Article

2018-05-02 Down Under

'Waste to energy' incinerators to be discussed at emergency meeting of environment ministers after Chinese law change sends Australia into a garbage crisis

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Posted by Skidmark 2018-05-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 I feel for Aussies, really I do.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2018-05-02 03:42|| 2018-05-02 03:42|| Front Page Top

#2 Waaay back when I was working for Rust Engineering we did some of these in White Plains, New York. One was proposed for San Francisco. which netted me a trip there, but the project was never done.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2018-05-02 10:01|| 2018-05-02 10:01|| Front Page Top

#3 They built one outside Greensburg, PA, where I used to live. It never payed for itself, has since been shut down and the taxpayers are still paying off the bonds. I moved to Florida.

Posted by M. Murcek 2018-05-02 11:12|| 2018-05-02 11:12|| Front Page Top

#4 They subsidize the market until all the local competitors go out of business, and then they find religion in environmentalism.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2018-05-02 11:13|| 2018-05-02 11:13|| Front Page Top

#5 It sounded like a good thing at the time.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2018-05-02 15:59|| 2018-05-02 15:59|| Front Page Top

#6 The waste disposal is often more important and the total costs need to be considered.
I worked at a dairy plant (fluid milk, sour cream & dips) that had a lot of packaging waste (cardboard boxes, mostly). IIRC, the waste disposal would charge the company $8/lb to haul it off to a landfill.
A few employees had a private deal where they would sort through cardboard boxes every night. Usable boxes would go to a local company that would resell them for reuse and the rest was going to pulp recycle. People quit/retired and it started to become a hassle for everyone.
The company bought some hydraulic compactor balers. Bales would be accumulated in a storage trailer and shipped off to a pulp mill when the trailer filled up. The recycling company paid enough to cover the shipping costs. Net gain to the company over landfill fees.
TL/DR: just getting rid of the burnable waste locally might be all the incentive you need.

Posted by magpie 2018-05-02 16:18|| 2018-05-02 16:18|| Front Page Top

#7 For some reason I got the idea that the west is so green because they ship the garbage and plastics and such over to China and that is why they were exempt from the various treaties despite their carbon output and the fact we share the same world.

Posted by rjschwarz 2018-05-02 17:24|| 2018-05-02 17:24|| Front Page Top

#8 Labor costs of processing the waste seems to be prohibitive in the developed West. Additionally the reprocessed material seems to lack a market. For example, what would it take to have a plastic certified "food contact safe" if the recycle stream contained plastic containers that had contained petroleum products, poisons, or pesticides? There is only so much of a market turning recyclable plastic into bins to collect recyclable plastic...

Posted by magpie 2018-05-02 17:39|| 2018-05-02 17:39|| Front Page Top

#9 I just finished the chapter in Raspail's 'The Camp of Saints' where the flotilla used waste to cook rice. I'll spare you the processing details.

Posted by Besoeker 2018-05-02 17:44|| 2018-05-02 17:44|| Front Page Top

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