Infographic: How a landfill works
Maybe you've heard it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. Here are some other facts you may not know.
Comments
Do we use the methane?
Why don't they make compostable plastic bags? Because obviously plastic is not compostable. If it was, it wouldn't take 1000 years to decay. Not to mention, you don't want the chemicals that make up plastic in your soil.
plastic bags don't cost retailers money any more in canada. they charge us 5 cents per bag, this would actually produce PROFIT for retailers. thus, this isn't a tactic to reduce plastic bag usage, but instead is a tactic to stick us with the bill for these bags.
why can't they produce compostable plastic bags instead?
i think the point would be to motivate consumers to bring and use their own re-usable cloth bags. often, people will not change their behavior until there is financial incentive/penalty.
"In fact, in Ontario alone, Metro says its distribution rate has fallen between 70 and 80 per cent, while Sobeys has dropped 72 per cent.
For its part, Loblaws had already begun to charge five cents for bags in Toronto in January 2009 and in the rest of the country in April 2009. It reports that its national plastic bag distribution dropped 55 per cent in 2009 and that it diverted 1.3 billion plastic bags from landfill sites in 2009."
-CBC
So, profit or not, the tactic appears to be.... More
Landfills are a wasteful antiquidated 'technology' dating back as far as the ancient Egyptians. These things should be torn apart, treated/cleaned/sterilized, sorted, recycled, and the rest of the waste thats not recyclable (minimal at best.... most/all of it should be in one form or another) and the rest gasified via traditional means of pyrolysis and plasma arc gasification for what doesn't break down that way. The Germans recycle 90%+ of their waste (with plans on the board for 98%+).... More
It is the growth of the human population that makes waste disposal such a horrendous problem. To solve it, two things must be done as soon as possible: 1. Safely recycle 100% of all garbage, sludge, junk, smoke and fumes. 2. Peacefully reduce the human population with family planning education.
Take a look at this!
