"Cooch Behar, India, August 2022. The decomposition of waste in city landfills causes air pollution and creates a high risk of producing methane under high temperature, which can lead to fire. To avoid these unwanted environmental hazards, the Municipal Corporation of Cooch Behar installed Trommel machines to bio mine the solid waste. The machine removes plastics, sand and metals from the garbage, which is then recycled and used for tarring, construction, and other waste is converted into organic manure."
Credit: Sujan Sarkar, from the Environmental Photographer of the Year competition, via The Guardian (more entries at the link).
I do not recall who said it first, but it was predicted that the "mines" of the future will seek out the waste dumps of the 20th Century for all the wonderful concentrations of "stuff" that we are leaving behind. Metal, plastics, biowaste, all kinds of stuff.
ReplyDeleteUsing a lot of energy to separate stuff that should never have been combined or, in many cases, produced/consumed in the first place. The only thing that makes the energy use negligible is the scale of such an operation (micro), which also speaks to the question of impact on the “problem.” A more positive thinker might say, well better to do something small than nothing at all. To which I might reply, yes, as long as that small thing is not a distraction from the big thing.
ReplyDeleteWorth a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhIaEEW63Sc
ReplyDelete