Is there a rubbish pile model for 2050 or 2100

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SpaceBus said:
I hate how much waste goes into ordering stuff from Amazon, but I live so remote, that I can't get everything locally. My local transfer station doesn't take cardboard or paper unless it's 100 lbs. My county makes it very difficult to recycle anything aside from bottles and cans.
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Wow. I would say 90 - 95% of our recycling volume is corrugated cardboard... from Amazon. I got three boxes from Amazon today, which is a light day.
 
Ashful said:
Wow. I would say 90 - 95% of our recycling volume is corrugated cardboard... from Amazon. I got three boxes from Amazon today, which is a light day.
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I have quite a stack of boxes as we moved into our house with mostly just clothes and a limited amount of cookware. It's nice to finally be able to accumulate appliances and tools, and I'm definitely glad I've been saving money for the last decade.
 
Doug MacIVER said:
Think we are gonna see more and more info on this, rehashes a lot original article.As previously mentioned here,I wonder why retired coal plants weren't recycled?
https://www.wcvb.com/article/end-of-recycling-some-cities-are-dumping-community-recycling-efforts-as-costs-rise/26744923?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5c8230763ed3f00001b2857d&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1-9ZZinHuUon_as4IFvC2UjiJWPAVcYF4Jqx2WDvGr4vsK158HLetPdus
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If you mean recycling a coal power plant into incinerator it could be done but it would require a significant investment and the plants usually are frequently not located close to population centers. The entire bottom of the boiler would need to be cut off as incinerators use "step" grates while coal plants can use a variety of grate designs. The trash comes in wet and before it will burn cleanly it has be dried and then gasified. The water walls should be able to be salvaged and the generating section is probably worth saving but the superheater pendants probably will need change out. The economizer and air preheaters should be good but the entire tail end emissions equipment needs change out as the flue gases from trash are more aggressive than coal. The steam side and balance of plant should be fine. The entire fuel feed system needs to be enclosed and upgraded. I think Covanta bought the rights to one of the major European technologies that they use for their plants and they start from scratch.

Harrisburg PA bet their city budget on big incinerator at some point the results were not good https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/us/21harrisburg.html

Even with the right boiler burning trash is not easy. Various components of the wastes will gasify and then plate out on the tubes forming massive clinkers. The clinkers also insulate the heat transfer area and screw up boiler operation. I knew someone who used to run and maintain an incinerator and they had to resort to explosive blasting to get the clinkers off on routine basis..Think of them as waste concentration facilities that generate a bit of power to offset costs more than a power plant. Trash is starting to become a "crisis" again like it does every 15 or 20 years and once the price to get rid of it gets high enough, the next batch of incinerators will get built.
 
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peakbagger said:
If you mean recycling a coal power plant into incinerator it could be done but it would require a significant investment and the plants usually are frequently not located close to population centers. The entire bottom of the boiler would need to be cut off as incinerators use "step" grates while coal plants can use a variety of grate designs. The trash comes in wet and before it will burn cleanly it has be dried and then gasified. The water walls should be able to be salvaged and the generating section is probably worth saving but the superheater pendants probably will need change out. The economizer and air preheaters should be good but the entire tail end emissions equipment needs change out as the flue gases from trash are more aggressive than coal. The steam side and balance of plant should be fine. The entire fuel feed system needs to be enclosed and upgraded. I think Covanta bought the rights to one of the major European technologies that they use for their plants and they start from scratch.

Harrisburg PA bet their city budget on big incinerator at some point the results were not good https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/us/21harrisburg.html

Even with the right boiler burning trash is not easy. Various components of the wastes will gasify and then plate out on the tubes forming massive clinkers. The clinkers also insulate the heat transfer area and screw up boiler operation. I knew someone who used to run and maintain an incinerator and they had to resort to explosive blasting to get the clinkers off on routine basis..Think of them as waste concentration facilities that generate a bit of power to offset costs more than a power plant. Trash is starting to become a "crisis" again like it does every 15 or 20 years and once the price to get rid of it gets high enough, the next batch of incinerators will get built.
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As usual peak you know the business. Locations of closed coal plants down here though
are close to pop. ctrs. Holyoke, Salem, and Brayton Pt. Clean up may also add to recycle costs. Let's put in NIMBY. I look at our very small packaging business, the waste we create is significant let alone the end user.
Chrunch time is just around the corner.
 
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Thought of you guys this morning. This all goes in recycling, but here we have the packaging for two wipers. 20 years ago, I could have bought two rubber blade replacements out of a bulk tube at an auto parts counter. Today, we throw away a pair of perfectly good wiper frames each spring, along with all of this packaging. One small example.

2ddef57a258d13e0c3222c9e0f862e1e.jpg
 
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Ashful said:
It will be interesting to see how this works in a “free market” system. Anyone with kids my age has griped about the ridiculous packaging that surrounds every toy. Heck, I am near the point of having a construction dumpster delivered to my house for Christmas, every damn Barbie doll comes packaged with enough plastic ties and cardboard to fill a regular trash can. Don’t even get me started on the thermoformed packaging that has us almost cutting off our fingers to open.

If people have to start paying by volume to have that stuff hauled away, at what point does it start affecting product purchase decisions? We all hate the packaging, but as long as hauling it away remains free, few are allowing it to factor into their purchasing decision.
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Ashful said:
Don’t even get me started on the thermoformed packaging that has us almost cutting off our fingers to open.
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found the answer for this?
Image-111.jpg
 
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Yeah, but how do you open the package that tool came in? [emoji14]
 
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Combined packaging is one of the worst offenders. You see this all the time with printed materials glued in a plastic sandwich.
 
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We have had a waste to energy incinerator nearby since 1989.
It only reduces trash volume by 90%, 75% by weight. The remaining 10% is toxic ash which has to be stored someplace and not leach into groundwater.
The same problem coal and nuclear generators have .
It's no miracle cure for trash.
AS rosy a picture proponents and investors may otherwise paint.
 
Ashful said:
Thought of you guys this morning. This all goes in recycling, but here we have the packaging for two wipers. 20 years ago, I could have bought two rubber blade replacements out of a bulk tube at an auto parts counter. Today, we throw away a pair of perfectly good wiper frames each spring, along with all of this packaging. One small example.

View attachment 242128
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I'm fairly young and replaceable blades haven't been at parts stores since I started paying attention to stuff like that as a teenager. I remember being 19 and amazed that such a thing was still possible in 2010. My friend's mom was replacing the blades, not the whole frame, and I had never seen that previous, or since. My MIL let her blades go so long they were down to metal in spots because new frames/blades are so expensive and she has a modest income. Packaging is outrageous as is planned obsolescence. I wonder how many light bulbs are kicking around in dumps. Think of all of the washers and dryers from Lowe's and home depot that die after a few years, that's a lot of waste. This place disgusts me sometimes, but it's still better than most places I fear.
 
Our Chicago suburb started composting last spring. They just have us add it to existing yard waste cans. which are picked up 9 months/year. Over the winter, you could choose to pay $70 or so for an every 2 weeks pick up, which involved a big capped bucket that we kept on the front porch, which the company swapped out on pick-up day. Our winters are cold enough that the stuff isn't rancid after 2 weeks.

Once you recycle and compost, the remaining 'trash' is ridiculous, basically a bunch of plastic bags in a plastic bag. It inevitably gets you thinking about why it's there and how pointless most of it is. I've decided to buy reusable produce bags, which significantly cut into our remaining waste.:
https://www.thekitchn.com/ditch-the-plastic-10-reusable-produce-bags-174099

I think the big issue for American recycling is that it's poorly sorted and therefore low quality. I've started to wonder how to improve our local recycling stream short of ditching the big blue can.

At my business, (canoe rental) we've continued to sell pop in cans rather than plastic bottles, for the recyclability factor.

One peeve, a small issue, but why does almost every envelope I receive come with a plastic window? Mail that is sent with an opening rather than a plastic cover still gets delivered intact. What magic trick are they worried about that they have to seal the contents? Those little windows alone create a processing issue for paper recyclers.
 
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The depressing part is that these plastic precursors can be made out of extractives from biomass.
 
peakbagger said:
The depressing part is that these plastic precursors can be made out of extractives from biomass.
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That is even worse. This forum has shown me a lot of ways one can reduce their fossils fuel and carbon footprints using biomass and/or wood. I never expected to find out so much environmental information from a wood burning forum!
 
A lot of the technology for doing it was developed at the pulp mill in Old Town Mane by UMaine graduate students. Now that its being reopened they may get going on it again.
 
peakbagger said:
The depressing part is that these plastic precursors can be made out of extractives from biomass.
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There is progress on that part and some success stories. And the raw chemicals can also be made from existing plastics with some of the latest lab research.
 
There was a group called the Fractionation Research Council that was advocating a major statewide project in Maine to put in satellite processing plants for low grade wood which would be located at existing biomass power plants. They would partially process the wood to extract the valuable fractions, burn what is left to drive the process and then ship it by tank car to what was effectively a refinery. It was a bold plan but it only makes sense when there is value to displacing fossil carbon. FRC went away but an offshoot even built a small trial plant in Gorham Maine and then one of the owners of the Old Town mill bought that group. They then came up with a method to isolate high value products from the black liquor cycle of the pulp mill. Pretty slick concept that would bring a lot of jobs back to the region. Sadly cheap oil had doomed it.
 
I started reading about these precursors and ethanol production from biomass. So far it's mostly above my head since I'm not a chemist. However, I do like race cars, and ehtanol is an awesome race car fuel, especially with forced induction. The fuel economy is not as great, but ethanol is great for preventing detonation and making huge power with increased cylinder pressures, even when naturally aspirated.
 
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