5 ms·
I also saw numbers saying a 50 mile by 50 mile piece of land could handle all of America's trash for 100 years if used as a landfill. Always struck me as inter
by ucm_edge 6y ago
I also saw numbers saying a 50 mile by 50 mile piece of land could handle all of America's trash for 100 years if used as a landfill.
Always struck me as interesting in that you could easily section off a chunk of desert, properly sort and encapsulate the trash. At the same time fund research into ways to do recycling that is more cost efficient and more environmental friendly with regard to chemicals used, etc. Then once you have better tech for a certain class of garbage, go process it in bulk.
Of course humans being humans, we'd probably not bother to fund the research, not do upkeep on the encapsulation material and mess up the ground water, etc. Still interesting to think about just having one or two national trash dumps.
- jacquesm 6y agoAt some point in time that would become the most valuable property: it would contain all of the resources that society needs.
- beamatronic 6y agoYou can be sure that once all the fossil fuels are gone, and society has collapsed beyond the point of return, the remaining humans will be mining our dumps for useful items. Wars will be fought over these scraps.
- aardvarkr 6y agoWe’re already mining landfills actually. Pretty interesting concept if you ask me. The concentration of valuable elements is far higher than what you’d find in the wild. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_mining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_mining
- leviathant 6y agoI like to think that a long time from now, people will marvel that we overlooked the (as of yet undiscovered) utility of used scoopable cat litter, and just threw it out with the trash
- majormajor 6y agoWe already did this in the past for dog poop: https://www.vettimes.co.uk/app/uploads/wp-post-to-pdf-enhanced-cache/1/a-dirty-job-but-not-to-be-sniffed-at.pdf https://www.vettimes.co.uk/app/uploads/wp-post-to-pdf-enhanc...
- prawn 6y agoAnd you have your personal inroads on the sorting technology to capitalise on that! ;)
- jacquesm 6y agoI already had one recycling company come to talk about applying the tech to sorting waste. It never came to anything concrete though.
- prawn 6y agoI could use it to sort the kids' Lego-covered bedroom! Make a handheld version that accepts a certain colour at a time and spits anything else back to the pile to simplify from a range of bins to more of a yes/no operation.
- jacquesm 6y agoInteresting idea, that's worth thinking about. It still has the bad part of the complexity: the feed mechanism. But it could be used as a set extractor that way, and if you start with the largest sets you get the least # of bricks passing through.
- GuB-42 6y agoMost interesting for nuclear waste. Storage of long lived nuclear waste is often considered a major problem. There are suggestions of firing them to the sun (worst idea ever), burring them in subduction zones (a bit more sensible) or in special sites with plenty of warning for future generations (artists get creative on this one). The thing is, nuclear waste may actually be among the most valuable things on earth. These elements do not exist in nature, and producing them require nuclear reactors and enriched uranium, which is a finite resource. Even today we have the technology to burn nuclear waste in fast breeder reactors, though for some reason we haven't made a lot of progress, maybe it is not commercially viable compared to more conventional reactors. This has the potential to supply us with energy for so long that we can effectively consider it renewable energy. All that to say that in the future, nuclear "waste" may become extremely valuable. I find one particularly ironic quote from a suggested warning message for long term nuclear waste storage sites. "This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here." I find it extremely dismissive of future humanity, as if we somehow reach the peak of technological progress and that future generations will be cavemen.
- saagarjha 6y agoIt’s meant for a worst-case scenario. Of course if we somehow happen to keep ourselves together and progressing technologically we’ll look back at ourselves in the 21st century as buffoons who created highly valuable materials and buried it as waste.
- Treblemaker 6y ago> though for some reason we haven't made a lot of progress The risk that reprocessing can produce weapons-grade plutonium has been one reason. [1] Frustrating not only because it makes it unavailable as an energy source, but, as I understand it, the waste products from fast breeder reactors generally have much shorter half-lives than the current waste. [1] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1209/ML120960615.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1209/ML120960615.pdf
- KirillPanov 6y agoAt what point does the cost of global warming exceed the (huge) cost of adequately securing the reprocessing pipeline? The decision not to do reprocessing was based on 1970s cost/benefit analysis. We're in a different world now.
- t-writescode 6y agoThe logistics of ferrying all trash to that singular location would be ... (edit: a major undertaking).
- coldtea 6y agoPlus the real estate prices right next to that plot would plummet :-)
- edoceo 6y agoSo, cheap expansion?
- skybrian 6y agoI guess the garbage trains from New York City would have to go further.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoBut, it could be made relatively efficient by using trains to haul trash long-distance.
- johnnyletrois 6y agoECDC Environmental is massive: https://youtu.be/6omwOGWGQXs https://youtu.be/6omwOGWGQXs Edit: in Utah
- greyhair 6y agoRail guns! Pods full of compacted trash launch out to a 'catch' zone using rail guns.
- jjeaff 6y agoSounds like a great backdrop for the next dystopian sci-fi film. Dull thuds in the distance as dark masses streak across the sky every 10 minutes.
- kbenson 6y agoThere would be a whole ecosystem of scavengers, the human type, looking for valuable trash. It's amazing what cheap think of yesteryear is worth quite a bit today because of materials changes, or longevity, or nostalgia, etc.
- freeopinion 6y ago> section off a chunk of desert Amusing. Why not a section of marsh? Or river delta? #LizardLivesMatter
- prawn 6y agoI assume that's less geologically stable and more prone to water dispersing undesirable chemicals. I think "chunk of desert" is reasonably understood as something remote and stable. When they've researched locations in Australia for long-term nuclear dumps, the favoured locations have been underground in remote desert.