3 ms·

Landfill is demonized. And yet for plastic waste it’s the best destination. Our society is obsessed with “keeping plastic out of landfill”. Why? Are we runnin

Landfill is demonized. And yet for plastic waste it’s the best destination. Our society is obsessed with “keeping plastic out of landfill”. Why? Are we running out of landfill? No. We’re so obsessed with keeping plastic out of landfill that we come up with ideas like putting waste plastic into roads. Sounds great doesn’t it? Until you realize cars and trucks drive in those roads, grind them down. Grind out the plastic into microplastic as that go into air water soil food animals people. But hey, the important thing is the plastic was kept out of landfill, right?

pjc50 3y ago
> Are we running out of landfill? No Varies by country.
- andrewstuart 3y ago
  You should put it in roads.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  Then the free market will solve that problem too: those who have excess land will take the stuff of our hands for a small fee. Put it into old coal mines as an example.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. Libertarians in the US have been landfill stans for decades because they are funded by the people who provide the inputs for non-recycled plastics, namely fossil fuels. The only thing they hate more than recycling is single use plastic bans, again because that means less fossil fuel sales. Ironically, their anti-recycling propaganda has been so successful that people have just started supporting outright bans. And now they have to embarrassingly suggest that bans are unnecessary because single use plastics can be recycled instead.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. This would be what to expand on. Without this, you have no foundation for the rest of your comment. I'll happily listen to why landfills are bad, I don't care about a bunch of motives and associations that rely on your audience already agreeing with you that landfills are bad to have any relevance. That's how propaganda works. It often leads by assuming the question, skips right past it into invective and speculation about the opponents' evil motives and associations; then when the audience asks about the question you skipped, it turns to speculation about the audience's evil motives and associations. Landfill isn't demonized, it's just bad! I'm not going to tell you why, though, I'm going to talk about the character of the people who disagree with me.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy It's basically the long form of "reduce, reuse, recycle". The little flow diagram is a good summary. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Waste_hierarchy_rect-en.svg/600px-Waste_hierarchy_rect-en.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Wa...
fomine3 3y ago
Or burning (and generating power) is fine until any fossil fuel power plants are operating.
smileysteve 3y ago
Landfills should be demonized because very few of them live up to their hype (at least in the US where we may not make the appropriate infrastructure investments). Every landfill near me, most created in the last 30 years has had a significant liner breach, which then damages the containment structure, which then pollutes the aquifer.

pjc50 3y ago

> Are we running out of landfill? No Varies by country.

andrewstuart 3y ago
You should put it in roads.
tomjen3 3y ago
Then the free market will solve that problem too: those who have excess land will take the stuff of our hands for a small fee. Put it into old coal mines as an example.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. Libertarians in the US have been landfill stans for decades because they are funded by the people who provide the inputs for non-recycled plastics, namely fossil fuels. The only thing they hate more than recycling is single use plastic bans, again because that means less fossil fuel sales. Ironically, their anti-recycling propaganda has been so successful that people have just started supporting outright bans. And now they have to embarrassingly suggest that bans are unnecessary because single use plastics can be recycled instead.

pessimizer 3y ago
> Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. This would be what to expand on. Without this, you have no foundation for the rest of your comment. I'll happily listen to why landfills are bad, I don't care about a bunch of motives and associations that rely on your audience already agreeing with you that landfills are bad to have any relevance. That's how propaganda works. It often leads by assuming the question, skips right past it into invective and speculation about the opponents' evil motives and associations; then when the audience asks about the question you skipped, it turns to speculation about the audience's evil motives and associations. Landfill isn't demonized, it's just bad! I'm not going to tell you why, though, I'm going to talk about the character of the people who disagree with me.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy It's basically the long form of "reduce, reuse, recycle". The little flow diagram is a good summary. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Waste_hierarchy_rect-en.svg/600px-Waste_hierarchy_rect-en.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Wa...

fomine3 3y ago

Or burning (and generating power) is fine until any fossil fuel power plants are operating.

smileysteve 3y ago

Landfills should be demonized because very few of them live up to their hype (at least in the US where we may not make the appropriate infrastructure investments). Every landfill near me, most created in the last 30 years has had a significant liner breach, which then damages the containment structure, which then pollutes the aquifer.