On the other hand, landfills leak contaminants to the soil and water, produce a lot of methane, and probably other things too. I’d also argue that they give a illusion of a problem solved, and lead people and companies into not wanting to reduce trash production.
There’s also the fact that a lot of your trash doesn’t go to landfills, but instead gets shipped to developing countries where they often dump it into Wall-E style open air trash mountains.
When I was a kid, it was “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle”. The order was quite intentional.
Nobody ever talks about the first two anymore. Probably because they are wildly anti-consumption and thus bad for business.
I went on vacation recently. Visited Houston, Austin, and Dallas by EV. I was, and still am, amazed that the giant gas stations along the highway (Buc-ees, Road Ranger) are still using Styrofoam cups at the soda fountain. I can’t believe those are even still being made.
Much like recycling, these environmental campaigns are just green washing so that the companies, specific the petroleum companies, that are actually destroying the earth are never threatened. Even as the earth is destroyed and society breaks down, their last quarter will still be profitable.
While I wouldn’t argue it saves the planet, sequestering garbage in far off, centralized, contained locations is a little better for public health than simply tossing it in the streets like we used to do. Cholera outbreaks happened on the regular before organized waste collection became a thing.
That for sure. I was referring to the people who think that just because the collected trash isn’t a problem for them in a direct way anymore, it’s all solved.
Did people at some point really believe that taking out all our trash out of sight and tossing them somewhere else would “save the planet”?
It does help in a pretty big way - every piece of trash in landfill is one less in the ocean.
Plus landfills will be literal goldmines in 50 years as we development advanced recycling technologies and robots.
On the other hand, landfills leak contaminants to the soil and water, produce a lot of methane, and probably other things too. I’d also argue that they give a illusion of a problem solved, and lead people and companies into not wanting to reduce trash production.
There’s also the fact that a lot of your trash doesn’t go to landfills, but instead gets shipped to developing countries where they often dump it into Wall-E style open air trash mountains.
Removed by mod
When I was a kid, it was “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle”. The order was quite intentional.
Nobody ever talks about the first two anymore. Probably because they are wildly anti-consumption and thus bad for business.
I went on vacation recently. Visited Houston, Austin, and Dallas by EV. I was, and still am, amazed that the giant gas stations along the highway (Buc-ees, Road Ranger) are still using Styrofoam cups at the soda fountain. I can’t believe those are even still being made.
Found the capitalist.
Much like recycling, these environmental campaigns are just green washing so that the companies, specific the petroleum companies, that are actually destroying the earth are never threatened. Even as the earth is destroyed and society breaks down, their last quarter will still be profitable.
While I wouldn’t argue it saves the planet, sequestering garbage in far off, centralized, contained locations is a little better for public health than simply tossing it in the streets like we used to do. Cholera outbreaks happened on the regular before organized waste collection became a thing.
That for sure. I was referring to the people who think that just because the collected trash isn’t a problem for them in a direct way anymore, it’s all solved.