4 ms·
This reminds me of an English term that, to me as an ELL, sticks out like a sore thumb every time I see it: Landfill. It almost sounds like we're doing somethin
by barbazoo 3y ago
This reminds me of an English term that, to me as an ELL, sticks out like a sore thumb every time I see it: Landfill. It almost sounds like we're doing something admirable by filling the land where there's an emptiness rather than saying what it really is, a place where we dump our garbage waiting for it to decompose, creating a hostile environment for everyone and everything around.
- nonethewiser 3y agoThats a good observation, I never thought of it like that. Im not sure where you are, but its also called a dump in the US.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- callalex 3y agoLandfill is what the government calls them. The commonly used term is dump.
- smcl 3y agoThat's an interesting perspective, I hadn't ever broken the word down and thought about it like that! However from the perspective of a native speaker, I can't imagine anyone thinks there's anything admirable about a "landfill". It's possible that it's a euphemism preferred by the local authority or whoever has to handle the rubbish we generate, but really we all know what it is referring to.
- akiselev 3y agoThey're called landfills because of the method used to dispose the garbage: digging out a trench, covering the garbage with dirt, and compacting it to prevent rodents [1]. The land is literally "filled in" with garbage. Before that trash was either incinerated, which caused lots of air pollution, or just dumped in large piles that created all kinds of sanitation issues, especially in urban areas. As unsavory as it is to think about, landfills were an actual innovation in waste disposal that exploded in the post war boom, not just a euphemism for a dump. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno_Municipal_Sanitary_Landfill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno_Municipal_Sanitary_Land...
- smcl 3y agoIt's still incinerated plenty of places, iirc Japan does it and I know that at least some of it here is: https://www.teplarny.cz/cs/spolecenska-odpovednost https://www.teplarny.cz/cs/spolecenska-odpovednost > Využíváme spalování odpadu. V létě je spalovna hlavním zdrojem teplé vody pro město. Vyrábíme současně elektřinu. ~= "We are using incinerated waste. In summer the incinerator is the main source of hot water for the city. At the same time we're producing electricity." They do have a couple of charging ports at the teplárny near me, but I don't know how much electricity they produce.
- akiselev 3y agoYeah modern incineration is a totally different beast with flue gas cleaning systems [1]. Before wet scrubbers [2] and some other clean air technology reached mass production - largely in the 70s iirc, because of EPA & California Air Resources Board pressure on coal power plants - incineration was a much dirtier way of disposing of trash. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration#Flue-gas_cleaning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration#Flue-gas_cleaning [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_scrubber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_scrubber
- ajb 3y agoYes, it probably was a euphemism originally, but negative connotations catch up pretty fast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill