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America's Hot Garbage Problem
- burnt-resistor 1y agoThese are "sacrifice zones". See also: every superfund site, Hinkley CA, many spots in WV, Four Corners, most of Houston, Cancer Alley between NOLA and BRLA, and golf courses built on top of toxic fly ash.
- atleastoptimal 1y agoThis, and Flint MI, is why I have very little trust in many public institutions. At least in the US, there is a recurrent failure to abandon profitable aims even to save human lives. It is very much a reality of every person for themselves that does not square with the material wealth of the US.
- kube-system 1y ago> very little trust in many public institutions. As opposed to...... the private institutions that created most of those problems?
- meepmorp 1y agopublicly traded institutions, maybe?
- usui 1y agoThis is a strawman. The OP didn't mention trusting private institutions over public institutions, just that you can't ever trust American public institutions to do the right thing for you before being dragged kicking and screaming. What the poster says is true. Living in the US is coming to terms with "every person for themselves" is reality, and that it "does not square with the material wealth of the US". You can trust public institutions to some extent more than private, but interacting with them is still all about fending for yourself. Being familiar with the American government and living in another country that treats its citizens much better (at least for daily operations and processes) opens your eyes to how bad it is. It's a horror how much money the US has while failing to invest the majority of profits back into raising standards for everyone. Dozens of countries do better with much less.
- kube-system 1y agoWell who else is there to solve the problem? > It's a horror how much money the US has while failing to invest the majority of profits back into raising standards for everyone. That's because of private institutions too. Regulatory capture is the reason we can't govern worth a shit in the US. The only remotely feasible way to solve environmental tragedy of the commons issues is through regulation.
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoTo get there you have to be using a definition of "private institutions" which is coterminous with all of humanity. Regulatory capture regularly happens by government employees (i.e. public sector unions who want makework jobs), ordinary homeowners who want high housing costs at the expense of new buyers because they've already bought in, the AARP lobbying for massively expensive medicare expansions and other healthcare rules that disproportionately benefit affluent retirees etc. The incentive of those groups to lobby for their own personal gain is inherent in their existence. If government employees or private homeowners or retirees exist then they'll want what benefits them over what benefits the general public. So the problem of regulatory capture is a problem of how to constrain the government from making rules at the behest of special interest groups.
- kube-system 1y agoI'm talking about business and industry. Neither government employees, their unions, nor the AARP are the forces lobbying to allow pollution of public resources -- the ones who are doing so are the polluters who directly benefit from it.
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoGovernments are some of the largest polluters in the world. Any given special interest is lobbying for the thing they want at the expense of the general public. Is there something that makes pollution different than e.g. professional licensing capture that increases the cost of trade services and therefore causes people to be priced out of making safety-related repairs? Or to put it the other way, any reason the likes of public transit systems should be able to operate whatsoever when they produce non-zero amounts of brake dust and CO2 instead of making everybody walk everywhere?
- bluGill 1y agoThe us is a large place with a lot of media so there is a lot of problems - but in proportion things are good, exposeure makes it seem bad but it is not. if you don't hear about problems the correct assumption is that things are bad and the coverup is working. Assuming things are better elsewhere is bad. Unless you personally check it of course, which you cannot do and live a life
- scns 1y ago> golf courses built on top of toxic fly ash Better than houses and playgrounds, am i wrong?
- subscribed 1y agoSeriously, this and ex-industrial sites are two types of land I believe golf courses should be built on. Not pristine land, not protected nature sites.
- freetime2 1y agohttps://archive.is/qmqsm https://archive.is/qmqsm
- Havoc 1y agoSounds like a toothless regulator problem to me
- HotGarbage 1y agoI'm everyone's problem
- aspenmayer 1y agoMaybe if you were hotter you’d blow up as the kids say and be more popular.
- oefrha 1y agoPretty weird this long article never mentioned waste-to-energy (other than sucking methane out of landfills, which according to the article is making uncontrolled garbage fires more common). Garbage should burn, in modern incineration plants with strict emission standards. Landfills are unsustainable and should be considered a thing of the past.
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38994374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38994374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722984
- freetime2 1y agoIncineration produces ash that ends up in landfills. The volume is of course a lot smaller, but I think there will always be a need for landfills. In fact, my city just opened up a new landfill specifically for incineration by-products a couple years ago. And as people are producing more and more trash every year, demand for such facilities will likely continue to increase.
- comex 1y agoAt least the ash won’t participate in uncontrolled burning.
- 3eb7988a1663 1y agoLandfills are unsustainable... The largest landfill in the USA is the Apex Landfill, at about 3 square miles (7.7 km2) with an estimated capacity of ~1000 million tons. The entire country landfills some 150 million tons per year. That is, a single landfill in Nevada could take all of the country's trash for six years. We could build landfills indefinitely. It is a logistics and political issue.
- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoIt's interesting that by overdrawing methane (for energy), you introduce oxygen, which makes the compost pile too hot. I wouldn't have thought of that. Lets build an aerobically bio-heated power station!
- Animats 1y agoShoreline, where Google HQ is, was a garbage dump. All those low hills are garbage. At one time they had a methane collection system driving a small power plant, but there's no longer enough methane for that. Once there was a methane fire at a concert. Palo Alto and Menlo Park had similar garbage dumps, and their hilly parks along the shore of the bay are also trash.