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Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

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Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#41

Post by Reedx »

Liron wrote: post #30

We really shot ourselves in the foot with this whole pointless "recycling paper and plastic" thing huh? The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization and one of life's little pleasures, and we had to ruin it by acting like it's wrong when it's actually not. When I walk up to some wastebins holding a papery-plasticky object with a bit of food stuck to it, my heart sinks. Now I have to…

Wish-cycling. You want it to be true. You have good intentions. You want your waste to be recycled. So you throw it into a recycling bin. Maybe it'll work? It seems better to err on the side that it will? But unfortunately when it gets to the sorting table/machines it often just makes things worse.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#42

Post by rikroots »

cperciva wrote: post #29
rikroots wrote: post #27

As clickbait, I have to applaud the author. tl;dr: As a sustainable (heh!) solution to the current waste crisis, landfilling everything is not a good solution. We tried it for many centuries and are still paying the price for that approach today. The only people who will benefit from a 'landfill everything' strategy will be 23rd century archaeologists. As the UK is mentioned a couple of times in the article, I'll add…

We tried it for many centuries and are still paying the price for that approach today. Can you elaborate on this? I'm not aware of centuries-old landfills clogging up the landscape and (to any meaningful extent) impinging upon the availability of land.

Happily. Old landfill sites are not built to modern standards and are thus liable to erode, with the potential to contaminate the surrounding areas with a range of interesting toxins. They can also collapse (if they contained a significant amount of biodegradable waste) which is unfortunate if your house is built on top of it.

A quick Google search gave me this link to some ongoing research conducted by Queen Mary College, London, into the risks surrounding historic landfills - https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-projects/histo... - that page does a far better job of explaining the situation than I can.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#43

Post by Liron »

Skunkleton wrote: post #40
wbraun wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully share this cynicism about recycling things that are not aluminum or glass. It also seems that by making people feel better about generating nominally recyclable waste they are encouraged to consume more. I am at least familiar with arguments against US-style airport security and donating cans of food, but whats wrong with hybrid cars? I don't know of any arguments that they are net neutral / harmful.

I think the idea was that hybrid cars are a sort of local maxima that has stalled real progress (alternative energy cars).

Yeah, hybrid cars might be called a "local maximum"... at best.

"Local" because they were always predictably a technological dead end.

"Maximum" because they maybe gave us a slight improvement in fuel efficiency, although gas-efficient internal combustion engine cars may have been the more energy-efficient option all along when you consider the up-front cost and maintenance complexity of hybrid cars' dual engines.

The only thing we know for sure about hybrid cars is that Toyota successfully profited from selling people's self-image about being more energy efficient. But since we also have Tesla in the market, selling the actual solution to the problem of gas-burning transportation, absolutely no one should be buying hybrids.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#44

Post by tomatocracy »

gambiting wrote: post #22
scythe wrote: post #12

>Properly run landfill doesn’t hurt the environment in itself. >[...] But a well run landfill site has [...] electricity generation from gases produced by decaying matter, This sounds like a pipe dream. We don't even have reliable estimates on how much landfill outgas there is, much less a good system for burning it. It's believed to be largely methane, which would be valuable without further processing if it could b…

I mean, to answer your methane question - after our local landfill was filled up, it was covered with foil, then several layers of soil and finally grass - it's a public park nowadays. The methane is collected at the highest point of the hill that was the landfill, I imagine the layer of foil forces it to go up to the single outpipe at the top.

Yes, there really are several successful companies who specialise in landfill gas recovery, it's profitable and practical. But I don't think it's neccessarily a reason to continue with landfill in itself.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#46

Post by 01100011 »

rikroots wrote: post #27

As clickbait, I have to applaud the author. tl;dr: As a sustainable (heh!) solution to the current waste crisis, landfilling everything is not a good solution. We tried it for many centuries and are still paying the price for that approach today. The only people who will benefit from a 'landfill everything' strategy will be 23rd century archaeologists. As the UK is mentioned a couple of times in the article, I'll add…

Landfills are highly concentrated stores of resources. Why would future archaeologists be the only ones interested in them?

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#47

Post by tomatocracy »

jkoudys wrote: post #14
kja1123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reduce waste, you'd have to make things more repairable -> But the labor costs in developed economies discourages that If you make things more repairable -> net consumption might go down -> this might lead to loss of jobs. Does my analysis make any sense?

Not really. A => B doesn't imply that not-A => not-B. Total number of jobs or time spent in the labour market is one thing, but ultimately what we care about is efficiently creating utility. If I need to spend 5h working to get enough money to replace something I could've fixed in 0.5h, that's not good for the economy as a whole. Were it otherwise, every home would be built without a kitchen and people would go out t…

> Were it otherwise, every home would be built without a kitchen and people would go out to eat all the time. We'd need more jobs for people staffing the kitchens, but it wouldn't help people overall.

Isn't the 'ready meal' phenomenon essentially this? Someone else does the real cooking, you just store then heat it up. Plenty of people survive solely, or mostly, on that.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#48

Post by arrrg »

Not a single person in the world (rounded down – I’m sure you might be able to find someone) is opposed to people using plastic straws for medical purposes. Just as not a single person in the world is opposed to allowing disabled people access via cars, even if in general cars might not be allowed.

These kinds of arguments are such obvious strawmen. I‘m always so confused when people use them, apparently even in good faith, thinking they hold any kind of water. I’m always disappointed when someone uses arguments like that, it’s so absurd.

Overall I would just argue that straw bans and the like are often not enough or waste valuable political capital, even if they might be effective. That much is certainly true. The focus on personal responsibility is toxic and derailing since climate change categorically cannot be solved with appeals to personal responsibility.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#49

Post by yongjik »

Liron wrote: post #30

We really shot ourselves in the foot with this whole pointless "recycling paper and plastic" thing huh? The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization and one of life's little pleasures, and we had to ruin it by acting like it's wrong when it's actually not. When I walk up to some wastebins holding a papery-plasticky object with a bit of food stuck to it, my heart sinks. Now I have to…

> The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization ...

I think you got it backwards. Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization arrived, just like defecating wherever you find convenient, hunting animals for dinner, or riding hoses on whatever side of road you like.

The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that it's no longer feasible to just "throw away" stuff we don't need. Just like modern cars necessitated speed limits, stop signs, and annoying lane-changing rules, mass production requires one to think about how to dispose stuff without ruining ourselves.

So, yeah I think you got it backwards. Maybe recycling doesn't work as well as advertised, but that doesn't mean we are off the hook. It just means we need a different solution.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#50

Post by cobookman »

pier25 wrote: post #18
guitarbill wrote: post #5

> Plastics come from oil, which we are gradually running out of, though not quickly. I guess it depends on your definition of "quickly", or it would be good to see a citation on this one. Personally, I believe that if we encourage recycling more, that creates an opportunity for companies to innovate in that space and come up with better recycling methods. So in that respect, I'd prefer to over-recycle than under-recy…

Recycling consumes energy. The better strategy is by far designing products that last longer or can be reused.

Or are compostible.

All grocery packaging should either be multi use or compostible. I hate how plastics are used where they don't need to be

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