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Some Extreme Antipollution Measures

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    • Some Extreme Antipollution Measures

      A national park in Thailand mails garbage back to visitors home address.

      bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-54200833

      Tanzania bans all plastic bags, so if you are planning to climb Kilimanjaro, your pack liner can cost you 7 days in jail. But not to worry. I'm sure Tanzanian prisons are very nice.

      google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-africa-48513140
    • where I live the town has a pretty extensive recycling program. Of course I don't know what happens to stuff once the town has it. At least plastic can be reused and made into new products.
      Metal on the other hand I take to a place that pays you for your scrap metal. I came home with a whole $3.08 for a car load of metal. Anything is better than nothing.
    • LIhikers wrote:

      where I live the town has a pretty extensive recycling program. Of course I don't know what happens to stuff once the town has it. At least plastic can be reused and made into new products.
      Metal on the other hand I take to a place that pays you for your scrap metal. I came home with a whole $3.08 for a car load of metal. Anything is better than nothing.
      Hopefully it covered your gas. ^^
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Some may get recycled but much probably doesn't. Our city has a high tech incinerator (Waste to Energy Facility) for stuff they can't recycle. It is not like the old fashioned smouldering town dump however. It is an enclosed furnace that burns at a very high temp so combustion is complete. Heat is used to make electricity. The exhaust fumes go through a scrubber to remove ash and toxic gasses so what comes out of the stack is mostly CO2 and H2O. The slurry from the scrubbers is mixed with the ash and put in special landfills. There it sets up like cement and keeps the waste sealed in so it doesn't leach into the ground water. Because the volume coming out is only 5% of what goes in, it is much easier to dispose of. Otherwise it goes to a landfill that contaminates the groundwater and ferments to make methane for hundreds of years.
    • odd man out wrote:

      Some may get recycled but much probably doesn't. Our city has a high tech incinerator (Waste to Energy Facility) for stuff they can't recycle. It is not like the old fashioned smouldering town dump however. It is an enclosed furnace that burns at a very high temp so combustion is complete. Heat is used to make electricity. The exhaust fumes go through a scrubber to remove ash and toxic gasses so what comes out of the stack is mostly CO2 and H2O. The slurry from the scrubbers is mixed with the ash and put in special landfills. There it sets up like cement and keeps the waste sealed in so it doesn't leach into the ground water. Because the volume coming out is only 5% of what goes in, it is much easier to dispose of. Otherwise it goes to a landfill that contaminates the groundwater and ferments to make methane for hundreds of years.
      Isn't methane a fuel/energy source?
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • LIhikers wrote:

      where I live the town has a pretty extensive recycling program. Of course I don't know what happens to stuff once the town has it. At least plastic can be reused and made into new products.
      Metal on the other hand I take to a place that pays you for your scrap metal. I came home with a whole $3.08 for a car load of metal. Anything is better than nothing.
      I've looked into this a little and I've come to the conclusion that much of the plastics don't get recycled for various reasons, much of which falls on the person managing their recycling bin. For example, according to my recycling program, they don't recycle #4 and #6 plastics and they also don't do flimsy stuff like those shopping bags which are #2 plastics, at least in my area. I no longer use those bags, I take my own bags to the store. Furthermore, unlike metals, plastics are generally only recycled once then thrown out; I buy Chock Full O' Nuts coffee, because it's sold in metal cans, not the typical plastic containers.

      Also, I don't think many people clean their plastics (or other recyclables) well enough and some things can't be cleaned well enough, example greasy paper products, i.e. pizza boxes, etc.; those things just need to be thrown away or composted.

      I'm also lucky, in that I have a metal recycling facility just down the road from my house, that's good, because curb-side recycling programs only recycle metal food/drink containers and a few other things; they don't recycle shovels and other things like that.

      I remember reading a story about how areas of Washington state will inspect your recycling bins for non-recyclables, I'm no big-govt guy, but I have no problem if they were to institute a similar program here in my state. However, all these issues with recycling is kind of the fault, in part, to those that pushed for recycling, because they made it sound so simple, and it is, but just not to the point of throwing anything in the bin(s).

    • As a chemistry prof I get annoyed at those who should know some chem but don't. I once went to a recycling dumpster and they had a compartment labeled "metal, but no tin". I stood there for a while trying to decide if they meant "steel but no tin foil", or "aluminum, but no tin cans". I looked in the dumpster and it was filled with equal parts steel and aluminum. Idiots
    • odd man out wrote:

      Some landfills capture the methane coming out of the dump and burn it, but it not an efficient process. A big city dump will cover hundreds of acres. Imagine trying to capture all the gas coming out of that pile, and that which escapes is a worse pollutant than the CO2.
      Somewhere in my travels I remember driving by a large landfill at night. They had some large metal stacks basically driven in the ground to vent the excess methane. The escaped gas was lit on fire, basically just like a few tall torches.
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”


      John Greenleaf Whittier
    • odd man out wrote:

      As a chemistry prof I get annoyed at those who should know some chem but don't. I once went to a recycling dumpster and they had a compartment labeled "metal, but no tin". I stood there for a while trying to decide if they meant "steel but no tin foil", or "aluminum, but no tin cans". I looked in the dumpster and it was filled with equal parts steel and aluminum. Idiots
      and how is the average person going to know if something is actually tin. And what about tin plating or some mixture of metals that might contain some tin. They need to keep it simple enough for the average person.
    • LIhikers wrote:

      and how is the average person going to know if something is actually tin. And what about tin plating or some mixture of metals that might contain some tin. They need to keep it simple enough for the average person.
      Nobody recycles tin these days. Metal is galvanized with zinc. I am certain they were not concerned with tin. It was about separating steel and aluminum (but failing).
    • odd man out wrote:

      LIhikers wrote:

      and how is the average person going to know if something is actually tin. And what about tin plating or some mixture of metals that might contain some tin. They need to keep it simple enough for the average person.
      Nobody recycles tin these days. Metal is galvanized with zinc. I am certain they were not concerned with tin. It was about separating steel and aluminum (but failing). However, I've heard there are health concerns with both types of linings, but I guess it mostly depends on how old the canned item is and what temperature it's stored.
      When you say, "Metal is galvanized with zinc." Are you talking about food/beverage cans? I know both zinc and BPA or some other plastic are generally used to line food/beverage cans, but not sure which is more prevalent; although, I'm sure it depends on what's in the can. An interesting article on drinking cans

      wired.com/2015/03/secret-life-…m-can-true-modern-marvel/
    • I recycle much of my garbage and pay to have a separate recycling can but became skeptical after seeing the trash service empty both cans into the same truck.

      The best I can do is reuse as much as possible such as plastic bags, jars, and bottles.

      I’ve been discouraged about the mandatory use of plastic grocery bags since the pandemic but found out yesterday that my grocery store will allow reusable shopping bags in self check out.
      Lost in the right direction.
    • Traffic Jam wrote:

      I recycle much of my garbage and pay to have a separate recycling can but became skeptical after seeing the trash service empty both cans into the same truck.

      The best I can do is reuse as much as possible such as plastic bags, jars, and bottles.

      I’ve been discouraged about the mandatory use of plastic grocery bags since the pandemic but found out yesterday that my grocery store will allow reusable shopping bags in self check out.
      I recycle as much as can, but it is disappointing when I see college students not, and even throwing trash in recycling bins. But yet their generation wants to complain the most about the environment. :(
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • odd man out wrote:

      A national park in Thailand mails garbage back to visitors home address.

      bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-54200833

      Tanzania bans all plastic bags, so if you are planning to climb Kilimanjaro, your pack liner can cost you 7 days in jail. But not to worry. I'm sure Tanzanian prisons are very nice.

      google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-africa-48513140

      Wheres the extreme part?
      These sound like fair ideas to me.
    • Traffic Jam wrote:

      I recycle much of my garbage and pay to have a separate recycling can but became skeptical after seeing the trash service empty both cans into the same truck.

      The best I can do is reuse as much as possible such as plastic bags, jars, and bottles.

      I’ve been discouraged about the mandatory use of plastic grocery bags since the pandemic but found out yesterday that my grocery store will allow reusable shopping bags in self check out.
      Unfortunately in 2018 when China stopped accepting our refuse, recyclable goods became pretty worthless. For far too many industries we have no little local infrastructure and instead rely on China :(

      It is my understanding that for most products the haulers pay more to get rid of the recyclables than they do to get rid of the trash. My town has a contract for two separate pickups from our hauler; trash and recyclables. For the most part the residents dutifully clean and separate their paper, plastics, and metals. When they think no one is looking, I have seen the trash haulers throw it all into the same dump truck together. It is very dishartening.

      There needs to be some sort of National Initiative to bring all vital manufacturing back home. Medication, PPE, recycling, all of it.

      And not a single piece of critical electronic infrastructure should have a IC board made in communist China!

      bloomberg.com/news/features/20…e-america-s-top-companies
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”


      John Greenleaf Whittier