Just Bury Your Trash • Hacker News Board

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#171

Post by hbd-investor » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

murderfs wrote: post #74

toomuchtodo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misread the Wikipedia page. Plasma gasification air emissions are cleaner with costs being somewhat higher than incineration. Plasma gasification breaks matter down at the molecular level versus combustion of incineration. With plasma gasification, you are paying more to end with a more inert end material and reduced hazardous process byproducts.

I interpret "can be cleaner than X and similar to that of Y" to mean "inferior to that of Y, but kinda close". Otherwise, it would be "cleaner than X and Y".

Plasmification is cleaner than incineration

A good example is a old PCB board with Lead solder thrown carelessly into the trash

A incinerator gets hot enough to melt organics, but it won't turn the lead into gas

Instead the lead will end up in either the exhaust gases or in the ashes. These ashes will be thrown into a landfill. Over the course of 10,000 years these landfills will end up leaching this lead into groundwater supplies and ending up in our food, soil and in plants.

Plasmification on the other hand, this lead ends up encased in a slag, and will remain that way easily for millions of years. The lead atoms will be locked in a obsidian glasslike rock.

All the bad stuff like heavy metals etc... will end up in the soil for a incinerator, Organics like plastic will be broken down into their base elements carbon/oxygen/nitrogen/water

While all the bad stuff gets encased in slag for Plasmification

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#172

Post by hbd-investor » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #152

The best trash management solution is: don't create trash. Buy in bulk and from low packaging sources. Compost organic matter, recycle paper/cardboard/metal/glass, and you end up with a tiny amount of genuine trash. Use reusable rags and wash them in cold water (you don't need heat to remove dirt and grease, just good soap). Don't use single use products. Result: waste is minimal and way less harmful. The world used…

Landfills are also a private moneymaking scam, They are owned by private companies, who will make tons of money taking in trash by the ton, then they get paid for 50 years of bogus inspections. After 80 years these private companies will go bankrupt after the owner extracted all the profits. These landfills will remain deadly for 10,000 years. There will be no company around to be liable in the future and will front the money to repair the landfills.

Pretty much all of them will be leaking in the future and poisoning the groundwater for thousands of years. Landfills don't fix the problem, they just dump it onto the humans of the future

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#173

Post by butlike » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

Flavius wrote: post #72

butlike wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, burning trash isn't a great answer

90% of countries use some kind of fossil fuel to generate electricity or heat, so burning trash instead won't increase the CO2 emissions. The rule is simple: if you already burn fossil fuels, you should burn trash instead.

I disagree. Burning trash creates an implicit stopgap where the trash burning is better than the fossil fuels, so the process is placated until the trash burning isn't good enough, or its downsides rear their ugly heads. Instead of turning to trash burning as a solution if fossil fuels are already being burnt, a more long-term 3rd solution should be explored while still in the 'unsatisfactory' mindset.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#174

Post by dghlsakjg » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #40

justonceokay wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere, and also in awe at how clean the city was. Never did the two thoughts cross each other in her head

> When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere The first part I kind of get, humans get used to stuff they get, and get frustrated when it disappears without them really understanding why, it's kind of understandable. But why would she be outraged about recycling bins being more readily available? Are the recycling bins like…

It’s the same sentiment behind the weird boomer meme of getting befuddled in a coffee shop because they just want a cup of drip coffee.

People will get confused about what goes where and complain about it, when the option to just put it all in the garbage was always there anyways.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#175

Post by dghlsakjg » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

lanfeust6 wrote: post #162

xboxnolifes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't solve the problem of people littering. Obviously if trash gets into the trash can it ends up at the landfill.

Littering is mostly cans, disposable cups and food-related containers; not bags straight from the grocery store.

How old are you?

I can remember when there would be drifts of these bags caught in fence lines, trees, sewer grates etc.

Before bag bans there were SO MANY of these things everywhere.

There’s a whole scene about the beauty of plastic shopping bags in “American Beauty” in 1996. The whole point was finding beauty in something that was so common that you walk by it every day.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#176

Post by dguest » Fri, Sep 04, 2026, 7:27 AM UTC

lanfeust6 wrote: post #161

smartmic wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Streets, parks, trees You forgot the biggest and probably the most sensitive dump: the (deep) sea.

The article goes over this. Plastic in oceans is from east asian countries without a good municipal waste system, not from developed countries.

Fixing the municipal waste system seems like the "add another system" school of engineering. As someone who works in poorly organized, poorly funded projects, I generally subscribe more to the "remove the problematic part of the existing system" school.

Getting rid of single-use wherever possible removes the broken part. I agree that we should also add more systems like proper waste disposal, but it's more complexity to count on.