5 ms·
How long mined metals circulate before being lost
- version_five 4y agoHere is the figure from the actual nature article that shows the lifetimes by metal: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-average-lifetimes-of-metals-in-the-economy-versus-average-global-annual-production_fig3_360724059 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-average-lifetimes-of...
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoThis is really cool- some times i would lament that we are switchint to plastic, and people lament 'but plastix is so much more CO2 efficient, less energy intesive..' But average lifetime of Iron is over 100 years, whats average lifetime of plastic, considerong much is single use, one week?
- megablast 4y agoYou going to use iron bags?? Iron bottles??
- robonerd 4y agoI mean, steel wire baskets are a thing, but I prefer a canvas bag. Glass is better for bottles and can be reusable, not merely recyclable.
- Cerium 4y agoI dream of a reusable glass bottle set. We could have basic designs such as wine, beer, short wide, tall narrow, etc. Like some areas have a tax on plastic bags, we could add a tax on goods sold in non-resusble and non compliant packaging.
- blahedo 4y agoMost active breweries in the US will fill glass bottles in two standard sizes of 64oz ("growler"; a bit shy of 2L) or 32oz ("mini-growler", 1L). Sometimes they will only fill growlers you originally bought from them but IME most will fill any growler you bring in. They're great to bring to parties instead of a six-pack. So at least within one area, your idea is already implemented---it'd be a good start to build on.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Symbiote 4y agoDenmark has standard DS 53 for a reusable beer or soda bottle. They are very common in bars, and beer sold in supermarkets. Soda in supermarkets tends to be in plastic bottles or cans. According to this very old report, in the 1990s these bottles were refilled 35 times on average. (Much of the report is very outdated.) https://ec.europa.eu/environment/pdf/waste/studies/packaging/denmark.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/environment/pdf/waste/studies/packaging...
- eru 4y agoRecycling aluminum cans costs less energy than recycling glass bottles. Aluminum cans are also lighter for a given volume of liquid than glass, and they don't break. You are right that re-using bottles takes less energy than recycling. You can re-use both glass and plastic bottles. Germany is a country with an extensive system of bottle re-use. But it's quite the logistical challenge to set up from scratch.
- ASalazarMX 4y agoGlass bottles would be mostly reused, not recycled. This brings me back to the time where finding a weird taste in your coke bottle (some doofus used it to hold gasoline in an emergency), finding an insect in your drink (not thoroughly washed), the lip breaking (bottle capped without checking for wear), etc. happened sometimes. In an industrial scale, it takes a lot of effort to make sure glass bottles are fit for reuse.
- Fatnino 4y agoBags made of fine chain mail? Sure, why not?
- Retric 4y agoFor one thing they are a lot heavier and more expensive than plant fibers. But the average lifespan of iron says very little about how long it would last as a bag like this. Rust like many things occurs on the surface, combine friction between the links with lots of surface area and it’s not going to last anything like 100 years.
- microtherion 4y agoI'm surprised how much Barium gets produced annually, given the limited applications mentioned on the Wikipedia page.
- foota 4y agoFrom what I can tell it's mostly used for drilling. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barium_sulfate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barium_sulfate and https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/molecule-of-the-week/archive/b/barium-sulfate.html https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/molecule-of-the-week/arch...
- weinzierl 4y agoThanks, that was what I was looking for. The lifetimes are pretty much unsurprising, but I didn't expect so little difference between the primary production of Fe/Al and the rest. Barium certainly sticks out and I wouldn't have expected gold to be roughly a third of iron. I would also have expected copper before nickel.
- seiferteric 4y agoNot lost, just sitting in a landfill somewhere probably, waiting to be mined again.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoFuture prospector searching for veins of iPads. There's gold in them hills
- mateo1 4y agoA percentage is also lost in a way that is not and will never be economically feasible to recover, ie oxidized and dissolved in the sea. Although this research is probably done in good faith, it's going to (renewably) fuel all the alarmist environmentalists that don't understand the first thing about mining and resources. We cannot live in a closed system, nothing can, and we will perish if we go around stopping all industrial progress in the name of an unachievable circular economy ideal. Some resources are scarce and limited as far as we know and with current extraction costa, but the solution is not to stop using them. We use them for a reason. Imagine if the industrial revolution never happened because they were concerned that in 200 years the sea level would rise 3 meters and damage their crops. In a way, this is where we are. There is a lot of earth crust and a lot of minerals around. Luckily, by the time we run out we'll have already colonized most of the solar system.
- Thorentis 4y ago> Luckily, by the time we run out we'll have already colonized most of the solar system. I tend to agree with the first part, but am reluctant to fully agree due to this last part. If it was true that we have enough to last us up until we colonize the solar system, then maybe the first part would be fine. This assumes that colonising the solar system is even possible, and that we have enough energy available on earth to even do this.
- bruce511 4y agoI'm doubtful about colonising - and even if we create colonies it's likely they will remain small and dependant on earth for at least some supplies. However there is a Lot of rock in the solar system that could be mined, and its possible, perhaps even probable, that these resources would supply earth with metals for quite some time.
- FunnyBadger 4y ago
- paulkrush 4y agoI miss old PCs being on the curb. They don't exist anymore on the side of the road where I live. There was a time when it was common to see TRS80s with 8 inch drives next to the cans. Maybe it was less common than my memories, but I just remember seeing gold for anyone to take.
- kzrdude 4y agoDid you take them? Did you get any gold?
- convolvatron 4y agoI used to hang out with a scrapper, and one time he cleaned out an old marine supply warehouse. lots of 60s-70s era mil spec parts. we went through the whole lot and separated out the gold. ended up with about 10 lbs of plated pins. paid out less than an oz I think. if I hadn't scored a bunch of brass enclosures and old panel glasswork and indicators it totally wouldn't have been worth it.
- paulkrush 4y agoI see randomly getting old machines to work as gold because it's one of the rags to riches back doors to the tech world.