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Originally posted by DigiNut Haha yes, I loved that one! My favourite was still the bottled water though.

i think people should watch this episode rather than the "story or stuff".

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Originally posted by DigiNut Emissions which are used today for energy. Reuse - that's the first R!

Methane gas isnt quite as easy to extract from landfills as you'd imagine. Most of the landfill methane gas escapes into the air, only pockets of the gas can be gathered for extraction and energy, through pipes. Either way, methane gas will leak and will contribute to climate change. If you have been to a landfill, you'd probably about the methane situation - ammonia smell is its signature. But let me tell you - by current methods, its IMPOSSIBLE to capture majority of methane produced by the landfills. The only way to capture majority of the methane from landfills is to put a one giant blanket around the whole area and suck out all the methane. Just think about how realistic that is.

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So you admit that you're not interested in environmental issues unless they're a problem. That's pretty narrow-minded; capitalists don't look only at the dangers to business, so why would a real environmentalist look only at dangers to the environment?

Be it a problem or not a problem, environmental issues interest me. However, wastewater treatment is doing fine, while pollution of water and overfishing is still a problem. Shall we do otherwise - concentrate on issues that pose the least threat to us and the environment? Whats your point???

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And there's always new research into this area and new technologies on the horizon. Couple of years ago a relative of our then-CEO had come up with a purification process using used pickle brine that would actually put out more energy than it consumed. Still hasn't quite made it to the manufacturing stage - these things take time and cost money.

What about relevant comparisons to what the video and the thread is about? Do you have a similar technology for stopping deforestation, water pollution, overfishing, etc.? Some of those things cannot be fixed by technological advances. Use the math - growing world population needs more fish every year. Natural resources and fossil fuels are very limited. And we are not near from breaking our dependance on fossil fuels. Biofuels are not the answer - taking away people's source of food for fuel is not going to work. Especially with the growing world population and demand.

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[FONT=Tahoma][COLOR=#99CCEE]That's why landfills are engineered to protect the ground below. It's impossible for battery acid to get into soil or groundwater.

LMAO! OK, since the landfill liners are so amazing, lets just dump all the batteries and other toxics there. Think what that would do. There's a reason why there are special hazardous waste dumps out there - BECAUSE NORMAL LANDFILLS ARE NOT MEANT FOR HAZARDOUS WASTE. WAIT - how about this: hazardous items DAMAGE the landfill liners. Batteries will leak and can corrode that defensive liner. And trust me, its not just ONE battery that gets thrown out to the landfill a day. There are toxic paints, batteries, toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, etc. etc. etc. You think everyone knows that batteries are not supposed to go in the garbage? WRONG! Our waste department deals with public, too, and I've got to meet many people in the last 8 months who didnt know that batteries dont go in the garbage.

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Damn right it isn't. In general it's not science at all - the only material that's actually economically sound to recycle is aluminum. Everything else costs more money and consumes more energy to recycle than it does to dispose and make more of. Oh, and I'm with you on the water bottles - we pay for high-quality tap water through our taxes, and there is absolutely no reason to waste ridiculous amounts of money on the bottled shit.

WOW, we agree on something? So now think about the video, and does it make more sense that there's too much stuff going into garbage? Too much waste? Too much consumerism? Thats the whole bloody point of the thread, its not just the water bottles - thats merely the tip of the iceberg.

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If you want to get technical, we and our children will be paying a lot less for this than our ancestors did.

How do you figure that? We keep sweeping these issues under the carpet. That makes it cheaper in the long run?

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And you, presumably, know what all of those "right choices" are, yes? The rest of us are just ignorant.

I dont know everything, and some of the "right" choices can be interpreted in many ways. Part of the problem is that people take things too personally and think they're being labeled as ignorant, which is not the case. So if I say something that goes against what they are doing, they automatically assume that we think they're ignorant. Absolutely wrong. People dont know everything, either busy or unaware of certain things. Like, how many people even think about the recycling process and what are the reasons for putting things in the specific containers for waste colection, or why lids have to come off, or why cloths are not recyclable? Its not their fault, they dont teach it in school and the information is not available in your class. They could be doing what they thought it right, or what they didn't know better about. TV, the media, the education system has prevented people from seeing these issues and others in a full and accurate picture. People like me are just sharing some information. Just like when my work team goes to apartment buildings to tell people not to throw out their batteries in garbage, I am here to encourage environmental responsibilities and stewardship, not to tell people that they suck. They just take it the wrong way.

Seriously, how did I accuse you of being ignorant outside of those useless replies (intentional) that followed my original post (video game / software talk)?

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

we should put hoses in all cows' asses to collect this major source of methane

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Originally posted by Magnetonium Methane gas isnt quite as easy to extract from landfills as you'd imagine. Most of the landfill methane gas escapes into the air, only pockets of the gas can be gathered for extraction and energy, through pipes.

In fact I have been to a landfill, and I have actually done a little research, so unlike you, I don't have to "imagine". I'm not sure how you can say that "most" escapes when present recovery rates are up to 90%, with the average being around 40-50%.

And yes, actually, it is realistic to put "one giant blanket" over the landfill to prevent air entrainment; all you need is a membrane with carbon dioxide pumped into the permeable layer. Not all landfills use this (considering that some have been around for decades already, it's not that easy to just retrofit), but the technology is out there.

If you think that this tiny amount of remaining methane is going to make a significant contribution to "climate change", which in and of itself is still a completely unproven hypothesis, then you'd better start to worry about cow flatulence as AJ points out.

Once again, a pragmatic approach to environmentalism would concentrate on improving efficiency and reducing waste, which is good for both the environment and the economy. Running around waving your arms screaming "It's a disaster, it's going to kill us all, stop it right now!" doesn't accomplish anything. Instead of bitching and moaning about the "landfill problem", why don't you invest some of your money into the companies working on improving them to be cleaner and safer for the environment?

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However, wastewater treatment is doing fine, while pollution of water and overfishing is still a problem.

I'll just ignore the overfishing part, which is nonsense; the point is that pollution is a problem that can be (and in many cases is) solved by treatment and purification. When your home gets dirty, you clean it, you don't refuse to live in it. Again, the appropriate response for a sentient race is to improve the technology and processes, and if you really cared so deeply about the issues you would be in an R&D department somewhere or making contributions to the researchers. What you actually want, though, is just to be able to tell other people what their "problems" are and how to run their lives.

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Do you have a similar technology for stopping deforestation, water pollution, overfishing, etc.?

Deforestation hasn't been a problem for a long time because of tree farms, so yes, we do have the "technology" for that. Water pollution can be solved by water treatment. Overfishing, if it even were a problem, could be solved by improving our food output in other areas through technologies like food processing and genetic engineering - another two things that enviro-socialists love to call "problems".

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Some of those things cannot be fixed by technological advances.

How is it that you believe you can predict what technological advances will come up, given that they're happening at an exponential rate?

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Natural resources and fossil fuels are very limited.

Limited yes, but nowhere near exhausted, and by the time we reach that point we'll have other alternatives, just like we did with coal.

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And we are not near from breaking our dependance on fossil fuels.

We will be. We don't need to be, not just yet.

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LMAO! OK, since the landfill liners are so amazing, lets just dump all the batteries and other toxics there. Think what that would do. There's a reason why there are special hazardous waste dumps out there - BECAUSE NORMAL LANDFILLS ARE NOT MEANT FOR HAZARDOUS WASTE.

I assumed it was obvious that hazardous waste goes into landfills designed for hazardous waste. But the classifications also have almost nothing to do with containment - it's more that they can pose health risks or react with each other to start fires or even explode. Thus they generally have to be treated before being buried, and a greater degree of care must go into the way those landfills are managed.

Honestly, I don't mean to make this personal but you seem to know very little about how a landfill is actually designed. Apparently you think they're just giant holes with some plastic wrap spread across the bottom. It's actually an entire branch of science and engineering with hundreds if not thousands of regulations. Everything from where the sites are located, to how many layers of protection the foundation has to have (and any one of them can definitely withstand battery acid!), to rafts of tests measuring leakage in the parts-per-billion in order to make sure that nothing can possibly escape, to what kinds of microbes are allowed to be used in bioreactors, to fire and flood control measures, to what's allowed to be done with the gases and what's combustible, and so on and so forth...

...and you dismiss it all with handwaving, saying "that's impossible. It's going to leak." It sounds like what creationists say about evolution. Have you even done a cursory examination of the science behind a landfill?

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So now think about the video, and does it make more sense that there's too much stuff going into garbage?

All I said was that it was a waste of our money when we're already paying for perfectly good clean water from the taps. If, as a side-effect of wasting less money, we also produce less environmental waste (which is often the case), then great. Don't get too excited - I never said there was "too much consumerism".

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How do you figure that? We keep sweeping these issues under the carpet. That makes it cheaper in the long run?

Except we aren't sweeping them under the rug, we're improving them by leaps and bounds. So yes, we are "paying" less than our parents did, both economically and environmentally, and future generations will be paying less than we are.

The interesting question is, is the amount we're "paying" decreasing fast enough to account for population growth? I think it is, given that technological progress is still on an exponential curve, while population growth has been tapering off in the more developed countries.

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Part of the problem is that people take things too personally and think they're being labeled as ignorant, which is not the case.

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Seriously, how did I accuse you of being ignorant ... ?

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Time to go on real forums and other subforums where people actually care whats going on in the world instead of pure ignorance and disregard for the world issues

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I just posted a fucking thread and I got a lot of rude and ignorant response

QED.

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Like, how many people even think about the recycling process and what are the reasons for putting things in the specific containers for waste colection

That's an easy one - to support a gigantic bureaucratic make-work project based on a lot of irrational panic and very little science. Except for aluminum cans, which go into specific containers because they can actually be recycled.

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Its not their fault, they dont teach it in school and the information is not available in your class.

Unfortunately, they do teach it in class, since like... first grade. Where did you go to school?

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