Interesting article in the New Scientist about efforts to start mining landfills for aluminum and plastic. Yeah, it will be a long time (if ever) before it catches on big time, but with high commodities prices I wouldn't be surprised if a few companies find niches for this.
This reminded me of an old H&R comment by Mo:
Quote:
Mo | July 21, 2004, 6:38am | #
A4TF,
Of course, then plastic will be expensive. At least it'll help provide jobs in the future working in landfills, er plastic mines.
For some reason, that comment stuck with me, because of the image of plastic mines.
__________________
"the only thing worse than a freeper is a blue state freeper that doesn't realize they're a freeper." -dhex
hoisted by their own waterboard!
-dhex
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
I have long suspected that sometime in the future, a lot of our resources will come from mining past landfills. (Don't think of them as garbage piles; think of them as temporary storage depots.)
Of course, once plastic mining becomes really common, I hope most of the work will be done by robots, so that human miners won't suffer from styrene lung or get trapped in huge spork collapses.
"My intellect is gigantic, monstrous, terrifying."
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
If I had any talent at writing lengthy prose, I could make a killing writing dystopian novels.
If you don't want to be arrested by the Park Police, don't go to the Jefferson Memorial.
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
twelve miners were injured today when they accidentally drilled into a hidden seam of diapers.
"But if it makes you feel better, I would also enjoy a world in which there are men, women, transsexuals, genderqueer folk, etc. who all enjoy pelican role-play." - JD
"Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional powers."
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
Don't forget about
Polandvolatiles! There should be some chemicals, especially gasses, coming out of those things that otherwise you have to go to dinoflagellates to produce.This is a personal problem. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable use of high explosives. This is not one of those exceptions.
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
I too. For years I have said this, and that's one of the reasons I throw pennies away. (The other is so that future archeologists will have jobs.)
This is not a signature.
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
Actually Jane Jacobs brought this up in one of her books. She apparently saw it as something that would arise in some future time. Not as something state directed, but as an enterprise called for by the market.
She was very much into market directed organic organizations, but oddly she became something of an icon on the left.
I am not young enough to know everything.
— Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
It's actually been a staple of third world economies for years now.Trash shipped in, trash gets mined, trash gets sold back to first world. Beautiful in it's way.
I CAUTION YOU / IN DEFEATING ORCS WE MAY FIND THE ONLY VILLAIN LEFT TO FACE IS OUR OWN PREJUDICE--qwantz.com
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
Sadly, I wasn't publishing my youthful musings on the internet back in the 70s (I can't quite recall now why not) but I used to make the same basic observation about styrofoam, etc. It has always struck me as absurd that simply because we don't have the current technology to use something efficiently it will always be useless.
"love is like porn, you know" -- Ali
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
Oh, and this George Carlin routine seems appropriate:
"love is like porn, you know" -- Ali
Re: No doubt the Mexicans will steal these jobs too
Chuck Nugget uncovered the most valuable deposit in history last week. He said it was a combination of skill, hard work, and luck that led him to the find. "I was following this seem of small cables, retention clips, and nine-pin D connectors" said Nugget. "I was one week from packing it in. My funding had run out and I was living on rice and beans. I'd been bogged down for over a month before I finally punched through the wall of steal chassis. And there it was, the mother load, thousands and thousands of printed circuit boards."
seriously though, i think you're crazy on this. and you think i'm crazy. everybody wins! - dhex