{"id":64265,"date":"2022-11-29T07:06:15","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T12:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64265"},"modified":"2022-11-29T07:06:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T12:06:15","slug":"the-laws-of-thermodynamics-will-not-bend-for-landfills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64265","title":{"rendered":"The Laws of Thermodynamics Will Not Bend for Landfills"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"article__header\">\n<h3 class=\"article__hed\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/technology\/2022\/11\/landfills-recycling-energy-thermodynamics.html?mibextid=Zxz2cZ\">The Laws of Thermodynamics Will Not Bend for Landfills<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article__top-image\">\n<figure class=\"image image--top\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/image\/instances\/clamozqz3000fwcm2u0fmml6g@published\" data-editable=\"imageInfo\">\n<div class=\"lazyload-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyloaded\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 1440px)970px,\n(min-width: 1024px)709px,\n(min-width: 768px)620px,\ncalc(100vw - 30px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=320 320w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=480 480w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=600 600w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=840 840w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=960 960w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280 1280w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1440 1440w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1600 1600w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1920 1920w,\nhttps:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/e3e2d8e0-6f3c-4e55-a749-970f27c8127d.jpeg?crop=3840%2C2560%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=2200 2200w\" alt=\"An illustration of a rainbow-colored landfill. In the background is a figure in an orange hazmat suit.\" width=\"3840\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/div><figcaption class=\"image__meta\"><span class=\"image__credit\">Illustration by Rey Velasquez Sagcal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__share-sidebar share-sidebar\">\n<div class=\"social-share\" aria-label=\"social media links\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/social-share\/instances\/clamozqz3000dwcm2kt08nkw7@published\"><em>An expert on waste management responds to <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/technology\/2022\/11\/universal-waste-by-palmer-holton.html\"><em>Palmer Holton\u2019s \u201cUniversal Waste.\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<section class=\"article__body\">\n<div class=\"article__content\">\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"28\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/clamp0j0n000n3b6tqwtlam22@published\">You handle waste every day. Tissues. Bottles and cans. Kitchen scraps, maybe yard trimmings. And plastics.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnycstudios.org\/podcasts\/takeaway\/segments\/plastic-recycling-dumpster-fire\">So many plastics<\/a>. The wet, the dry, the smelly, and the disgusting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"102\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/clamp0j1e000o3b6tl70nc9hz@published\">But the stuff you personally put in this or that bin is the tiniest part of all the waste that arises in the United States and other countries whose economies are premised on mass consumption. Although\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/discardstudies.com\/2016\/03\/02\/municipal-versus-industrial-waste-a-3-97-ratio-or-something-else-entirely\/\">numbers are tricky<\/a>\u00a0here, something like 97 percent of all waste arising in the United States happens before you\u2014as citizen and consumer\u2014buy, use, and toss the things you need and want for your daily life. If you live in a typical American city,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/discardstudies.com\/2019\/02\/11\/12755\/\">all the garbage and recycling<\/a>\u00a0you see getting\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/book-reviews\/robin-nagle\/picking-up\/\">picked up<\/a>\u00a0at the curb is just that remaining 3 percent of overall waste arising.<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"87\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/clamp0j20000p3b6tu8s0wg7y@published\">In Palmer Holton\u2019s story, a fictional company called Universal Waste promises to solve all this. Universal Waste\u2019s marketeers claim the company will bring wealth and prosperity to Claremont, Kansas, by turning the local landfill into its opposite, a mine. The company wants to extract precious metals scattered in the landfill from generations of consumer discards interred in its bowels. But as much as the citizens of Claremont hope that renewed economic development can be reanimated from the landfill-now-mine,\u00a0it turns out to be too good to be true.<\/p>\n<p data-word-count=\"87\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/clamp0j20000p3b6tu8s0wg7y@published\">So are the promises of Universal Waste\u2019s real-world analogs. Today, companies promise that waste can, almost like magic, be converted back into treasure\u2014methane from landfills turned into energy that reduces the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wastedive.com\/news\/bp-archaea-rng-acquisition-landfill-gas\/634224\/\">average carbon intensity<\/a>\u201d (but not total carbon) of major oil and gas firms; \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/resource-recycling.com\/plastics\/2022\/10\/11\/exxonmobil-explains-its-plans-to-scale-up-chemical-recycling\/\">500 kilotons<\/a>\u201d of plastics recycled back in to their chemicals. (That\u2019s not even\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/topics\/7460\/plastics-industry-in-the-us\/#topicOverview\">1 percent of annual new plastics production in the U.S<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Laws of Thermodynamics Will Not Bend for Landfills Illustration by Rey Velasquez Sagcal An expert on waste management responds to Palmer Holton\u2019s \u201cUniversal Waste.\u201d You handle waste every day. Tissues. Bottles and cans. Kitchen scraps, maybe yard trimmings. And plastics.\u00a0So many plastics. The wet, the dry, the smelly, and the disgusting. But the stuff [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[128,33430,33431,671,16214],"class_list":["post-64265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-chemicals","tag-josh-lepawsky","tag-landfills","tag-recycling","tag-slate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64266,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64265\/revisions\/64266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}