There's lots
of space
for landfills.
A well run landfill doesn’t let items
blow away, or let toxic fluids leach
into the surrounding environment.
It has a thick, puncture-resistant
plastic lining, drainage for fluids,
electricity generation from gases
produced by decaying matter,
and active monitoring to avoid
water contamination, and more.
Once full, it’s covered over
by a thick layer of soil,
and people can
even farm on it.
Well run landfills
are a very cheap way
to dispose of waste.
The disadvantage of landfills
is items in it can't be recycled.
Recycling may be cheaper
and/or
better for the environment.
Metals are hard to mine,
and easy to recycle.
Plastics are cheap to make,
but difficult to recycle.
Plastics have to be separated
into many different categories,
and then cleaned.
(1)
Someone picks up the plastics
and drives them to the
recycling center, and
(2)
Someone else separates plastics
by type, takes off the lids,
washes them out in hot water, and
melts them down in a special facility.
This can use more energy,
and create more pollution,
than not recycling.
A significant problem
is contamination,
with items not
meant for recycling,
such as lids
on containers.
Then there's
contamination,
such as food inside
containers, or paper
not being dry or clean
(e.g.; greasy pizza boxes)
Lots of materials
collected for recycling
get sent to a landfill.
The problems start with
the initial sorting process
at homes and businesses.
MULTI-STREAM
Separate bins
for recycling,
like we use to have,
for paper, plastics
and glass, seem to
encourage less
contamination.
SINGLE-STREAM
The single bin
that we have now,
tends to make
people sloppier,
producing
a lower grade
end product.
That didn't matter much
for the past two decades,
because China, and a few
other countries, were buying
large quantities of low grade
single stream plastics.
Their low cost labor was used
for sorting and cleaning.
But in January 2018,
China stopped accepting
lower grade recyclables.
China was buying $5.6 billion
of scrap each year
-- that fell to $3.5 billion in 2018,
mainly due to the policy change
on low grade recyclables.
In March 2017,
mixed paper scrap
was selling for $90 a ton,
so almost all west coast
paper scrap went to China.
Now the price is near zero.
Almost all of the litter
that escapes into the sea,
comes from fishing ships
or from poorer countries
with bad rubbish collection
practices, such as China,
India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Incinerating waste,
to generate electricity
from it, is an alternative
form of rubbish disposal.
Burying paper is fine
-- we can always
grow more trees.
Growing more trees,
and burying them as paper
is a way of sequestering
carbon.
Recycling metals is cheaper,
and more environmentally
friendly, than mining.
But glass is made from silicon,
which is one of the most
abundant materials on Earth.
Plastics come from oil,
which has recently
become more abundant
due to horizontal frilling
and shale oil.
If oil eventually
becomes scarce,
we can increase
plastic recycling.
Most oil is used for fuel
— just 4% to 8% is used
for making plastics.
Reusable plastic straws
are very thin and cheap,
so recycling them
makes no sense.
Reusable metal straws
and canvas bags require
10x to 100x the energy
and materials to manufacture,
and need regular cleaning
so they don’t spread diseases.
They are likely to
end up being worse
for the environment.