5 ms·
What would cause them to be an environmental issue? As far as I know they can be built in a safe manner and there is plenty of space for them.
by DANK_YACHT 4y ago
What would cause them to be an environmental issue? As far as I know they can be built in a safe manner and there is plenty of space for them.
- mschuster91 4y agoIn the Western world maybe, but outside of it... hell even in the Western world we have regular reports of mismanagement and corruption, just look at Italy. We need to reduce the amount of trash we produce, not hope for a miracle technology.
- DANK_YACHT 4y agoLandfills are not a miracle technology. They exist already and are technologically sound. It’d be way more of a miracle if we somehow managed to greatly reduce waste.
- paulryanrogers 4y agoHow sustainable are landfills? There's limited land for farming, residences, manufacturing, and everything else we use it for. And trucking trash to deserts to landfill there isn't carbon neutral either. Trash also doesn't breakdown as quickly in covered landfills (for better or worse depending on what one dumps).
- a9h74j 4y agoGiven the yield of useful content vs. rock in mining, I suspect the more limiting factor is space for all the mining, not space for disposal of the 0.1% metal etc yield for making industrial goods.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoPeople love to "what if" landfills. Best to not bother arguing with them. We have tons of problems with emissions, plastics pollution, industrial dumping. However landfills ain't one of them, but people won't give up. I've learned to not bother discussing anything with them if they don't know a few basics of how modern landfills are run (at least in western nations).
- TylerE 4y agoLandfills were demonized for a long time because they were easy targets.
- formerly_proven 4y agoIt's usually just disguised NIMBY-ism :)
- bigfudge 4y agoThe thing about nimbyism in this case is that confortable commentators on hackernews are vanishingly unlikely ever to have to live near one. This is a poor people problem.
- astrange 4y agoThere’s a famous landfill right in Silicon Valley though; it’s caused Milpitas to smell like rotten eggs for the last 20 years. https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/19/18273029/milpitas-odor-studies-city-council-smell-stink-study https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/19/18273029/milpitas-odor-studi...
- not2b 4y agoAs others have mentioned they are a major source of methane emission, though this can be addressed (do a better job separating out food waste and compost it).
- wanderr 4y agoCorrect, landfills are not a miracle technology. Landfills leak. https://www.clf.org/blog/all-landfills-leak-and-our-health-and-environment-pay-the-toxic-price/ https://www.clf.org/blog/all-landfills-leak-and-our-health-a... https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-040-03/ https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-040-03/
- candiddevmike 4y agoMost landfills contain icky things like heavy metals or arsenic. Having that leak into an aquifer Would Be Bad.
- DANK_YACHT 4y agoThat’s why they’re sealed with clay and plastic and constantly monitored for leakage.
- jrms 4y agoIf it needs constant monitoring it's a potential problem... And at some point it will happen... We know that from ages of software development, if it can fail, it will fail at some point.
- DANK_YACHT 4y agoYou’d be surprised by the number of things that need to be constantly monitored. Building structures, power plants, roads, dams, mass transit, etc. basically everything.
- pastage 4y agoDams break and wreck havoc on ecosystems, the US has had it's fair share of coal mine sludge disasters. Even countries with strict environmental agencies and long history of mining have accidents.
- DANK_YACHT 4y agoSo what's your solution? Stop building dams and decommission the ones that have been built? Humans attempt to create order. The universe naturally wants to increase disorder. It's natural that anything we create will need to be monitored.
- pastage 4y ago