly powerful agent of change:…
Proud to report residential composting is now mandatory in NYC.
It's doubtful that'll ever happen in Dutchess County but I can dream.