26 ms·

Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

• melling 7y ago
  NYC ships its garbage hundreds, and even thousands of miles in some cases: https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/nyc-trash-trains https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/... There’s even a poop train to Alabama: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/20/a-poop-train-from-new-york-befouled-a-small-alabama-town-until-the-town-fought-back/?outputType=amp https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/...
  • heymijo 7y ago
    > There's even a poop train to Alabama An NYC poop train bound for other parts played a big role in season 4 of the television show Billions. https://uproxx.com/tv/billions-stock-watch-poop-train/ https://uproxx.com/tv/billions-stock-watch-poop-train/
    • dillonmckay 7y ago
      Poop != sludge
  • agumonkey 7y ago
    What if we all used dry / compost toilets ?
    • learc83 7y ago
      Dry composting toilets are not remotely practical for high density areas like NYC.
      • Tharkun 7y ago
        Hmm, that's probably a good point. NYC residents likely have little use for compost. And having to wheel bales (?) of dried poop out of your flat could get a bit annoying. Then again, presumably they already take out their trash, so maybe it's not totally unfeasible?
        • learc83 7y ago
          It's difficult to fully sterilize the compost, and it's very easy to end up with compost that is full of pathogens and parasites. With millions of people in a small area, I think that alone makes this idea infeasible. The toilets also don't produce bales of dried poop, the composting only partially completes in the toilet itself--it has to be completed outside in a compost heap. Also dry composting toilets tend to produce more odors than the average person wants to deal with in their small living space.
  • dehrmann 7y ago
    Shipping by rail and sea is incredibly efficient. Some googling tells me rail is 471 ton-miles per gallon. The average American produces 1600 lbs of trash per year, so you can ship one person's trash for a year almost 600 miles with one gallon of fuel. Even long-distance trash transportation is a negligible contributor to someone's oil use.
    • benj111 7y ago
      Could you not extract the methane, and run the train on it, and transport it for free? Poopetual motion? (sorry for the shit jokes)
      • thebluehawk 7y ago
        Sure, if you can invent a methane extraction process that needs no expensive equipment, has no maintenance, and is safe, then it would be "free".
  • dillonmckay 7y ago
    Poop and sewer sludge are not the same thing. It is almost the last step in the treatment process, using a centrifuge to remove the majority of liquid. Some municipalities will sell the sludge, and it is spread on agriculture fields.
• londons_explore 7y ago
  This is why markets should make decisions about this stuff (with appropriate taxes for externalities) rather than politicians with their gut instinct... "We're doing nothing for the environment" doesn't get one elected tho...
  • Bworkbwork 7y ago
    Markets haven't been doing a good job of it so far, why would they in the future?
    • duxup 7y ago
      Yeah we live in the time where companies look quarter to quarter....or are rewarded by the market by growing like Uber where profits don't even matter. Not sure we can hope for them to look into the future very far / care.
      • agent008t 7y ago
        The likes of Uber are valued highly precisely because investors are looking very far into the future where these companies might become highly profitable.
        • duxup 7y ago
          I'm not convinced that is the case. I really think there is a difference in "look at this market share" and critical thinking about how Uber can get to sustainability. I think the whole tech company IPO is a weird otherverse that isn't as much about the future as folks think.
    • Geee 7y ago
      Markets work based on information. Lack of information causes consumers to buy something they don't want to buy, e.g. negative effects on the environment. Markets should be controlled in a such way that the seller must tell what they are selling, including environmental effects, and they must not lie.
• ajross 7y ago
  This is true enough (in some markets and some circumstances, yada yada), but sort of missing the point. A world where all the Good Liberals are trained to recycle everything into hand sorted artisinal bins that they keep next to their compost containers is one where people think about what they purchase and push for public policies that worry about resource consumption in ways that benefit all of us. A world (we live in it) where libertarians tell everyone that "landfill is underrated" is one where people buy and dispose of way too much junk, and create the problems all us communists are vainly trying to solve via personal recycling. I mean, sure, a world of scientists might be able to handle rules like "recycling that aluminum can is a big win, but the polypropylene bottle with the same product in it is mostly a wash". A world of real people is just going to hear "throw out all the things".
  • angry_octet 7y ago
    Container deposit for aluminum works pretty well. Steel is relatively easy to extract from trash with magnets. Separating methane producing non-toxic waste might be meaningful too. But having people wash/transport/sort plastics which can't be recycled is bad, and shouldn't be incentivised. Making corporations pay for non-recyclable plastic is a market mechanism which fiscal conservatives should applaud. Casting this as a goody Lefty vs selfish conservative argument is pointless.
    • ajross 7y ago
      > Making corporations pay for non-recyclable plastic is a market mechanism which fiscal conservatives should applaud. Citation needed. That sounds like socialist insanity to me. So sure, I applaud it. I just don't see these "conservatives" you are taking about. Even at the level of local politics this tends to be a partisan issue. And you sure sound like a democrat to me...
      • angry_octet 7y ago
        Conservatives always decry some group getting something for free, which is actually paid for by the taxpayer. Distributing non-recyclable plastic and forcing rate payers to pay to dump it, collect it from rivers and drains etc is it be such case. A market mechanism uses the power of the market to encourage correct behavior through market forces, instead of penalties, taxes on all, special schemes to give cash to specific state controlled recycling projects, etc. A market mechanism allows free enterprise solutions, whereas 'social insanity' creates inflexible regulatory processes.
• guitarbill 7y ago
  > 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-recycle.
  • pier25 7y ago
    Recycling consumes energy. The better strategy is by far designing products that last longer or can be reused.
    • greglindahl 7y ago
      "reduce, reuse, recycle" has been a popular slogan for a long time.
    • lukifer 7y ago
      There's a reason that Recycle comes last in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle": it's the least desirable option. If you Reduce, you get an easy win by not needing the resource in the first place; Reuse achieves orders of magnitude of efficiency in the resource's utility (a glass mason jar can be used thousands of times, compared to a plastic one designed to used once and disposed). Recycling is often fraught with inefficiencies of both energy and waste byproducts. I would love to see more economic incentives around direct reuse (such as Pigovian taxes on disposable plastics, and consumer incentives to return glassware to the grocer and then the manufacturer for direct reuse).
      • signal_space 7y ago
        The issues with mason jars and ceramic cup ends up being the amount of energy required to fire the oven. This ends up putting you in a deep hole when it comes to accounting energy inputs, as consumer plastics are essentially repurposed refinery waste. This leaves you with the choice to either spend a lot of energy or risk environmental contamination. Chemical accounting ends up being a nontrivial problem to address.
• rahimiali 7y ago
  three main issues: 1) yes the Earth is huge but cities really don't have easy access to landfill, and many are in fact running out of it because transporting garbage is expensive. 2) podcasts aren't convincing sources for a debate. 3) the real debate is "how do we reduce waste", not "landfill vs recycling".
  • kja1123 7y ago
    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?
    • jkoudys 7y ago
      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 to eat all the time. We'd need more jobs for people staffing the kitchens, but it wouldn't help people overall.
      • tomatocracy 7y ago
        > 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.
    • mikeash 7y ago
      Seems to me that your two points oppose each other. If the cost of repair is too high because of labor costs, that indicates that it would create jobs, not destroy them.
• scythe 7y ago
  >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 be captured. Incidentally, the word "methane" does not appear in the article at all, and no systems describing such a gas capture apparatus are mentioned. But just think about it: a landfill is enormous; they are some of the largest things humans ever build, and some of them are visible from low Earth orbit. How do you plan to capture all of the gas coming out of that? Be honest! Meanwhile, incinerators (of various designs) work today, have almost all of the upsides of landfills with none of the downsides. The article dismisses incineration with a single reference (b), which is actually an article from Planet Money focusing on recycling. The actual source is probably a footnote within a footnote, because that's as much attention as Americans will pay to incineration, I guess. I agree that we need to talk about recycling less, but the correct alternative is incineration, not landfills.
  • gambiting 7y ago
    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.
    • tomatocracy 7y ago
      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.
  • pintxo 7y ago
    A handful of European countries has actually banned putting household waste in landfills. If its not recycled it gets incinerated.
• orev 7y ago
  Landfills are going to become a gold mine when someone finally invents a Wall-E robot. With the advances in AI going on right now, it seems like a feasible thing to happen soon.
  • ambicapter 7y ago
    Didn't all Wall-E do was compact trash?
  • grive 7y ago
    This is just so far out. "AI" is currently expert systems and we are seeing its limitations (see setbacks in autonomous driving). It has nowhere near the potential to drive the search and extraction of energy sources in landfills.
    • rndgermandude 7y ago
      To me, the idea of a narrow purpose garbage robot operating in the confines of a landfill sounds more plausible than a self-driving car meant to operate an "open world" scenario populated by other AI and humans alike (aka streets with car, bikes and pedestrians on them). And a lot less dangerous to human life too when they are buggy.
• pizza234 7y ago
  > Properly run landfill doesn’t hurt the environment in itself. ... and properly written software has no security vulnerabilities.
  • TamDenholm 7y ago
    While i 100% agree with your point, the (i'm assuming) highly regulated process of creating and running a landfill site doesnt have the same "fail fast, fail often", "MVP", "rapid development" culture that software does.
  • mikeash 7y ago
    I don’t think that’s analogous. I suspect there are numerous examples of landfills they don’t hurt the environment, and lots of well studied best practices for how to achieve that in others. The equivalent in software is a sort of spherical cow theoretical construct that nobody has seen, let alone knows how to systematically create.
  • tomatocracy 7y ago
    Part of the problem with landfill is that the economics are largely 'profit first, cost later'. We don't really have a good model to ensure that long term maintenance and care of a landfill site post closure is always adequately funded so there's always a risk that an owner who might well have made all his capital investment back, and more, before the landfill closed just runs out of money and walks away no matter how you provide privately. This is a bit like the issue you have with defined benefit pensions and longevity, only you have less certainty on the costs. Because the potential environmental consequences of just leaving the site unmaintained or poorly looked after are high, in the developed world government almost always ends up providing a backstop to this. This could be described as 'socialised losses and privatised profits' when it gets used, and we would be right to be very wary of this model, even to pay a premium to avoid it.
    • hakfoo 7y ago
      I always thought there was a fortune to be made in buying the mining rights to old landfills. I'd expect compressed old consumer goods to be a rich "ore" for many valuable materials compared to many natural sources, and having the mining operation there would provide an endgame for the landfill that ensured it was being monitored and managed. The problem is that it assumes that mining operations are well regulated, which I suspect would not be the case.
• Areading314 7y ago
  I would add that compost is underrated. I also think that recycling allows companies to waste more, because consumers are more comfortable generating recycling waste than landfill waste, even though for plastics there isn't really much you can do to recycle them.
  • celeritascelery 7y ago
    It sounds like recycling allows consumers to waste more, not companies.
• 3stripe 7y ago
  Some stats from https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/municipal-waste/municipal-waste-management-across-european-countries https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/municipal-waste/munic... which show that landfill is decreasing in popularity here in Europe: 1. The rate of municipal waste landfilling for the 32 EEA member countries fell from 49 % in 2004 to 34 % in 2014. 2. Overall, the rates of landfilling decreased in 27 out of 32 countries. Between 2004 and 2014, the largest decreases occurred in Estonia (57 percentage points), Finland (41 percentage points), Slovenia (41 percentage points) and the United Kingdom (41 percentage points).
• jonwachob91 7y ago
  >>> Almost all of the litter that escapes into nature, especially the sea, comes from poorer riverine countries with bad rubbish collection practices, such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Rich countries like the UK or US have rubbish collection rates approaching 100% and are responsible for almost no new waste reaching the oceans. ... Yea, b/c the developed nations of the world don't send their trash to "poorer riverine countries" to get dumped in the ocean. /s [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-like-trash-south-east-asia-vows-to-return-mountains-of-rubbish-from-west https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-...
  • mjburgess 7y ago
    It's not clear that this article makes a relevant point. The existence of trash isn't under dispute in the article, only a very specific route for trash to reach the ocean. It's not clear that somehow exporting trash, alone, implicates western countries in its reaching the ocean. Is it mismanaged trash collecting companies in developing countries that dump in the ocean? Is that the route? Or is it dumping in rivers, as the article suggests.
    • jonwachob91 7y ago
      Fair enough.
• rikroots 7y ago
  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 a link to the Wikipedia article on UK National Waste Strategies, as it includes links to the various strategies published by various Governments across the UK since 2000 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Waste_Strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Waste_Strategy While those documents are a bit on the long side, they are very informative about the many, many (many!) complex systems that contribute to planning for, managing, and attempting to reduce waste in a large, rich European nation state. (Disclaimer: I was part of the team that developed and published the Waste Strategy for England in 2000).
  • cperciva 7y ago
    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.
    • rikroots 7y ago
      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/historiclandfill/ https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-projects/histo... - that page does a far better job of explaining the situation than I can.
      • cperciva 7y ago
• Liron 7y ago
  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 think about classifying it into one of 2-4 inconsistent-looking bins, and I feel guilty that the classification isn't perfect - which would be okay if it was for a good cause, but the whole concept of recycling paper and plastic was a net-negative to begin with. Recycling is one of those things that feels like it solves a problem but doesn't at all - like hybrid cars, US-style airport security, or donating cans of food.
  • wbraun 7y ago
    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.
    • t34543 7y ago
      Lithium battery production is extremely harmful to the environment.
      • greglindahl 7y ago
        Compared to what? And with what assumptions about battery life and recycling?
      • TheRealSteel 7y ago
        Most hybrids use nickel-metal hydride batteries. Also, the doubled emissions from a non-hybrid over the lifetime of the vehicle are massive.
    • 7y ago
• redder2 7y ago
  Some interesting arguments. I think the argument that he has better things to do then think of taking a bag "everythere". You do not need a bag small in hand purchases and when you really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go shopping. When it comes to regulations I would trust the US with nothing. The EU has probably way better regulations for landfills like for food and other things. While at the same time probably do a way better job at actual recycling.
  • gruez 7y ago
    >when you really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go shopping. There's a Danish study[1] that concluded that reusable bags require 50+ uses before breaking even with disposable plastic bags. And that's for one use. If you reuse the disposable bag once (to line your garbage bin, for example), the break even point is now 100+ uses. If you factor in cleaning costs for the reusable bags, I'd be surprised if this practice makes a dent on pollution, if at all. [1] https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-...
    • KozmoNau7 7y ago
      That study only looked at resource usage, and not the consequences of carelessly discarded shopping bags clogging up rivers and beaches. The best shopping bag to use is still an upcycled bag made from otherwise discarded material, as you are not creating demand for the production of new bags. Sail cloth is a good sturdy fabric, and a bag made from it will literally last you a lifetime.
      • smileysteve 7y ago
        Brag, I've been reusing the same backpack from high school for over a decade. It carries about 30l or 16lbs of fluids, I've had the zippers repaired once, and I probably use it at least one a week.
        • lstodd 7y ago
• JTbane 7y ago
  My take: Landfills should be utilized much less for municipal waste, but doing this would require much better waste separation. It's probably better to burn or recycle things that don't decompose readily, such as plastic. Landfilling plastics just takes up a lot of space for a long time. Recycling or burning plastic also reduces litter. Recycling paper doesn't matter as much, since it is very biodegradable. I suspect that recycling paper leads to energy savings in the pulp & paper industry. Aluminum is one of the best candidates for recycling as it is very efficient and cuts down on the need for aluminum ore. Steel is somewhat less efficient. Organics should always be composted if possible.
  • tasty_freeze 7y ago
    There is a lot of talk about sequestering carbon to reduce the problems of increased atmospheric CO2. Burning plastic seems to be the exact opposite of that.
  • gruez 7y ago
    >Landfilling plastics just takes up a lot of space for a long time. Is that really an issue when said space can still be used for parks or other green spaces? Besides, US is a really big place. As long as we're not burying it too close to urban centers it should be fine.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• arrrg 7y ago
  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.
  • benj111 7y ago
    The UK is banning straws but will still allow people to buy straws from pharmacies. That seems like a good balance. Our local high street only allow disabled drivers to park. So the 'pedestrianised' high street is full of the cars of disabled drivers. That doesn't seem to be such a good balance. Ps I feel there's a good rhyme hiding somewhere with your straw man straw ban.
    • skybrian 7y ago
      What's wrong with handicap parking? Is it being abused?
      • safanycom 7y ago
        Aging population
• spodek 7y ago
  Reducing is strategic. Reusing and recycling are tactical. If your strategy is in place, use all the tactics that contribute to it. But if you don't have your strategy in place, tactics can do nothing or even move you backward. Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of reduction. We are stepping on the gas, thinking we're stepping on the brake. Covered in episode 183 of Leadership and the Environment: http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-volume-6 http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-volume...
  • shkkmo 7y ago
    > Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of reduction. I don't think this is strictly true. It certainly is not the explanation for why we have most of the recycling programs we do have. Overpaying for unnecessary recycling reduces growth. Economically efficient recycling increases it. Both corporations and environmentalists should support efficient recycling and oppose innefficient recycling. There may be some methods of recycling that are environmentally efficient but economically inefficient, but that would be due to externalities that need to be regulated anyway. The issue of expecting and engineering unending growth is an interesting topic but doesn't really have anything to do with this article.
    • Thorrez 7y ago
      >Both corporations and environmentalists should support efficient recycling and oppose innefficient recycling. Are you saying that's what corporations should morally do, or that that's what they should logically do to increase profits? It could be that a corporation saying "buy our stuff then recycle it" causes more people to buy the stuff than saying "buy our stuff then throw it away". In that situation, a profit motivated corporation would promote recycling even if it hurts the environment.
      • shkkmo 7y ago
        I'm speaking of broad interest categories. Obviously aluminum mining companies aren't going be in favor of aluminum recycling, but in general, lower aluminum prices increase economic growth potential and should be supported by other companies in general purely out of self-interest.
• WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
  The real problem is we are using a long term material for short term purposes only because it seems cheap. All plastic will be with us for generations if not forever in terms of human time. We can and should produce an alternative and not poison the environment if we work at it. Yes it's not as bad as we thought but it certainly is bad. Plastic has a place in our daily life but not as a use once and throw away. I'm one that believes the use of taxes as way to change consumption. So charging a tax to help reflect the true value of plastic, to reduce usages and find alternatives. It's a hard issue but burning it or dumping is not the solution.
  • Aloha 7y ago
    We used to use glass, which doesn't really break down biologically, just mechanically (you can turn it back to sand) - I think we ought to be using all the plastic we make as some sort of fuel for power generation, it burns quite readily.
  • pfdietz 7y ago
    We're annually putting hundreds of megatons of plastic into the environment, much of it reduced to microscopic particles and fibers. I think we're going to see increasing adaptation of microorganisms to eating the stuff, to the point it all becomes biodegradable.
• throwawaysea 7y ago
  And yet no one is talking about limiting population growth.
  • want2know 7y ago
    There is a lot of talk about it and the conclusion is that there is no need to take action. The estimated max is 11 billion because the birthrate is very low right now. The 'problem' is that we live longer.
  • throwaway3627 7y ago
    "No one?" That's a patently-false claim. It worked wonders in China, nothing like a little engineered horrendous sex ratio imbalance from SCP.
  • flamtap 7y ago
    Do ethical strategies to accomplish that exist?
    • EmpirePhoenix 7y ago
      Sure, depends only on your ethic. E.G (note devils advocate) A utilitarist might argue, that killing of a larger amount of humans that are not worth it might be for the greater good of all A extremist fascist even has a pretty clear definition of worth added to that Asimovs concept of being killed instead of retirement Various concepts in fiction of adding globally some additions to drinking water to lower fertility on global scale Chinas politic of one child per family was even somewhat fair as it discriminates equally
      • C1sc0cat 7y ago
        You mean the Sixty in time enough for love - don't think he was propsing it as a good thing
  • codedokode 7y ago
    In many developed countries the population is decreasing.
• stretchwithme 7y ago
  Eventually, robots will go through all of the landfills and recover a lot of the materials in it. And they might get all the energy they need to do it from the garbage itself. Hey, if insects can do it, robots will eventually be able to do it.
  • blunte 7y ago
    By then, there won't be any insects...
  • pedalpete 7y ago
    Isn't this what Wall-E was all about?
    • b_tterc_p 7y ago
      Nah Wall-E was solar powered and was just supposed to compact trash for incineration. https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/WALL•E_(character) https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/WALL•E_(character)
      • stretchwithme 7y ago
        There are a lot of elements in that story that don't quite make sense to me. Taking care of the best planet around is always going to be easier and better than packing everybody off to some other planet, even one that's just as good. They way I see it, it's even going to be possible to even collect all the mercury out of the ocean and clean up other seemingly impossible messes.
  • grive 7y ago
    That's just magical thinking. Nothing suggests that it is in the realm of possibility. What is the energy potential in the materials in a landfill? How much is wasted by scouring them and trying to properly extract it? Compared to preventing the capture of those materials there in the first place? Putting the survival of our species on the possibility of some pixie dust is not rational. It is hard to face the truth, but burying your head in the sand is counter-productive.
• Smoosh 7y ago
  Whatever happened to the plasma furnace for waste disposal touted a few years back? Here's an article I found on a quick search: https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/ https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/
• svd4anything 7y ago
  “Reusable straws and bags are often more resource intensive than single-use ones. Ever noticed that plastic bags and straws are both incredibly thin and incredibly cheap? Almost no resources go into making each one — it’s kind of amazing.“ I’m confused by these new plastic bag rules in some cities. What is the underlying reasoning that was used to advocate for them?
  • derp_dee_derp 7y ago
    Virtue signalling. Everyone uses plastic bags, everyone has a whole bunch of them under their kitchen sink. Politicians took a highly visable problem that affects the majority of their constituency and "solved" it. It doesn't matter if it's an actual problem or not to politicians, it only matters if their voters think it's a problem.
  • zifnab06 7y ago
    Wikipedia covers this pretty well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_lightweight_plastic_bags https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_lightweight_pla... Roughly, plastic bags are bad for wildlife and enough of them don't make it into the landfill that it's a problem.
    • svd4anything 7y ago
      It was this section of the posted article which caught my attention: “The problem of rubbish polluting the sea, rivers and land can be most cheaply addressed by improving rubbish collection and making sure everything gets to landfill. Almost all of the litter that escapes into nature, especially the sea, comes from poorer riverine countries with bad rubbish collection practices, such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Rich countries like the UK or US have rubbish collection rates approaching 100% and are responsible for almost no new waste reaching the oceans. Focussing on recycling is a distraction from making sure everything gets collected and cheaply buried underground — something which many countries already do successfully.”
• jl2718 7y ago
  Just want to say that my grandfather, while working at Hughes, was one of the earliest proponents of aluminum recycling, but everybody was mad at him because they had to pay CRV (which is a terribly-designed incentive actually). Then he was one of the earliest opponents of recycling plastics, and he received nearly universal excoriation, including from my own family. Now the facts are slowly trickling out of the cultural taboos, and perhaps rationality will prevail either way, but it’s been about 50 years now, and it seems like maybe cultural consensus on technical topics is a poor indicator of fact.
  • Aloha 7y ago
    I think if we only used two kinds of plastic for food or consumer packaging, plastic recycling would make more sense, we unfortunately use like 10, which means s high labor cost for sorting.
    • jacobush 7y ago
      Plus a myriad of additives in the plastic, plus various contaminants. Which makes it kind of hard of to recycle without seriously degrading the end product, even if we had everything nailed to spec and not the chaos we are in now. I my book, we need to make energy production seriously cheap (renewables, plus maybe nuclear) and put some of the energy excess into transporting heavier but inert packaging such as glass, metal and carton. And by decree lock down the types of plastic and additives which are allowed to use.
      • pfdietz 7y ago
        In a 100% renewable economy, there will be a need for storable chemical energy for filling rare prolonged outages of wind and solar. Refuse, and in particular high energy density refuse like plastics (made from renewables feedstocks), would be good for this.
• drongoking 7y ago
  As a meta observation, he seems to assume that materials production and disposal would improve over time while recycling technology would not, and that the economics wouldn't change either. Some of the sources he cites for the inefficiency of recycling date from the 1990s and he's obliged to find something more recent. Arguably recycling technology has more potential to improve since large-scale recycling efforts in the US have only been around since the 1980s. Landfills have been around forever.
• contactlight11 7y ago
  How about this information from CT's DEEP which quotes the EPA for the majority of it's information? Compared to virgin materials, using recycled materials more efficient by: - 40% for paper - 60-74% for steel and tin cans - 33% for plastics - 30% for glass - 5% for aluminum cans These numbers appear to be referencing the generation of new products using recycled vs new materials, but do they fail to take in to account the cost of actually getting those recycled materials (ie going from trash to the recycled paper pulp)? I always thought the 3 R's are in the order they are for a reason. Reduce - first step realize that happiness is not automatically linked to consumption. This is harder than it seems because this extends beyond product consumption to other forms of material consumption like traveling by plane or car (IC vs EV vs hybrid is a whole other debate) Reuse - once you have something, get the full use out of it, and try to repurpose it for other uses too if possible. Recycle - once you have used something to the point that can no longer serve it's purpose adequately because it's worn out, place it or parts of it in a recycling bin if possible. What this article and discussion has prompted me to do is research further into which parts of something deserve to be placed in the recycle bin (whether or not there is an established way to recycle them, ie plastics) and if certain reduction techniques aren't all they're cracked up to be (reusable straws and shopping bags) Reference: https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2714&q=440320 https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2714&q=440320
  • repsilat 7y ago
    > using recycled materials more efficient by: > ... > - 5% for aluminum cans I found this phrasing confusing. From the article you linked, >> Aluminum can be recycled using less than 5 percent of the energy used to make the original product. (EPA) I would say that's more efficient by 95%. (Thank you for providing the link!)
    • yongjik 7y ago
      Well, if you're using less than 5% of energy, that means with the same amount of energy you can make 20x. So I'd say it's actually 1900% more efficient.
    • contactlight11 7y ago
• Hnrobert42 7y ago
  This is part of an ongoing attempt by the Koch organization to astroturf Hacker News
  • jokoon 7y ago
    That was my first thought. I'm always skeptical of this kind of article.
  • kpU8efre7r 7y ago
    Source please?
  • robmusial 7y ago
    It seemed to me to coincide with NPR's recent Planet Money episode https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-should-we-recycle https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-shou...
  • hokkos 7y ago
    This seems inspired by the recent double episode of the popular podcast planet money, and some contrarian gotcha that we all like to do. Is the npr also infiltrated by the kocks?
• salty_biscuits 7y ago
  You know what is really underrated, modern pyrolysis.
• KaiserPro 7y ago
  > Incinerating waste and generating electricity from it is an alternative form of rubbish disposal that is good for the environment and solves the problem permanently, but expensive to operate up front. well, I think you are slightly off the mark there. If pumping out more CO2 that would normally be sequestered, or dumping out a boat load of particulates with nitrogen dioxide is an environmental thing, then yes. My heating and how water did come from a very well run incinerator, but its not exactly the paragon of cleanliness.
  • thereisnospork 7y ago
    It's more nuanced: environmentally landfills literally displace acreage of environment (which in my semi-uneducated opinion is often overstated) and have sporadic local issues e.g. material leaching into ground water. Whereas power generated from incineration of trash displaces CO2 emissions from fossil fuel emissions. '''Do the benefits of incinerating trash for electricity outweigh the costs thereof in comparison with costs of equivalent conventional electricity and costs of burying aforementioned trash?''' Absolute issues (e.g. NOx or CO2 emission) not in the context of opportunity cost are irrelevant to misleading.
• basicallydan 7y ago
  I, too, have listened to the latest episode of Planet Money
• noobermin 7y ago
  Point 5 misses a bit of facts. The reason the US and the UK don't seep garbage into the ocean is we export a bit[0] of it to...guess where? Places like China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. This[1] is relevant. Idk, that refutation alone makes one wonder how effective landfills are in the west if we must send our trash to other countries to keep from filling our own landfills. As mentioned elsewhere in this comment section, the right answer is for people to reduce first and recycle last. On that front, the west (and America in particular) is chief in exhaustion of resources and consumption. [0] I originally said "half" which was just me using colorful speech. This comment deals with facts so I don't want to include a number and have people think it's literal. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-like-trash-south-east-asia-vows-to-return-mountains-of-rubbish-from-west https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-...
  • c048 7y ago
    Us sending our garbage to places like China, India, Indonesia has no bearing on us dumping our garbage in the ocean or not. Those countries willingly bought our garbage and chose to dump whatever wasn't useful in the manner that they did, all by themselves. Insinuating that, if we didn't sell it, we'd also dump it in the ocean is more wishful(?) thinking than anything else.
    • JonAtkinson 7y ago
      The idea that there is a joined-up strategy at a national level to ‘buy our garbage’ is weak. These countries have immature regulatory and inspection regimes and garbage is being bought and dumped by for-profit entities because they can get away with doing so. It’s really ugly capitalism.
    • ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      Then why is trash being sent illegally, labelled as fuel? https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2185888/five-years-canadas-dumped-garbage-still-causing-big-stink https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/asia/southeas... Also is you know it will end up in the ocean, and you still send it, you are responsible. Just like supplying known criminals with a gun is a crime
• sascha_sl 7y ago
  Can we not meme-endorse white-supremacy-adjacent[1] mug salesman Steven Crowder? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXZ6BZzQeCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXZ6BZzQeCQ
  • justanegg 7y ago
    he's awesome
  • squish78 7y ago
    I think you might be lost. This post is about landfills.
• nsb1 7y ago
  Honest question: From a climate change point of view, burying anything that contains carbon is basically the definition of sequestering that carbon. Why is it bad to bury anything that contains carbon? The obvious response, I think, would be that if we consume and bury 'stuff', then we'll just make more 'stuff', but what's wrong with that? Is it the energy required (presumably from burning fossil fuels) to produce more 'stuff' that's really the problem? It doesn't seem like we have the whole picture on how much energy is actually spent preparing recycled materials for re-use to make an accurate comparison.
  • SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    A lot of buried carbon is digested by anaerobic bacteria, which produce Methane (also a greenhouse gas), so there's that.
    • NickM 7y ago
      True, but some landfills capture that methane and pump it back into the natural gas grid. I don't know the details of how efficient or widespread this type of capturing scheme is, but it seems to me like this is probably actually more sustainable than using natural gas from drilling and fracking.
      • Scoundreller 7y ago
        Usually they just burn it on-site through generators in containers. It’s too dirty to put in the natural gas grid.
        • NickM 7y ago
          Ah, thanks for the correction, I didn't realize that. Still seems like it's not a bad way to generate electricity though.
          • Scoundreller 7y ago
            You weren’t totally wrong, just not the most correct :) I looked up the numbers, in the US, it’s something like 70% burn on-site for electricity, 20% burn in some nearby use (e.g. process steam or greenhouse warming) and 10% was cleaned up enough to pipe into the natural gas grid. That’s by facility count, not BTUs.
• kpU8efre7r 7y ago
  Glossed over electronics. Good or bad to recycle? Or do electronics fall under metals and are worth recycling. Or if tossed we could always mine landfills for iPhones in the future, which the article touches upon. As an aside, this article seems to only be about minimizing energy use or cost and not about maximizing sustainability.
  • Wohlf 7y ago
    With the current model of doing things, i.e. shipping it to Asia, it's highly questionable. >this article seems to only be about minimizing energy use or cost and not about maximizing sustainability Because when you factor in energy use, only metal recycling has a net positive impact on the environment and sustainability.
• deftturtle 7y ago
  > I lose them much faster than that, and have better things to do with my attention than remember to bring bags with me everywhere I go, so I just use those old-school plastic bags whenever I can. And so ultimately people (consumers) get what they want. If you don’t want to commit to taking steps in a more sustainable fashion, then you contribute to the problem of disposable waste.
• drewbt 7y ago
  There should be law that makes companies directly responsible for what happens to their packaging materials. Whatever a company brings into this world is their responsibility to recycle. Yes it adds overhead, but it makes people a lot more aware, and forces them to take responsibility of the impact they are having. Why shouldn’t packaging be designed to be easily transformed into something useful, or even into functional community art projects? A temple of coke cans for example. If they going to last forever it might as well be in a form that benefits communities. Plastics have already been banned in certain countries. Or are there to many lobbying in the wrong direction?
  • opwieurposiu 7y ago
    Every house a beer can house! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Can_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Can_House
    • drewbt 7y ago
      https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/green-architectural-design/434746-4173052-123rcu5z/index.html https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/green-architectura... Or wine bottles.
• hajile 7y ago
  Enforcing landfills is a government problem, but recycling is a free market problem. Mining 1 ton of iron takes 2 tons of ore plus another couple tons of coke and lime. It takes 4 tons of bauxite for one ton of aluminum (plus all the other things). There's also a huge amount of cost involved in reaching those tons of ore. When mining a landfill gives bigger returns than the current deposits for the same cost of extraction, we'll see our recycling problem go away. Remaining burnables will simply reduce the amount of coal/coke needed to refine. Government is critical in enforcing landfills though. Otherwise, trash winds up in little piles everywhere (or worse, in the ocean).
• helmsdeep 7y ago
  This article gave a different look at landfills and was honestly quiet eye opening for me. I had not considered the effects recycling could have if not done correctly, and what benefits landfills have when monitored well.
• rconti 7y ago
  Recent Planet Money podcasts on how recycling got started in the US, and whether it's 'worth it' to recycle. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739893511/episode-925-a-mob-boss-a-garbage-boat-and-why-we-recycle https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739893511/episode-925-a-mob-b... https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-should-we-recycle https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-shou...
• bozoUser 7y ago
  found these gems on recycling on NPR: Episode 925: A Mob Boss, A Garbage Boat and Why We Recycle - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?i=1000444175121 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id2907834... Episode 926: So, Should We Recycle? - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?i=1000444348345 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id2907834...
• AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  I find it maddening to get accurate information on recycling - what can be recycled? - what state can that material be in (cleanliness, prewashing)? - is it being recycled or just being shipped off to china or burned? - what efficiencies are involved in the various materials? This seems to change on a year-by-year basis (for example, china stopped taking our trash, uh recycling). Currently I desperately try to turn single use plastics to double-use. Plastic bags and covering can be used as poop bags, wrap for trash that could drip, and to hold more trash. I try to use used paper towels for washing dishes and wiping up counters, and also for gross trash. Most plastic containers of food from stores and takeout can be reused a few times for leftover storage and other purposes. Best thing about double-use is that it usually helps ensure the single use plastic stays in the landfill by weighing it down.
• spopejoy 7y ago
  Two of this article's sources are John Tierney who has had it out against recycling since the 90s, and has written other anti-environmentalist pieces, including a hit piece on Rachel Carson in 2007 that sang the praises of DDT spraying in third world countries [1]. For a takedown of the FUD in that one see [2]. Simply put if this author trusts Tierney it's a reason not to trust this author. 1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html 2 - https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/06/06/john-tierneys-bad-science https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/06/06/john-tierneys-ba...
• lopespm 7y ago
  "By contrast, reusable metal straws and canvas bags require something like 10-100x the energy and materials to manufacture, and need regular cleaning to avoid spreading disease. So unless you use them many times, they end up being worse for the environment. I lose them much faster than that, and have better things to do with my attention than remember to bring bags with me everywhere I go, so I just use those old-school plastic bags whenever I can." This is not a valid argument. A bad habit should not be a justification for a devious behavior. I would even argue it is easier to bring your reusable container of choice when going shopping, and if that habit is really formed, then you wont be able to exit your home or car without it, because something will seem to be missing. Take for example the backpack or "granny cart". They are much more comfortable to use when compared to lugging around many plastics bags around your hands, and the granny cart is much better for your back.
  • tylergetsay 7y ago
    I would consider losing a metal straw or canvas bag as negligent, but devious?
• rsync 7y ago
  Slightly off-topic and irrelevant for many urban people (or suburban with strict association rules) but it's possible to reduce your food waste to literally zero by keeping 2 or 3 or 4 laying hens. Every bit of leftover food scraps are just thrown at the chickens ... and turned into eggs. It's so pleasing and efficient that if I am at a function with food scraps and it is simple and unobtrusive to do so, I will bring home the scraps to save them from the landfill (and turn into eggs).
  • grayed-down 7y ago
    I thought it was 6 hens a-laying...
  • runeks 7y ago
    It’s never been a challenge to recycle organic matter like leftovers, as far as I’m aware — regardless of whether you use animals or a compost heap. It’s the plastics and metals that are difficult to handle.
• pawsys 7y ago
  Every time I clean a yogurt container I feel torn. What is a better environmental trade-off: not running water for 90 seconds or recycling the plastic? I think it would be really helpful if there was some kind of universal unit that would describe the real environmental impact of producing, trashing, recycling of goods and materials. The unit would appear on packagings of goods, specs of materials, landfill/recycling bins etc. I created a pdf to visualize the idea (all values in the pdf are made up): https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi51serx6hwn8e/EarthHarm.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi51serx6hwn8e/EarthHarm.pdf?dl=0 I realize how complex such a project would be. Inherently, the choice of how the unit works would be a political one. How to compare and calculate the different environmental challenges and wrap them up in one unit? What institution would have enough authority and expertise to deploy it? Setting this all aside, I think unit like this would be a really helpful tool letting people have some baseline they can refer to. It could inform people what is the impact of their actions and where to seek for a real change. (a simpler version of this project would be a well-researched website that compares these environmental factors with each other)