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12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

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Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#91

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #63
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this feels like a great metaphor to life that I am unable to explain but I will still try, in the sense that, within a degraded land with just the right conditions, it is just waiting to grow :D

Life...finds a way.

This is good, I found another one to express what I was feeling.

We are here, We are waiting.

- Optimus prime.

My interpretation is that everyone no matter how bad things look from outside has hope/seeds of hope which are just waiting for the right conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJszUl1EI4A (I also feel like, the ending of this movie/transformers was one of the best movies and the ending still gives me goosebumps in hope for future)

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#92

Post by robotnikman »

PaulHoule wrote: post #42
ethagnawl wrote: post #12

It's recently occurred to me how "valuable" today's trash is likely to be considered in the future. I'll focus on organics here but I think the plastics will be equally valuable, too. I have no idea what % of American households compost or live in places which offer municipal compost pickup but I imagine it's in the single digits. As evidenced by this article, compost is/can be an incredibly powerful agent of change:…

See https://www.floridatrend.com/article/14356/trashed-plan-to-u... St. Lucie County wanted to use a plasma torch that would have converted plastic and other carboniferous waste to energy. Like many other plans to do the same, it fell through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification

Apparently that same technology is being used on newer US Navy ships for waste management.

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#93

Post by contingencies »

hermitcrab wrote: post #77
contingencies wrote: post #48

The whole compost thing can be a lot of hassle for people. For a simpler option, if you are lucky enough to have a decent garden area, find somewhere away from your house and just throw biomass there regularly. Coffee grinds, spent tea, leftover veg, etc. and watch what happens! Sometimes simple is best.

Rats and other undesirables can be attracted to compost. So it is probably best to use a composting bin, if you can. Also try to mix in some brown/carbon (leaves, shredded paper, cardboard etc) with your green/nitrogen (food scraps, grass cuttings etc), otherwise it can become a stinky swamp (anerobic).

It's possible to approach composting form a more simplistic standpoint. The listed issues are mostly specific to high density (eg. in a fixed bin) composting. If you spread it out these problems basically go away, and so do the stinky compost labor and purchasing requirements.

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#94

Post by nvader »

bennettnate5 wrote: post #47

> Despite this promising start, the conservation experiment wasn't to last, after a rival juice manufacturer called TicoFruit sued Del Oro, alleging that its competitor had "defiled a national park". No good deed goes unpunished--wild that the competitor company successfully sued them.

I came here to say this, because this whole anecdote mildly infuriates me.

I don't necessarily blame TicoFruit for their actions. They might have some legitimate concerns about fairness, since their competitor is now able to dispose of peels much more economically.

But for the courts to stupidly go along with the injunction is what disappoints me. A much better result for everyone in Costa Rica would be if both manufacturers were allowed to dump at no cost.

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#95

Post by hermitcrab »

contingencies wrote: post #93
hermitcrab wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rats and other undesirables can be attracted to compost. So it is probably best to use a composting bin, if you can. Also try to mix in some brown/carbon (leaves, shredded paper, cardboard etc) with your green/nitrogen (food scraps, grass cuttings etc), otherwise it can become a stinky swamp (anerobic).

It's possible to approach composting form a more simplistic standpoint. The listed issues are mostly specific to high density (eg. in a fixed bin) composting. If you spread it out these problems basically go away, and so do the stinky compost labor and purchasing requirements.

Do you not have problems with rats and other vermin?

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#97

Post by aaron695 »

fainpul wrote: post #45
jillesvangurp wrote: post #41

Turning degraded land back into fertile land is actually very feasible and not as hopeless as it may seem. A lot of the damage people have done to landscapes in recent centuries is still reversible. There are a lot of examples all over the world of people turning dried out and heavily eroded land back into fertile land with great bio diversity. Sometimes at small scale, and sometimes at very large scale. Often even j…

As demonstrated in "The Biggest Little Farm" [1]. However it took years of hard work. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8969332/

[dead]

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#98

Post by cucumber3732842 »

dessimus wrote: post #81
calf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a consequentialist should accept that it would have taken 16 years to realize it was actually a good thing to do with orange peels.

The article says they returned after that long having forgotten about the experiment. I think they would have recognized there were positive results long before that if someone happened to be checking in at say Year 2, 5 or 10. It not like the land was still barren piles of orange peel at Year 14 and then suddenly Yahtzee!

Did they forget? Or did they know this would happen before dumping the first peel and it simply wasn't worth the money it would take to prove it in the public record?

Because what I bet happened is that off the public record who knew their stuff said "this will happen" and then the government rep said "you need to pay some sort of 3rd party with a government license to weigh in on such matters an obscene amount of money to produce a report that says that on the public record" and it was a nonstarter so the project just died and now 16yr later here we are.

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#99

Post by contingencies »

hermitcrab wrote: post #95
contingencies wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to approach composting form a more simplistic standpoint. The listed issues are mostly specific to high density (eg. in a fixed bin) composting. If you spread it out these problems basically go away, and so do the stinky compost labor and purchasing requirements.

Do you not have problems with rats and other vermin?

No. What's 'other vermin'? We have plenty of native animals. I see a few of them feeding in the area I distribute organic matter, including (non-snake) reptiles, turkeys, possums, butterflies, native bees, spiders, etc. Lots of fungi too.

Re: 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)

#100

Post by dekhn »

PaulHoule wrote: post #43
mlyle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already mine landfills -- mostly for land reclamation but sometimes to recover resources. In the longer run, when there's been more compaction, settling, and densification (and changes in what things are valuable), and more need to reclaim land that was previously landfilled, we will do this more.

People sometimes build stuff on top of landfills.

Example: Shoreline Amphitheater, near Google HQ in Mountain View. Built on top of a landfill. For a while in the 80s, there were occasionally small fires during shows when people lit cigarettes. Google also harvested the methane and used it to power some stuff, although I can't find an authoritative article with details.
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