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Garbage In, Toxics Out

theintercept.com

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Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#11

Post by Retric »

fuoqi wrote: post #7

The problem is with trying to "recycle" garbage plastic. Plastic is mostly carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Properly burning it using high-temperature (900+°C) pyrolysis converts most of plastic into water and carbon dioxide. There are some issues with sulfides and nitrogen oxides, but scrubbing those is a familiar problem for the industry. Remaining ash is relatively inert and can be used as a filler in various applica…

I don’t see how sending plastics to a dump is going to result in ocean micro plastics. Environmentally you’re inefficiently generating energy from trash and reducing landfill size from bring trash vs failing to sequester the carbon in the trash and releasing some air pollution. I doubt pyrolysis is a net gain.

Properly constructed and operated landfills are a small source of methane, but otherwise quite benign.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#12

Post by forgetfreeman »

coldcode wrote: post #6

I haven't been a chemist in more than 40 years, but even I know that pyrolysis of plastics makes a horrible toxic soup. There is no way to recycle many plastics in this way, the chemistry to reuse this resultant material doesn't exist. All it does is reduce the volume of material, which you then have to put somewhere. Also, the volatiles you generate have to go somewhere, and I highly doubt you want to breath them. Y…

Fun little bit of trivia about the part of the world where this plant is located: the eastern 3rd of the state is blanketed in a thin film of aerosolized pig shit, so you're closer to the current state of play than maybe you thought.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#13

Post by snakeyjake »

jwx48 wrote: post #2

I've pretty much given up trying to recycle plastic, and instead throw it in the trash. It's toxic to make (I think?), contaminates food and water when you heat it, and--apparently--can not be recycled safely or efficiently. I realize I can't remove it from life entirely, but I'm actively avoiding it where I can and replacing it as opportunity permits.

>I realize I can't remove it from life entirely, but I'm actively avoiding it where I can and replacing it as opportunity permits.

I realized this as well and have practically eliminated single-use plastics from my life except for those being those needed for health and safety reasons, like the blister packs that some medicines come in or bottles holding household chemicals.

Even with household chemicals, a strategy to minimize plastic use is to buy high-quality commercial applicators that can be reused for years and then purchase the product in bulk or concentrated form.

It isn't as easy as it should be, but at the same time it isn't difficult. It just requires time and effort.

When I discovered that bar shampoos and soaps that come in cardboard boxes contain the same ingredients as their liquid counterparts, and were less expensive because you weren't paying to transport water or mold a plastic bottle, it started a landslide of plastic avoidance.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#14

Post by fuoqi »

Retric wrote: post #11
fuoqi wrote: post #7

The problem is with trying to "recycle" garbage plastic. Plastic is mostly carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Properly burning it using high-temperature (900+°C) pyrolysis converts most of plastic into water and carbon dioxide. There are some issues with sulfides and nitrogen oxides, but scrubbing those is a familiar problem for the industry. Remaining ash is relatively inert and can be used as a filler in various applica…

I don’t see how sending plastics to a dump is going to result in ocean micro plastics. Environmentally you’re inefficiently generating energy from trash and reducing landfill size from bring trash vs failing to sequester the carbon in the trash and releasing some air pollution. I doubt pyrolysis is a net gain. Properly constructed and operated landfills are a small source of methane, but otherwise quite benign.

"Properly constructed and operated landfills" which prevent leakage of microplastics and toxic decomposition products into air and waterways are far from being cheap, especially on longer time frames and with involved volumes (more than 80M metric tonnes per year just in US!). Usually, you either end up with slack maintenance, resulting in eventual pollution of the environment, or you export this waste into third world countries with significant amount of such "exports" ending in oceans.

And plastic does not stay inert in landfills forever either, it slowly decomposes, releasing products into environment (methane and carbon dioxide being most benign of those). Effectively, you get slower, less controlled and more dangerous (biologically speaking) "burning" which will be done for many generations instead of burning the stuff right away in controlled conditions.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#15

Post by CptFribble »

Why are we still not talking about plasma gasification?

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

As far as I can tell, the only real "disadvantages" if you can call them that, are:

1. more expensive than throwing the garbage in a big pile somewhere

2. need to clean it from time to time

3. not necessarily a profitable business

Other than that, it can handle just about anything that's not radioactive, can be designed to produce 0 toxic byproducts, and can run at or at least only slightly below energy neutral. Plasma gasifiers can also consume a huge amount of garbage for their size, so much so that the US Navy is starting to put them on the latest generation of aircraft carriers.

Not building out more gasifiers seems to me a failure of the free market. Because it's hard to make it profitable, no one is doing it - when really we should just be building one or two near every major city and funneling all our garbage there.

In theory, we could build out enough to start working through all the landfills too.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#16

Post by [deleted] »

fuoqi wrote: post #7

The problem is with trying to "recycle" garbage plastic. Plastic is mostly carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Properly burning it using high-temperature (900+°C) pyrolysis converts most of plastic into water and carbon dioxide. There are some issues with sulfides and nitrogen oxides, but scrubbing those is a familiar problem for the industry. Remaining ash is relatively inert and can be used as a filler in various applica…

[deleted]

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#17

Post by projektfu »

flashback2199 wrote: post #8

I wonder how they make money. This sounds like grifters living off of government grants. I wonder how widespread the problem is of grifters taking government grants for fake green projects. Perhaps the country made the right move by not doing a green new deal after all. It looks like paying grifters to do science doesn't work very well.

If you call out the problem generally you get denounced as part of the problem. Consider the reaction to "Planet of the Humans". There was a PR full court press from all the environmental groups to try to prevent people from watching it by attacking the messenger and focusing on trivial things while avoiding the discussion about the message.

It's just one example. I'm kind of bitter about the lack of attention to the effectiveness of the green tech movement and actually focusing on reduction of resource use.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#18

Post by nebula8804 »

flashback2199 wrote: post #8

I wonder how they make money. This sounds like grifters living off of government grants. I wonder how widespread the problem is of grifters taking government grants for fake green projects. Perhaps the country made the right move by not doing a green new deal after all. It looks like paying grifters to do science doesn't work very well.

So what if a few projects take money and go nowhere. GND was an infrastructure bill for the most part. The country's infrastructure is crumbling so might as well invest in new green infrastructure while employing the people who have been abandoned when all the factories closed down. (The situation in 2018/2019 when this bill was proposed was different than post-pandemic decoupling from China).

The legacy of GND is that it helped influence the Inflation Reduction Act so we sort of got to an extremely watered down version of what the original vision was.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#19

Post by mrkeen »

flashback2199 wrote: post #8

I wonder how they make money. This sounds like grifters living off of government grants. I wonder how widespread the problem is of grifters taking government grants for fake green projects. Perhaps the country made the right move by not doing a green new deal after all. It looks like paying grifters to do science doesn't work very well.

I doubt cleaning up everyone's mess will ever be profitable.

And no doubt having the government pay private industry invites grifters.

I think a proper solution will necessarily involve going further left, i.e. government-employed workers. People who can't pocket the difference by cutting corners.

Re: Garbage In, Toxics Out

#20

Post by pixl97 »

Retric wrote: post #11
fuoqi wrote: post #7

The problem is with trying to "recycle" garbage plastic. Plastic is mostly carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Properly burning it using high-temperature (900+°C) pyrolysis converts most of plastic into water and carbon dioxide. There are some issues with sulfides and nitrogen oxides, but scrubbing those is a familiar problem for the industry. Remaining ash is relatively inert and can be used as a filler in various applica…

I don’t see how sending plastics to a dump is going to result in ocean micro plastics. Environmentally you’re inefficiently generating energy from trash and reducing landfill size from bring trash vs failing to sequester the carbon in the trash and releasing some air pollution. I doubt pyrolysis is a net gain. Properly constructed and operated landfills are a small source of methane, but otherwise quite benign.

>I don’t see how sending plastics to a dump is going to result in ocean micro plastics

Because that tends to only happen in a few, what we consider, first world nations. A huge portion of the world does not have sanitary waste collection system, and therefore produces huge amounts of plastic waste that get into rivers and the ocean.

Of even in places with waste collection, an (un)healthy amount of plastics never make it to the trash. Blow off/run off from trash cans is one example. Another is direct environmental loss into the environment. For example washing your clothes releases massive amounts of plastics, unless you happen to buy only natural materials.

Plastic is both a wonder material, and a wonder mess. Using it in things like medical device sanitation is a net benefit for humankind, using it everywhere appears to have higher costs than expected.

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