Anyone knows about an in-depth video, HN-level, on exactly how garbage trucks work?
The Engineering of Landfills
151–160 of 333 posts
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#152So 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…
Note that western countries export waste to developing countries.
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#153I find it sad that the USA doesn't use more plasma burners [0] to get rid of waste. But, land is cheap in the USA, and the USA has a lot of land, so landfills win. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
Yeah, would be a great way to consume free solar during the brightest part of the day. Electricity in -> bulk chemical feedstocks out and no long distance transportation, handling and disposal costs. The nice thing about plasma burners is that you can capture the resulting syngas and not just exhaust tons of CO2 into the atmosphere as with an incinerator.
The Wikipedia page describes it as net positive in energy. Why consume solar?
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Point taken. Though I do wonder how much of the methane released is from plastic decomposition and how much of it is from food/biomaterial decomposition. I'd naively assume the primary emission would come from readily decomposable materials and that most plastics would remain fairly stable for a lot longer than yesterday's half eaten hamburger.
Indeed, waste sorting might improve the situation, but all available evidence indicates there is no will to do this (caveats being parts of Europe, Japan, the Nordics, and anywhere else diverse multi stream waste management can be effectively operated), which leads me to believe gasification is the superior path (with a bypass stream for glass, brick, earth, rock, and metals, primarily to prevent process efficiency r…
What has been successful in my city, Portland, is separating the food and yard waste. The food and yard wastes are composted. Composting produces methane, but there is a trial to capture the methane which is burned as natural gas.
Capturing methane from compost should be easier than whole landfill. It also keeps the organics instead of losing them.
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
So it goes into the sky instead? That seems more sightly, but the CO2 emissions must be astronomical.
When it comes to plastics I like to think that it’s basically a product of oil and other oil related products are burnt all the time for energy. The end goal should include a carbon capture step. They’ve looked into that here in Oslo, Norway, but it ended up much costlier than anticipated and at the moment it looks like it’s going to be very very drawn out. Carbon capture at the source is usually not that terrible of…
If you want power, it is better to make renewables. The problem with carbon capture is that more energy and more fuel to run the capture. It costs too much.
If you want to sequester the carbon, just cut down the trees and bury them. The problem is that there isn't enough trees on Earth to power civilization or sequester enough carbon.
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I genuinely use landfills, especially with plastic waste, as shibboleth to know whether I'm talking to somebody who is an environmentalist or somebody who is an "environmentalist." Anyone who thinks recycling plastic is some sort of normative good because "waste is bad" clearly hasn't put any thought into what environmental issues need to be focused on right now.
It was so frustrating when a dude at work was trying to bust my balls for not using the recycling for my plastic bottle. I didn’t have the energy or patience to explain to him how our city has single stream recycling and there was 100% chance that bottle was being shipped overseas, dumped in the ocean or something else way more stupid than just being buried in the city landfill.
Based on the single stream comment, I'm going to assume you're describing an experience in North America, and your assumptions are pretty off base for PET bottles.
Figure 1 in the linked paper gives the raw numbers for where PET bottles end up. [1]
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#157I find it sad that the USA doesn't use more plasma burners [0] to get rid of waste. But, land is cheap in the USA, and the USA has a lot of land, so landfills win. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
The problem is that burning trash produces CO2 from stuff, like plastic, that doesn't degrade in landfill. It is net positive CO2. The ideal is to sequester the carbon in landfill.
This assumes that landfill is capturing and burning methane, because methane is worse than CO2.
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#158I 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…
Environmentalists in the US are against nuclear power, solar power, geothermal energy. They are against high-rise buildings and pro-golf-courses. They can be safely ignored since their stated goals and their actions can only be concordant if one assumes they're idiots or enemies.
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was so frustrating when a dude at work was trying to bust my balls for not using the recycling for my plastic bottle. I didn’t have the energy or patience to explain to him how our city has single stream recycling and there was 100% chance that bottle was being shipped overseas, dumped in the ocean or something else way more stupid than just being buried in the city landfill.
I worked in an office with recycling bins where everything was just gathered up and thrown in the dumpster with the rest of the garbage. It wasn't just our cleaning people, either: from my desk I could see the only two parking lot entrances and while the garbage truck came weekly, never once did I see a recycling truck.
PepsiCo did the same thing. Custodians dumped everything into the same bags. Leadership confirmed it all went to the dump. Still had a personal recycle bin crammed under every desk.
Re: The Engineering of Landfills
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No, you're incorrect. Exactly what statement is incorrect? Adding to that: Statistics show that developed countries are shipping significant amounts of trash into poorer countries. But there is most likely an even higher number of unrecorded cases. Supply chains can be difficult to monitor even within the OECD, and an estimated third of shipments is illegal.[0] [0]: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/news/video-how-e…
>Exactly what statement is incorrect? Your original comment: >> 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. I guess you can weasel out of this by claiming that >85% counts as "some", but it's misleading at the very least. Moreover, your statement was trying to refute…
In reality, a significant portion is exported to developing countries, where it often ends up mismanaged. Claiming developed countries handle "almost all" of their plastic waste without acknowledging this export is detracting from wrongdoings me and you bear responsibility for as citizens of relatively free and open democratic societies. It is not somehow misleading. It is morally reprehensible.