4 ms·

So eventually when the cost of finding/creating new materials makes recycling economically feasible we "mine" old landfills and use the materials. The landfill

So eventually when the cost of finding/creating new materials makes recycling economically feasible we "mine" old landfills and use the materials. The landfill materials become the new raw material for manufacture.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
...except that they distribute the material so thinly, its unlikely it'll ever be economical to mine. Even the 'original' mines e.g. copper, iron, need very high mineral densities to make them worthwhile. Landfills are orders of magnitude less dense.
- garfij 11y ago
  There is more gold in a ton of garbage electronics than there is in a ton of gold ore. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs060-01/fs060-01.pdf http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs060-01/fs060-01.pdf http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14-527_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14-527_en.htm http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28802646 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28802646
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Cool! If only electronics were concentrated somehow in a landfill, instead of thinly spread around.
- vectorjohn 11y ago
  What? Why would the material be distributed thinly? It's not like they rake it all over the desert. It's extremely concentrated.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Concentrated ore is essentially solid material of a single nature. Nothing resembling that occurs in landfills. Its a big pile of 'stuff' with pellets of interesting materials every few meters. That's many orders of magnitude too sparse to be worth mechanically mining.