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Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

latimes.com

171–180 of 228 posts

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#171

A lot of assertions here about waste management and relative harmlessness of landfills. Do you have experience or exposure to the recycling, waste management and landfill industry that you can share? Have you spoken to any landfill managers, have some idea of the volume of plastic waste and the landfill industry? Or is this just speaking from the gut? Most articles have experts[1] and researchers[2] expressing grave…

The Tali landfill in the second link must be very old. It seems they designed it to drain directly into the river. That's definitely not how a modern landfill is designed, and not just because of plastics.

Wikipedia seems to suggest the landfill was known as "Talinhuippu" and claims it was in use 1963–1979.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was more implying things like paper, but I see your confusion.

Paper cups for coffee and paper containers for food are lined which makes them difficult to recycle. Despite having a recycle logo on them they are often not recyclable.

They can be lined in a way to be easily compostable

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#173
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the incineration happens at over 1000°C and the facility has operation exhaust gas scrubbers then not much. You'll end up with bromine, chlorine and fluorine salts in the ash. If it's below 400° (as happens if you burn plastic in your backyard or fireplace) you'll release dioxins, which are persistent fat-accumulating toxins, and fluorine and bromide compounds which are typically bad news to anyone downwind. It do…

We watched a documentary on people living with minimal waste, which highlight an elderly couple who managed to live with less than one rubbish sack of waste per year. I was admiring their efforts until I noticed a smouldering rubbish heap in their back garden. Sure enough, they burned all their plastic and other waste.

I don't think that really counts as living with minimal waste then.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#174

I understand the pro landfill arguments because landfills are certainly better than lugging plastic across half the planet, burning bunker fuel the whole way, only for it to get dumped into a river, and wind up essentially all back in the ocean. But let's not pretend like landfills are an indefinite solution for humanity's problem either. Space is still finite.

The trash comes from earth. We don't create it out of nothing. We can't overfill earth with itself.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#175
Penn and Teller BS (TV series) has the best solution to this problem but we have way too many liberal lefty softies. Dig a fucking hole in the middle of a desert and bury it there. Problem solved it's far away from water supplies or any other way that should could contaminate things. I always found it stupid that we use bodies of water to ship around trash to dump it.

It's also stupid that in LA we use deserts to put massive ass farms in where water is piped in from way the hell up north and complain when there is a draught that the north is cutting off the water supply to farms located in the desert. LOL!

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was more implying things like paper, but I see your confusion.

Paper cups for coffee and paper containers for food are lined which makes them difficult to recycle. Despite having a recycle logo on them they are often not recyclable.

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