4 ms·
At least all this plastic is now stored in one place and did not end up in rivers and landfills yet. There is a still a hope for happy ending of this story.
by vzaliva 2y ago
At least all this plastic is now stored in one place and did not end up in rivers and landfills yet. There is a still a hope for happy ending of this story.
- XorNot 2y agoWhy is plastic in landfills a problem? It started off as oil in the ground.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoBecause most of the oil reserves weren't contaminating water tables?
- declan_roberts 2y agoDoes plastic do that? My understanding is that away from sunlight and heat it basically never breaks down.
- justinator 2y agoPlastic (depending) will become brittle and break into smaller and smaller pieces if buried. The problem of microplastics is kind of a breaking story. It doesn't look like a good thing for us.
- MrVandemar 2y agoHow would you feel about a landfill right next to your home?
- smsm42 2y agoWhy does it have to be next to anyone's home? US still has vast amounts of pretty much empty space. You could drive for hours and see mostly empty space.
- palijer 2y agoThere's plenty of space in north america that isn't beside residencial areas.
- MrVandemar 2y agoEven a desert has an ecosystem. I think you'll find your "space", unless it was previously cleared by human beings, is supporting life. Imagine tearing something complex and wonderful up to bury plastic.
- XorNot 2y agoI mean the local landfill for me is an hour's drive away. It's well managed, stabilised soil. When it's full it'll be covered over and become a municipal oval like many of the others around my city which now are central points of suburbs.
- smsm42 2y agoYet. They might still pass it on to some company in East Asia which would just dump it into the river there. It used to be the model for a lot of "recycling" in the West...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- declan_roberts 2y agoRecycling in the west means paying the lowest bid to "take it" And they'd take it to Asia and dump it in the ocean on the way.
- ars 2y agoPlastic in the US does not end up rivers, you are thinking of places like India. There's nothing wrong with plastic in a landfill.
- lanstin 2y agoI have personally seen, on a California beach, a carcass of some marine animal, I can't remember but maybe an elephant seal, that had been choked by a plastic grocery bag. I have seen subsequently, and considered briefly running after, many plastic bags in the streets blowing towards the storm runoff system. And plastic in a landfill tends to degrade over a very long period of time, into substances that seem to have a tendency towards contaminating water tables and ecosystems.
- gedy 2y agoI used to volunteer weekends cleaning remote beaches in California, and virtually all the plastic trash was from asia and/or asian ships (from the text and printing). US people using plastic is a very small problem in comparison.
- mcswell 2y agoI wish. There's a park on the east shore of the Potomac as it's widening below DC. A Boy Scout troop could literally pick up a ton of plastic in half a mile of shoreline (just go at low tide). Occasional metal (like a water heater, I think it was), but mostly plastic. I don't know whether it comes from stuff that washes into tributaries, or from boaters.
- crest 2y agoI wonder what their plan is once the site fills up? Have a warm-recycling bonfire? Embezzle as much as possible and declare bankruptcy?
- oceanplexian 2y agoGarbage is deeply misunderstood. If you make a pile of garbage and put enough garbage in it, it will heat up to crazy temperatures and start to decompose, including plastic, which is a hydrocarbon. “Recycling” on the other hand is a code word for shipping stuff on a slow boat to China, and is actually much worse for the environment.
- ninkendo 2y agoChina stopped taking our recycling in 2017. Plastic recycling usually just means the incinerator now.
- smsm42 2y agoI don't think plastic alone would heat up (unless you have some very weird plastics). Organics probably would. But for common household garbage, there's not much harm in just burying it somewhere, provided it's not leaking or otherwise getting out - plant some trees on top of it and you have a nice park. Toxic garbage is more challenging but regular plastic doesn't seem to be this huge problem if you don't dump it into the river or such.
- justinator 2y agoIt wasn't even a slow boat, it was part of how the international shipping system worked: we got cheap plastic goods FROM China, we shipped back plastic "to be recycled" TO China. The idea is that it was better than shipping back empty containers. They don't take recyclables any more.