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Re: Brashears on Hanson



In article <Pine.PMDF.3.91.961212202651.874591B-100000@OBERLIN.EDU>,
   Toby Reiter <str4552@OBERLIN.EDU> wrote:
>
>
>On 12 Dec 1996, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>> >>If it were true that we threw away useable material in any large
>> >>quantity, then it would certainly follow that were were wasteful.
>> >>What useable material do you see being thrown away where?
>> >
>> >Have you ever SEEN a landfill?
>> 
>> Yes.  When I was a kid you used to see old car bodies at the dump:
>> stripped of every ounce of copper and lead, the tires, the dials, and
>> everything of any use at all, but the rusted out bodies would still be
>> here and there.  Now you can't even find a $50 car body at the dump:
>> they go straight to the shredder.
>>  
>> The last time I walked over an _open_ landfill, i.e. one that had not
>> yet been filled, was a few years before that, outside Tokyo.  I didn't
>> see anything that could have been sold for a yen -- though the great
>> separation plants to pull out the burnables for district heating had
>> not yet been built.
>
>You don't seem to know your statistics too well. About half of most 
>landfills is recyclable or compostable paper and paper products. Another 
>20% glass, plastic, and metals, about 25% food and yard waste, and then 
>about 5% toxic substances. In other words, about 95% of the material that 
>goes into a landfill is recyclable. Any plastics or toxins that cannot be 
>recycled probably shouldn't have been created in the first place.
>
>Toby Reiter (the Green Avenger)

That 95% *is* being recycled.  It's just taking somewhat longer to get the 
constituents from this stuff back into the environment.

A lot of comments point to the fact that people seem to forget that matter 
is conserved.


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