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Recycling works, but it's not magic. As America continues to lead the world in per capita waste production, it's becoming more and more clear that everybody –- manufacturers and consumers — "over-believes" in recycling.
This is a story about responsibility, and what happens when everyone keeps trying to pass it off to the next person. And what happens, when finally, there is no next person.
It’s hard to find rural property that has been used for farming or homesteading, that hasn’t had trash and discards dumped on at least part of the land over the years. Buying land, inevitably means cleaning up land or at least managing old dumps on it.
Old dumps can be a problem, particularly if there are fluids, pesticides or other toxins dumped on them, although many are quite old at this point and what would have leaked out is long ago. Likewise, hardware disease from livestock chewing on old glass and cans can be an issue, digging into the soil and hitting junk when gardening or farming, and just the nuisance of looking at a waste pile.
On the other hand, old dumps can be an asset too. Dumped and buried once useless materials like broken cast iron, hunks of scrap metal, even old wire has value today as scrap metal. Some old things are now antiques and treasure. Even discarded glass and porcelain can be dug up, smashed and used for aggregate for various projects around the homestead and farm. Not all old waste necessarily has to be removed and hauled to a landfill.
Old dumps can also be used for their original purpose — dumping. Some relatively non-toxic wastes may not be worth hauling off the farm. A lot of landfills don’t want burn barrel ash due to the fire risk, and dumping the ash can allow things like partially burnt paper to biodegrade. Concrete and other building debris might not be worthwhile to haul off-site, especially when there is an existing dump that can be filled. Junk appliances with no scrap value might be fine to add to the dump. Obviously, to prevent settling you don’t want to be burying a lot of wood or organic wastes, or anything significantly toxic that could come to bite you or a future owner.
Now I get the nuisance impact of it all. But often old dumps can be covered with rock and dirt, packed with manure and allowed to reseed and grow. And we shouldn’t be so damn afraid of waste, especially when everybody, even most careful homesteader or farmer generates so much of it. Maybe contemporary anti-dumping and liability laws make it hush-hush, but it goes on still to this day in the back woods.
Some 45 years later, the people who struggled with a chemical crisis in Virginia are sharing their wisdom with France.
This toxic industry has plagued the state for decades. Central Florida is the phosphate capital of the world; the state produces 80% of the phosphate mined in the US, as well 25% of the phosphate used around the world. An estimated 1bn tons of phosphogypsum is housed in about two dozen stacks that dot the Florida landscape, some looming as high as 200ft, each with its own pond of acidic wastewater on top. And every year, about 30m more tons are added to them.
The lesson I learnt from this one-day trip in the underground of the city, is that any waste with a some value will be recycled. A full value chain will grow around valuable waste. If it’s still useable and if people can collect and process it for a small salary, then this waste will be recycled. A large amount of waste in developed countries is being shipped in China, India or other developing countries where people want a salary. They see the value of our waste and are willing to grasp it even though the working conditions are dangerous. As these countries are developing, they are less willing to manage rich-countries waste and less is being recycled. In the future, it will be important to increase the value of such waste so a recycling industry can flourish around it.
I know in the summer when I'm doing a lot of camping, tin cans π₯« can be a big portion of the waste π to bring back home for recycling β». But there are many good uses for cans.