Why don’t we just burn our trash?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ค. 2024
- Waste to energy plants are seen as green innovations for countries where landfills dominate, as they reduce methane and generate renewable energy. But will these incinerators really make our trash problems go up in flames?
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
#PlanetA #WasteToEnergy #Incineration
Read More (Links):
Open burning: theconversation.com/health-cr...
Waste around the world: datatopics.worldbank.org/what...
Waste to energy as a solution (IEA): www.iea.org/articles/will-ene...
Waste to energy as a solution (Project Drawdown): drawdown.org/solutions/waste-...
Waste management in India (Pritpal Randhawa): www.frontiersin.org/articles/...
Environmental impacts of waste to energy: www.eunomia.co.uk/reports-too...
Waste to energy in Europe: e360.yale.edu/features/in-eur...
0:00 Intro
0:39 Why we need better waste management
2:00 Waste to energy
6:04 The Waste Hierarchy
6:51 A waste solution for the Global South?
6:47 Decentralization & Diversification
9:34 When incineration makes sense
Reporter: Amanda Coulson-Drasner
Video editor: Amanda Coulson-Drasner, Cem Springer
Supervising editor: Kiyo Dörrer
![Recrystallization Technique CHEM 51LC [2024] [EVIL] [GHOSTS?] [NEW METHOD] [2X SOLVENT CANIAC COMBO]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RY3fDvYzTBU/mqdefault.jpg)
What do you think about burning trash, how do you handle waste in your country?
hey,
trash is just buried where I live
How about we bring our per capita waste to the third world level.
We have no landfills in Switzerland anymore. So everything not recicled is incinerated
What a stupid idea!!! Dioxin is created by burning plastic trash...MORONS
40 years ago Malmo Sweden built a waste to energy plant that recovers 25% of by growing green algae for food & diatoms single cell silica shelled organisms for ultra light & strong wall board if the exhaust air was cycled through a greenhouse another 25 to 50% of the CO2 could be recovered.
Remember, there's a reason Reduce and Reuse come before Recycle
Shhhh that's anti growth and anti consumer....you don't want to keep people from buying and consuming as much as they want at the expense of everything around them do you??
Remember people have to want to help them selfs before they should get help. What I see here is a bunch of ignorant lazy people happy to live in there filth. Why don't they compost food waste? The fact that they can't even do that, proves My point.
👍👍👍
Blessings from Taiwan 🇹🇼😇🧧🥰💖
Nah a new iPhone comes out every year
Reduce
Reuse
*E* *c* *y* *c* *e*
Letting things rot in a landfill generates huge amounts of methane, as you said. What you failed to mention is that methane is a lot more climate-active than CO2, so burning the waste before methane can be produced, even if the incineration produces CO2, is a much better option. also, this CO2 could be captured, as is done in other industries. Sure, that's expensive, but it's possible so we should redoing it.
Co2 also can be split making it even better
Why not do both? Why compact the trash in a big underground trash compactor and let it sit for a while until you collect enough of methane to burn the trash.
Some land fill sites seal the waste in and bury collection pipes as waste is added. These are then used to collect the methane which is then burned to generate electricity to use on site and feed into the grid.
Agreed but burning plastic can cause cancer.
It's possible to turn plastic to diesel by Thermalysis. Would be nice to get plastic be collected like metal and recycle it, make it diesel and burn the diesel in engines to get the CO2 rather than straight burning it to get the CO2.
Hey, person from Denmark here. At video's end, they said "incineration creates a disincentive to find better ways to deal with waste". On the surface that sounds right, but in Denmark, we are actually now recycling such a large part of our waste that we have to import waste from other countries (such as the country where DW is based) to get enough to feed our incinerators. So you could make the argument that we're now helping Germany deal with their waste problem. You're welcome, Germany.
I agree that incineration is not 'green' or 'carbon neutral', but since the energy within the waste is turned into new heat and electrical energy, it is by definition 'renewable' energy and it reduces the amount of coal, gas or oil we would otherwise have to burn.
For the moment, you can say it is renewable because there are only a few number of incineration facilities that convert the heat generated to electricity. But as more countries build similar facilities or recycle their waste more efficiently, there will be less waste to burn while energy demand keeps increasing over time (as it has been statistically). When this happens, you will end up burning things that are not meant to be waste just to meet the energy demand and keep the facilities running (hence you are locked in the system to keep feeding it to make it running 9:48). So at the end of the day what is the difference from burning coal for electricity?
Hopefully from this argument, you can see the bigger picture of why this method is not renewable even though on the micro scale it appears renewable.
@@freezepaladin Yes, waste is an energy resource just like coal or oil. Once the price of waste goes up due to scarcity, we'll have to cut down on its use. Until then, the 'green' calculation turns out better for incineration than for landfills.
@@pjacobsen1000 That is the same as saying it's not a solution but a mere diversion from the actual problem. Sounds to me like what a politician would do.
@@freezepaladin Ok, so what do you think we should do with all our trash?
@@pjacobsen1000 One possible solution is to use organisms such as bacteria or fungi to break them up into less complex compounds that can be returned back to the environment. This usually produces less harmful byproducts.
But the most important thing above all is to change the way we live to reduce waste and be more sustainable including limiting or regulating the use of plastic products to only certain things that are meant to be used for a long time.
If I may be a tad bit critical... when it comes to "reusing", what pops to my mind is 'Pfandflashe', a.k.a. standardized bottles that are collected on a deposit system, washed, and reused by the industries that need them (e.g. beer here in Austria). This is a WAY more realistic concept than building some fever dream art project house out of old plastic bottles. Of course I'm not trying to diss that, but a more realistic portrayal might be more convincing to, say, places like the US, which by and large don't have these kind of bottle reuse systems in place.
We just made a video about that as well, have a look ;)
th-cam.com/video/YQ2GOtpYiqk/w-d-xo.html
Totally agree with you. The concept that we are somehow able to re-use billions and billions of plastic bottles to build art projects, houses (bottles filled with soil), or even some fishing boat is a major distraction from the need to get rid of plastic bottles altogether and I am not sure why they decided it was a good idea to include this in the upsidedown pyramid (why it's upside down anyway?).
Standardizing bottles is a good idea except for the fact that plastic bottles can only really be recycled once or twice at the most, better we do not allow these plastic bottles in the first place.
In Finland we have bottle return machines in all shops. By returning small cans and bottles you receive 0.20€ and large bottles 0,40€. No one throws these in the trash. It's a great idea in my opinion after moving from South Africa where no one cares except for the rich.
@@J4M3Z.T That's a positive move to ensure plastic bottles get recycled but a plastic bottle does not get recycled into another plastic bottle, the quality of the plastic after each recycle drops dramatically and after one or two cycles your recycle is over, the plastic is in it's final form, permanent trash.
@@evenskial1063 but it's aluminium cans and glass bottles also. Not only plastic. I'd rather recycle plastic than do nothing at all. Finland is one of the most, if not the most environmentally responsible county in the world. We must be doing something correct I guess.
Lately, and in part because of these videos, I've been researching more and more on zero waste and plastic free living. Best way to deal with waste is to not produce it. Huge endeavor has been re-gearing my diet to eat more foods that are bought in bulk, with compostable packaging, or without packaging.
Smart!
@Zwei Stern You're so right! I don't have any zero waste stores near me, but I did actually fill out enough reviews and emailed the store once, and they put in a bulk foods section. Now I'm trying to get them to have things like rice, beans, and pasta there as well, rather than just nuts and candy. But a large part of our diet is sweet potatoes, fruit, and homemade goods. Still not perfect, but working on it!
Without packaging. So you haul a shirt load of apples to your car when shopping in bulk? Yeah, I know you said "with compostable packaging" but, my friend was a Japanese guy raised up in Lodi, CA. He made wood apple crates for .05 cents per box (until he was sent of to an Arizona Concentration Camp during WWll. I have no idea what it would take to train robots to replace humans to make wood apple crates, but you would still need to spend a lot of money on the machines such as mining, processing, building, transporting and then power to operate those machines. and that takes hard fuels, not piece of crap solar energy. And...by the way, we still need carbon dioxide so those trees can grow so we can cut them down and make the fucking boxes...and that takes a lot of energy. Stop dreaming of hobbits and dug out homes to live in, they get moldy without a lot of energy to heat them and keep the water out of them when the water table rises. etc.
@@markh4926 , rather than a crate or the plastic bags, I use a fabric mesh bag for my produce. I do hope one day our fiber/textile agriculture will be based around perennial crops rather than annuals, but that's another story. The primary foods I'm able to get without packaging (aka I reuse packaging I bring from my house), are from the produce section. As for meat I use hunted deer, and many vegetables and greens I harvest from around my property where I grow a wide array of perennials.
We need not live in hobbit holes, but natural construction methods such as cob hold great promise for healthy homes. I wish you the best as we figure out our collective future 🌳🌎
Yes! Companies need to STOP MAKING UNSUSTAINABLE PLASTIC AND EXCESS PLASTIC PACKAGING! THE PANDEMIC HAS JUST MADE THINGS WORSE.
Its a real shame most of the world turns a blind eye to these serious issues :(
So what do you suggest ? Can you share the situation?
Nope. 3rd world country really care about environment. Only 1st world country dont care. Bet me all organisation at 1st world country are scam. What? Recycle? Easy, Just send to 3rd world country and blame them. You dont see news 3rd world country expose 1st world Garbage send here?.
Ah but it is not a serious issue.
@@sangkhirwan9185 What??? I have watched entire towns in 3rd world countries walk out to the dock every morning and toss their trash into the ocean on the outgoing tide
They don't bother helping them selfs and make zero effort to deal with there waste. Why don't they compost food waste? Or at least berry it? Why because they can't be bothered.
Here in the US they make us think we are doing our part every week with the blue bins they give us for recycling.... when in reality so much of it is just going to a land fill or some other country to deal with it...On a side note when I was a kid we had a guy deliver milk to the house in glass bottles....The milk people collected them...cleaned them...and reused them
We, here in the US, have truly become a buy and throw away society. I like you remember those days we collected bottles and returned them to the store for our nickels and dimes, and they were washed and reused…what happened? Plastics and cheaper to make a new one? At what long term cost?
@@JeffHarrison1960 In Canada we do that.
@@JeffHarrison1960 the plastics industry has a very strong lobby. if and when we get rid of money in politics, we can solve many of our society’s problems. right now, it’s so cheap to buy politicians.
Because WE are never learn IT in school its Just about consume
Maybe the US government is taking your trash to other countries to incinerate. If the other country is using incineration to generate electricity then it is a win for everyone.
6:37 This should be done from the beginning: product design. But instead of designing lasting products, corporations opt for "planned obsolescence", so that the consumers will have to buy their products again and again.
Sadly it will never happen because large corporations could not care less about the environment and the governments are in their back pocket. This planet could be so ruined that you couldn't breathe the air or walk on the soil and companies would be marking up gas masks and rubber boots, counting their money from their private space station resort.
@FalconFlurry
So true. More people need to feel responsible and create demand for ethical products. there are more and more zero waste shops, we should leave our money there and eventually the big supermarkets will follow.
It is necessary for the enconomy
But, but what about the jobs and the economy if we don't have to constantly buy stuff? 🙄
As a solid waste worker, I can vouch that a lot of recyclable material gets thrown away and never will get recovered
That is absolutely true. Also coupling the fact that recycling certain materials over and over again tend to make certain materials loose their molecular structural integrity from them being in absolute virgin to recycling multiple lifespans over and over again.
Recycling has been a huge failure for the most part. Breaking down waste is the only viable option imo.
Down-cycle
@@DBADruid that's fine as well. I think people are over estimating how productive waste can be outside of producing power with it. The carbon is a problem but it's better than a landfill.
there was this kid that won a google science award for hybridizing an organism that could break down plastic by breeding one that broke down plastic quickest with another that was most efficient and its was cool enough for google to give him an award...but y eh...kids, man...
6:10 I've been working as a volunteer teacher in some rural areas in southern China, beautiful mountainous places with forests and rivers, but the locals throw all sorts of waste in a dump, which is separated from the crop field by a short (useless) wall. When the dump is full, they BURN the waste, and in the following days, the air is UNBREATHABLE, any outdoor activity could be harmful to children.
This is the sad truth for much of the world. While people talk about high tech incineration, throughout the world and even in the USA very toxic "backyard burning" is still a common practice.
@@MrTom-kl7hy the comment section statements, much like the video,can pretty accurately be labeled "sad" there is very little relation , however , to truth in either.
You can report it to the local police because that's illegal.
@@sunhannah2937 lol. A few years ago, my neighbor burned a trash pile ( old furniture etc.) that sent flames 20 feet in the air. It was 20 ft from my wood fence and about 35 from my house.
A deputy was there when he lit it. The man was told to keep a hose handy.
We are in a neighborhood inside the city limits and yes, there is a burn ordinance.
Worst of all ,Greta Thunberg thinks its okey ,because China and India are underdeveloped coutries! 🤔🥱
The volume of waste would be much less if producers of the goods were not using planned obsolescence to maximize profits and instead were making everything to last as long as possible. Resources would also not be wasted and the customers would not be ripped off. Businesses do need to make enough money to be profitable and pay all their expenses but I think they could afford to compete with each other to make what the customers want including long lasting products.
Good points. We as consumers must make this happen by purchasing products that fit what you describe.
But but you can't generate economy with that mentality.
There is also the point that consumers wants cheap products, you can't keep a business running by selling cheap products with high quality
Also there are certain products such as car tires which have a limited life span due to break down of the chemical structure. Incineration which generates electricity seems optimal in this circumstance. Especially if the incinerator has a built in CO2 capture method. Heat generation is also an issue with Incineration. Hence global warming.
We need more channels like these. Algorithm gods, listening?
Check out the future cannabis project.
Or DR.ELAINE INGHAM
@@williemasterofdestruction5339 seems interesting
@@williemasterofdestruction5339 got any more ?
Organic waste such as food makes up the largest percent of waste in most countries. Waste management tends to focus on things like recycling, trash hauling, incinerators, etc. but the best thing they could do to reduce landfill waste and emissions is to focus on commercial compost facilities, which almost nobody does.
Agreed, composting needs to be the law.
Can't you just bale the organic waste with earthworms in them, then break up the bales to remove the compost and additional worms?
Agree 100. Why do we not capture methane gas from organic matter decomposition? Methane could potentially replace Natural Gas.
Imagine my shock as a child growing up in Singapore, hearing about landfills. I had thought the whole world incinerates their rubbish…
I'm more in shock, as a child growing up in Singapore and living my adult life in Indonesia... the waste management system here is really depressing...
@@sandirr9955 ikr 😒
I'm from Finland and currently shocked that usa uses mostly landfills still in the year 2022...
I swear this channel is like a modern day Captain Planet. Had we not learned already from those TV shows. Good videos guys.
All packaging should be either compostable/biodegradable, or recyclable at level (e.g. glass or aluminium, not plastic which usually loses something in the recycling). There might be a few niche uses where plastic can't be replaced but almost all food packaging could be made with paper and compostable plastics/plastic alternatives.
Producing biodegradable materials (like paper or cloth bags) create A LOT more CO2 than plastics.
It's ironic but it was invented, plastic was made to save the nature.
@@apocsoviet3813 if you produce biodegradable plastic from plant material then you have close CO2 loop.
@@iIiWARHEADiIi I editted my previous comment to avoid confusion.
I was so happy the first time I heard about compoatable plastic.
But then, I learned that we need space to grow the materials.
If we want to make plastics from corn, we need half the world's corn production to supply the world's bioplastics.
If you don't want people to starve, you need to open up new farms.
Most often, buy cutting down trees and their ecosystems.
Full grown trees are a lot better in decreasing CO2 compared to growing and harvesting corns.
Is there a solution to this?
I'm afraid it will be the same as solar farm. They said it's a "green energy" but they cut down forrests to open up solar farms
@@apocsoviet3813 good to see logically thinking people.
For plastic i still may be would go, but to grow corn for bio diesel the worthest possible idea. For fuel it would be ecactly what have you said
@@iIiWARHEADiIi Some companies are using waste plant materials to make their plastic. I think that's the best option for now.
But I have no idea about the price. If they cost more than petrol plastics, I'm afraid capitalism would prevent them from growing.
And be careful when telling someone to use biodegradable plastics.
They're not as "green" as compostable.
It's outrageous that we contaminate the landscape and render it unusable indefinitely by using landfills instead of incineration.
Reduction of waste is key before either of these.
Incineration is no good than landfill. Ultimately the waste is going into the environment+ diseases even Cancer+ more space for making more waste!
Watch the video again.
Best way is to stop using non-renewable goods/ plastic/ fossil fuels.
In Taiwan, the food waste from households goes to specific bins in the trash truck sent to pig farms as a feeder.
Seems dangerous tbh, especially if those pigs are being sold to the public...
This is disturbing to me...what if those waste was contaminated with different chemicals or viruses bacteria and those pigs sold to the market ?? Remember pigs is one of the animals that become host to viruses and parasites .. It may lead to diseases ..animals to humans
@@kuchikopi4631 @AL Chillin B1530 The food is then processed and inspected before being transformed to the pig forage. The civic culture in Taiwan is also well aware of food dangers. This is an island and the people here are well aware of the dangers. I would invite you to come here and experience by yourselves the Taiwanese way of life and the civic order that exists here.
Have to give much credit it to you Taiwanese for this. The Civic order at your location is exemplary!
That's been banned for years in the UK - animal welfare laws.
I've tried to compost food scrap, reused plastic bags, and upcycled food packaging. Sadly, many people look at me like I am a weirdo
I strongly believe that every schools in world need to teach everyone about waste management. What can and cant be recycle, how to handle recyclable and non-recyclable.
We are a huge source of waste ourselves. Supermarkets have too much offer, too much products on the shelves which means waste of energy and production of (future) mostly non re-usable waste, plastic and other materials, because we want to choose, we want an infinite choice of products, we want yogurt with berries, banana yogurt, coffe yogurt, vanilla yogurt, barbecue chips, onion chips, "low-calories" chips, everytime with more production of plastic, which we obviously have NOT the technology to dispose off entirely. We should and must be used to not so full shelves, well at least half full.
Same goes with fish or meat, people must realize they can not eat meat 7 days of 7, 2 or 3 times a day. The whole idea is absurd,unsustainable and childish.
People, especially from western society got braiwashed by capitalistic propaganda mocking soviet russia markerts with almost empty shelves (due to the inefficiency itself of the plannified production), but the truth is that that was actually a more sustainable circular system, instead of this stupid infinite choice loop non-sense.
Our greed and selfish behaviour, and of course demand for profit, are the first problem, not the waste itself.
There may be a solution to overproduction but it's not simple to implement.
What if producers had to include the cost of disposal of their product in the sale price. That way a "cheap" toy, for example, , that's impossible to recycle, would end up costing more than an expensive one made in a more sustainable fashion. It would be a type of tax based on how environmentally damaging the products are.
If the environmental cost of the product was included in the sale price, it would modify the production processes and the consumer behaviour overnight.
@@melj501 You would have to actually force the producers to include all that kind of informations that are to say the least business disruptive. The lobbies would stop this in its track anyone trying to simply stress out the problem throwing at him a .s..h.i.t.storm. Also workers are involved, but I don't think that polluting the air, the environment and purchasing electricty at big cost (that means taxes) equals some jobs and giant profits for big corporations which anyway would shift their profits in some tax haven so no win at all for the very big majority.
The solution to supermarkets is already here, made to order grocery delivery services. There are robotic warehouses that already exist that act as a "grocery store" where robots can shop for humans and put together an order. This has huge advantages over in store shopping as customers are much less likely to buy things they don't need and there doesn't need to be so much excess which usually goes to waste. These warehouses would be able to use purchasing data to only purchase the required foodstuffs with a small buffer for variations in consumption.
The best part is that this isn't science fiction, this is already being done. Check out Tom Scotts video about it
@@melj501 yeah right. All of the mega corporations would go out of business over night 😂
@@runswithraptorsMaybe Government ! NEEDS !! To ! Go ! OUT !! Of !! BUSINESS !! TOO !!!
We should work more on the top of the pyramid and open up more shops that sell their goods without packaging. We had this a hundred years ago and it worked pretty well... and it will work today, we just have to change our habits. Burning waste is no long term solution and creates other problems. We need to stop causing the problems, not solving one with another.
I wouldn't put reduce, reuse and recycle in the "waste treatment" category. Those are waste reduction strategies and must be treated in separate frameworks. Present technology in waste to energy plants (incineration) is THE best scalable way to treat produced waste.
I agree.. there has something to be doe with the waste already around and also something to not increase the amount..
I think when some far superior beings from a galaxy far far away come to discover our past civilization they will conclude we choked on our own waste…
If we implement waste-to-energy i guess we can add carbon capture and sequester technology to the smoke stacks to reduce CO2.
Carbon capture requires the power plant to be built on natraul underground large porous rock formation.
Or we could make coca cola with it
@@WATCHINGTHEWATCHERS you are explaining an aspect of carbon sequestration, not carbon capture.
@@htopherollem649 No what I said is carbon capture.
It's not very similar situations. As of now burning waste is a money maker (making heat and electricity) while carbon capture is only a cost.
I think burning, in the United States, instead of more landfills, is an avenue to begin traveling on. We also need to consider the product at the beginning of its life. Is it recyclable, completely or partially, and require new products coming online to be a min 90% recyclable. It’s a process, but if we, worldwide can begin burning, and then waste management, and product creation management, we may have a chance.
Burning sounds like the best choice , it brakes down and destroyes all liquid toxic chemicals and hazardous waste instantly if its managed correctly, thats a savings of at least 90% of heavy pollutants on the ground. the waste in the form of toxic smoke from this fire is the 10% price we must pay. A serious brake through on how and where waste is to be burnt is the only positive future solutions to this problem that i can see. Landfills will never be fixed and will remain a constant environmental hazard for hundreds and thousands of years to come.
Agreed. One thing I would like to know is what is in the Fly Ash that makes it toxic. Theoretically they should "just" be smaller or lighter particles that could also be used for construction -- though maybe not as easily as the bottom ash. This would mean that probably closer to 99% of the waste could be reduced and reused.
@@johnendersby1619 chernobyl fire would be a prime example of remaining toxins on the ground and in the air, or an exost pipe from a car .
@@johnendersby1619 it’s not just because these are finer particles. Fly ash (really this is an incorrect name, it’s air pollution control (APC) residue, has fine particles which have passed through the boiler and been caught in the bag filter that’s correct. However, it is also correct that these are more likely to be fine heavy metals. On top of that, you have the dioxins and heavy metals caught by the activated carbon and you have the acid gases reacted with lime or sodium bicarbonate.
APCr from waste is unlikely to ever be reusable. Processes exist to use it to stabilise other waste products but none of it really makes A reusable product.
@@paulharrison2325 What a great answer to my question. I still think burning solid waste is a good option. It is far better than shipping it foreign countries that pretend to recycle it. At one time I worked in the waste industry and one of my friends caused a minor explosion in a factory(better described as a big mess) when a subcontractor decided to use fly ash is instead of sand to 'solidify' a sludge. This is a few years ago this sort to thing wouldn't be allowed now. Anyway I've always wondered what was in the fly ash that made it react the way it did. So thank you.😁😁
@@johnendersby1619 no problem. I build these plants and oversee the operation as a chemical engineer so it’s my topic!
burn and clean. recycling plastic film (single use plastic) is not worth. standardize packaging material ,so that everyone must use almost similar types of plastic material for packaging,
Recycling is a scam at worst, and barely effective (not to mention unprofitable) at best. I would much rather a waste to energy plant to be built that scrubs out all pollutants and maybe in the future sequesters emitted carbon, than landfills. And I certainly would prefer these power plants to be built responsibly instead of coal or natural gas and petroleum.
Recycling is just an advertisement ...the more you put recycle the more profit .
Problem is, 'scrub out all the pollutants' takes a lot of energy...
It sounds to me like India could really use a composting system for all that food waste. I can’t imagine that they are not doing that. They should be able to sell the compost to agricultural producers.
they just throw their trash on the ground next to the road and then have to have a team of guys scoop it up and chuck it into the garbage truck. If they can't put it in a container, are you sure they are ready for more advanced concepts?
@@heinzerbrew incredible poverty and lack of education
@@heinzerbrew “they” ah yes 1 billion + people don’t know how to put trash in a container.
@@suyogv8235 Why are you twisting my words?
@@heinzerbrew As an Indian i can't deny your words
I always try to recycle, but what I noticed over time is that it can be difficult and tedious task to separate all the packaging.
There are couple reasons why.
1) Majority of packages come with no label indicating if it can be recycled.
2) If it does have recycle label, most packages, such as plastics can't be recycled at home (must be brought to a store).
3) Many packages such as paper/cardboard also have plastics incorporated in them, which makes it unrecyclable, unless it can be removed, this puts the responsibility on the consumer.
A lot of people can't be bothered to recycle as there are no consequences that directly affect them, unless there is strict rules/ laws put in place on how the consumer should dispose of their trash. Japan's recycling law would be a good example)
Or regulations and laws on what can be used and produced. I work in a small burger takeaway and we use a lot of lettuce, ever lettuce is individually wrapped in plastic. What's the point of that? The responsibility is first at the producer of the product, then consumer.
From what I understand, only a small fraction of recyclable items are actually recycled. And many richer countries often ship their recycling abroad, polluting poorer countries. So I don't think recycling should be rated so highly. We need to pressure companies to make all their packaging/products biodegradable. And of course, reduce our consumption and reuse as much as we can.
DW out here putting quality content... thank you and keep fighting the good fight, love from Cali
Sweden has been waste to energy burning for a long time. Make a video about how we should transition to upcykling on a large scale instead *and why we don't* please. 🙏🏻
Why don't you make a video? Then you can present it to your government and then they can put policies in place.
@@ross_ulbright7779 that is a good point. I have very little experience and hardware needed in vid production though. 🤔 I'll have to think about this for a bit.
I liked idea of using biodegradable materials for packaging. There's company in India turned waste from plants like pineapples into disposable tableware. Also give people option using cloth reusable bags handle groceries. Stores which sell in bulk that you bring your own containers.
Packaging certainly is a waste challenge! You might like our video, "The recycling myth: What actually happens to our plastic" 👉 th-cam.com/video/RDFBbxMDi1U/w-d-xo.html
Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments 📺
I think burn well done is best. Sorting at the source is very useful, but moving as much sorting as possible at the facility with machinery is more effective.
One of the solutions seems pretty straightforward: compost food scraps and other forms of organic matter. I can't believe they're burning this stuff in India by pouring oil onto it. Such a waste on every level.
Composting is so easy and can be done extremely locally (ie every community and even household can compost at home if they have sufficient outdoor space to do it).
So true. One question to perhaps consider, how do apartment buildings do compost.
@@CatsOfMarrakech we compst on our balcony.
I remember growing up we would take the glass bottles to the store we had bought them from, we recycled because my granny had grown up in the Depression and we had a garden where you place the food scraps and the animals would eat them any plastic or cans would go to the recycling center and we shopped at thrift stores.
I live in a small town in Illinois - they don't allow trash burning (and only allow yardwaste - grass, leaves and small branches - first week of the month). The move came because senior citizens complained about the smoke and air pollution.
I think it's unfair when you compare incinerators with other waste recycling methods and other ways of energy production. The point with incinerators that they are the most viable option where you don't have the luxury of sorting out all gabages. It's better than dumping the waste and let it contaminate the ground. Also, you said in the video that trash burning with out effects to the environment is only for rich countries. It's the same for recycling.
Hi DW.
the biggest problem when it comes to classififying burning stuff for energy is biomass, or more specifcly wood pellets and chips.
I think i would be interestning if you had an look at that. Try taking an look on the impact in the pellet producing cou tries like the baltic states
Forests are being clear cut in my North Carolina and the Baltic states to make wood pellets for Europe.
Best to compost these. Biomass for fuel has been found to be harmful.
Prevention is always better than remediation of any kind. Whether you are preventing sickness instead of remediating or you are preventing waste instead of remediating it.
I don't think waste to energy should be compared to other forms of energy production in a direct way because waste to energy incineration also plays into reducing waste volume, keeping waste out of landfills & ,also ground & surface water, but can also be used to recover metals from mixed waste, and then the bottom ash can be used in various ways as well. I think these waste management benefits should be taken into consideration when examining the immediate C02 output of the incineration process itself.
For the food scraps Black Soldier Flies are pretty efficient, 2/7 of the ingoing mass is transformed in fertiliser and 1/7 of the ingoing mass comes out as larvae. Larvae that are great sources of proteins for chicken, pigs, fish,... Given the BSF master their biological environment (they destroy competition like E.Coli, Salmonella, rot, ... other larvae and so on) they are a better alternative than classical fly types.
Hey! Nice to see a fellow BSFL lover. Currently doing my thesis on municipal solid waste collection, transportation and treatment options in developing countries. BSFL and Anaerobic digestion seem to be pretty king
@@MrMrilikepie1234 Should be, in my experiments BSFL then anaerobic seemed pretty efficient
Yeah dude, these flies can breakdown any biodegradable waste and their frass can also be used as fertilizer. It should be used to reduce all municipal foodwaste from restaurants and other food establishments.
@@jacobsxavier6082 soon when I retire I also want a bsf farm right next to my aquaponics as food source for my fish
@@leandroandong7400 If it interests you you can also use the BSF waste for anaerobic methane production. It was quite a violent process when I tested it (in one hour, from normal waste to heavy methan production, result gotten from putting the fresh BSF manure immerged in water within two - three hours )
DW thanks for the documentary and given this subject some attention Amen to you ma'am 😊
Germany has a very advanced waste management system and this includes several waste energy plants, they got to a point where they started importing trash from another countries to power these energy plants due their high recycling rates. They literally didn’t have trash enough. I wish US to do the same!
That sounds like Sweden, my country.
Great video, loved the voice :)
About the trash problem, stop plastic production completely, reuse glass and yeah ... we're screwed.
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@@DWPlanetA i've been subscribed for years!
Omg i think i just fell in love with this channel ❤️ i really do like the plot and narrative ✨ it always excites me to listen more
The guy said it 8:58 and no one listened, even the filmmaker:"Waste management at decentralized level!". No politician wants to solve the problem, they just want to collect money for carbon emissions.
Most of Tokyo already uses these systems now. Plus a new one of picking up recyclable waste 1x week, organised by the residents of the street, and giving the residents recycled things recycled products like toilet paper after a few times. Waste disposal is pretty strict which can be annoying, but it is necessary.
Swimming pools, owned by the government , also use the excess heat to heat up the pools and various other initiatives benefit from this disposal method
Biggest challenge is dealing with single use packaging, food packaging and medical items. They are very essential to prevent a lot of lost products, food poisoning and medical related complications. Some companies are trying hard but it takes a paradise shift in industrial infrastructure and industry culture. We will get better but it will take a generation or two to get there.
Is there a way to trap any emissions before they leave the plant?
There should be no reason to have any emissions. Carbon is a fuel
Absolutely impossible. There's no way to burn stuff in a sealed container (kind of like a car engine) before filtering the by-product emissions (kind of like the catalytic converters in car exhausts.)
You haven't been lied to, there is no need to apply logic and question your indoctrination, it is impossible to incinerate waste in a sealed boiler (how 100% of power plants work) which then has a series of air filtering processes.
It depends what emissions. All modern efw plants have quite extensive flue gas treatment and the pollutants are mainly concentrated in the APC residue which needs to go to hazardous waste disposal. This is about equivalent to 2-3% by mass of what has been put into the plant. In terms of CO2, you can do carbon capture but then you lose most of your electricity generation so you have to decide which is best. In a country with lots of nuclear or renewable electricity, carbon capture would make a lot of sense.
Hi Kathy, have you checked out report on carbon capture yet? th-cam.com/video/JHs-eWHb16g/w-d-xo.html
@@Mr539forgotten You can’t just filter out the CO2, catalytic converters just reduce the most noxious gases to water vapor and CO2. It’s too expensive anyways.
Food for thought: What about a waste incinerator powered by a Molten Salt Reactor? Not only could the MSR produce enough power to completely burn up the waste with little or no carbon emissions, it could also provide district heat and electricity to a community. Nuclear is the way to clean up the planet.
That makes no sense at all, none at all. Using one fuel source to burn another rather then just burning itself? The waste is the fuel. No nuclear needed
A success operation of incinerators greatly reduce the energy consumption. Because the temperature is so high inside the incinerators, rubbish can self burning and produce more heat for more rubbish. The high temp also can break down harmful chemicals. The ash is a good addictive to in concrete production. However the down side is that it have to use water to regulate temperature.
It's obvious that this isn't a final solution, but it is a great transition that can balance the books a bit
A few points: 1.- We need to differentiate between waste to energy plants (state of the arts), and a simple incineration plants. 2.- the emissions of a waste to energy plant most be comparable with the emissions and impacts of a landfills, not with the recicling or reuse, because WTE most be understood as an alternative to landifills, does not compete with recycling or reuse, that's why WTE is below in the waste hierarchy. 3.- Having a reuse and recycling system takes decades, actually there is no country in the world or society who can say "i resolved the waste issues without wte or without landfills" is one or another. Germany, the country that recycles the most, sends all is not recycled waste to WTE Plants. All countries should study their situation, if we have garbage and 95% goes to landfill (Latinoamérica situation), the goal should be reduce at least the 40% in the next 30 or 40 years, therefore wte plants must be built for the other 60%, and avoid landfills once and for all.
If some EU countries had burned more waste and build an heating infrastructure that was less reliant on natural gas, then they could have been in a better situation right now - We will not stop generating waste in the foreseeable future, so we need to have a way to burn it. Let's not make perfect the enemy of good.
Paper can be buried and composted , plastic can be melted into building materials which would last for several hundred of years.
Most types of plastics cannot be recycled. Melting them down degrades them to the point where they are not useful for anything, once they are melted they cannot be returned to their original chemical composition. Plastic is not a good building material due to its low melting point and the fact that sunlight causes it to fade, warp and crumble. Most plastics can be used once and nothing more, after that they are useless.
@@FalconFlurry yeah they’re flammable all right but so are two by fours. And you can use them out of direct sunlight behind walls and in floors , Many applications.
@@rubytuby6369 I didn't say they are flammable, I said they have a low melting point. On a hot summer day plastic starts to get very soft and loses most of its structural strength. Not a good building material
@@FalconFlurry There are plenty of building materials that don’t have to have structural strength.
I live in Wisconsin and our local energy (electric) comes from a burning waste plant. I've wondered about the emissions from these plants.
Proud to say that Arlington, Virginia has been doing waste to energy for years!!
We have waste energy production station in Azerbaijan. ( Balakhani station)
We built one of these and didn’t have enough trash to keep it going so we buy wood chips to keep it going.
Forests are being clear cut in my North Carolina and Baltic states to make wood pellets for Europe.
Why not import garbage? I'm sure lots of countries would pay for you to take their garbage
"Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value." - Buckminster Fuller
I live in Sweden and we are big also at incineration, we also buys trash to burn it for energy and
district heating. I dont say burning it is the best, but personally it is better to have it burned than storing it in landfills or using coal power plants for that matter for energy.
Yes the fumes are toxic and need to be filtered but as if not aldready many countries are throwing the trash into landfills, whats the difference? One thing is for sure is that you get more out of the trash and it also takes up less space when it need to be send to a landfill.
Just do what they did in futurama.
Shoot it to space on a rocket 🚀
The problem with garbage incinerators is the same with landfills. They're either A) closer to where you live, which no one wants or B) far away, which really adds to the overhead if you have to truck all that garbage across one or more states.
Growing up Ozone depletion was the major issue that was largely televised & the world came together and we stopped Ozone depletion. The world needs to come together in a similiar way to deal with the trash 🗑️
I prefer the idea of putting it into a huge ball and on the top of a rocket, and sending it into space so we don't have to worry about it until the year 3000.
with the current price of $1400/kg to orbit, that would cost around 8 trillion dollars per day
"so, we send our trash to third world countries making them our trash bin"
Including diapers
Yes, that's where all those virtuous used-up solar panels go to be "recycled" by women and children. Trouble is, those panels contain toxic metals that, unlike nuclear waste, never loses its toxicity.
@@paulbradford6475 yes and tons of e-waste that also contain toxic heavy metals, etc and it's causing various kind of disease in different poor countries
im danish but my family lives in the US, when we visited denmark for the first time i didn’t want to leave. its really the best place and i love it so much and miss it
no it is not
If it is burning organic matter such as paper, cardboard, agricultural waste, wood etc then yes it should be considered green energy. Plastics are a different matter, though the question will be How do we dispose of them ?
9:16 kind of an awkward clip to put into you talking about positive solutions
@@smrotaru its not a slave but a child worker which is quite common in developing countries, since they probably from poor families and all of its member need to work asap
The militaries still it twice than if these plants had been powering the whole world.
Sure equipped with latest carbon captioning systems, recycling of precious metals and also responsibility from our world citizens, such as recycling properly and not throw whatever in their trash.
I compost, repurpose things and recycle, sorting everything so it can be recycled & reused, or incinerated safely.
Not saying im better than anyone, I’ve just nerded into the field of trying to recycle or repurpose everything, trying to reach net 0 footprint of my own life. Sry for the poor english, its my 3rd language
In Canada we put out our one bag of trash each week (>or equal to 10 kg), one container for kitchen/pet waste which goes to an organics facility for anaerobic processing, and multiple blue boxes for plastic, glass and fiber (paper) which depending on the market often goes to landfill with the bag of trash (i.e. there is very little market for plastics currently, some for glass, and a little better prospects for paper fibre if the conditions are right).
Therefore I would support incineration in our County if the organics are still separated out, as well as any viable recyclables. The problem is we tried to introduce incineration and there were too many protests as people were concerned about the air emissions. That said we haven't built a landfill in years because of NIMBY, and that capacity is running out too. So we may put ourselves in a situation where we have to find alternatives. Worse case would be what the City of Toronto did, ship the waste further away to an available landfill, making even more CO2 emission with the garbage trucks on the highway.
Trash Burning? I remember moving into a neighborhood in SoCal in 1963. All of our homes had small concrete trash incinerators in the back yard. Before plastic bottles, bags etc. glass pop bottles were returned for reuse. Things have changed and the problem is more complex.
I wonder if they could put carbon capture devices in the exhaust systems of those plants? It’s known that carbon capture systems work better when they’re processing gasses with higher concentrations of CO2
I think the exhaust of the plant would over flood the carbon capture. I don't know the engineering behind it, but i imagine so.
@@biggboi1025 yeah, it’d most certainly increase the complexity! Now that I think about it - I don’t know that it’d be carbon neutral. The power required to pull out the carbon might consume the plant’s output?
Maybe like the presenter says, it’s more of a concern if we’re tied to disposing of large amounts of trash. Especially tricky in the developing world where so many don’t have reliable waste collection and so just dump it in the rivers.
Honestly the energy recuperated from incineration is just a byproduct. Efficiency of incineration is quite a lot poorer than burning typical fossil fuels. Responsible landfilling is therefore, generally more desirable as long as you have the space, and make sure that landfill pollutants do not leak into the surrounding environment. Carbon sequester (CS) technology can certainly be employed in incineration plants and would be worth it if either 1. energy requirements of CS is met by incineration (unlikely) or 2. renewables are able to make up the rest of the energy requirement for CS.
@@darn721 True. You might end up with something like a nuclear-powered waste incinerator/CS plant. Not sure how likely that would be.
2:22 umbrella organization?
oh....oh no
Ah shit here we go again
OHNONONONONO
It would be beneficial for standardized types of returnable packaging to exist, ensuring that every product suitable for sale in a deposit container is sold in one.
My grandparents burned garbage. Home incinerator and one at the city dump. Most bottles were returnable and had a deposit. Heck 3 cases of empties bought a case of beer🤷♂️👍🏻
Incineration plus recycling metal and glass is the only solution we have that works. Store the carbon with systems like Carbon Engineering to scrub the air.
Great way to engage the general public. Have a presenter with a weird haircut. Trivial ? Only if you don’t understand how people are
I think it is for the young and hip.
That's the same as: "why don't we dump everything in a volcano" or "why don't we dump everything in a deep hole so deep it's touching lava"
(I know the answers don't worry I'm just reacting on the title)
People dealing with waste deserve a lot more respect than they get.
The present governments all over the world must be burnt as trash, and then maybe our children will have a future.😭
Yes but shoot it into the sun. New SpaceX division ;).
Upcycling really isn't a scalable or long-term solution. Most efforts should be on prevention, then recycling and everything that is not recycled should be incinerated for energy.
Open burning and disposal should be eliminated completely.
My one question.. if you burned all the garbage where do they get new materials to build new stuff?
Well if I remember matter can’t be destroyed only change. At least that all I remember
They just consume more fossil fuels, it has never been sustainable. Even if you don't burn it, plastic comes from fossil fuels and most plastic cannot be recycled, so it just ends up in the landfill. Only about 9% of the plastic we use actually comes from recycled plastic. The other 91% goes to the landfill, the ocean, or maybe the incinerator.
Incineration is not a solution. Zero waste should be the first option. Corporates who produce the packaging should be forced to clean up. Then they will change the "convenient" way and helping the oil companies who makes the plastics.
I have a large burn barrel and burn all my trash except metal. Plastic burns great !
That sounds very illegal
@@FalconFlurry Illegal? Are you serious? You must live in the city.
Trashcans should have 3 sections... 1 for trash, 1 for recycle and 1 for food... That would help separate garbage and make it easier to dispose of..
I just hope it's not the same umbrella corporation that makes the T-Virus ☔
A lot of trash cans are like that
@@FalconFlurry yeah my trash can is a zombie too... This message will self destruct
I consider incineration, especially plasma waste conversion, primarily a method of waste management, with a side benefit of some energy generation.
Plasma waste conversion is also a good means of disposing of hazardous compounds, such as chemical weapons, pesticides, herbicides, etc. and, until more efficient means of breaking them down become available at scale, “forever” chemicals such as PFAS, PFOA, silicone oils, siloxanes, etc. The high-temperature process converts all compounds to plasma, ripping apart all chemical bonds.
As with other forms of incineration, it doesn’t dispose of elemental hazards (mercury, lead, arsenic, etc.), and some hazardous compounds result, such as dioxin, oxides of nitrogen, which need to be captured and bound into stable compounds or vitrified in glassy material.
01:47, really? you really had to bring that up? 💩
yea man, what could go wrong with burning shitloads of plastic lmao. seriously?
Don't want to cut into the waste management companies pockets
Also recycling is more harmful as it takes more energy than creating a new thing of that same thing. You have to first chop it up, then create a new one. Adds an extra step in the process which requires energy.
Wow with all the CO2 going into the air they must have spectacular crops growing!! Well done you guys 😊
in the US state i live in its burned for energy. i work for a trash collection company so i get to see it first hand when i dump at one of these. recycling is sorted and sold all over the world
Thanks for the video. The portion about waste to energy model working in various degrees from country to country is true. But I think it missed one key factor education. I think the video discounts the need to educate consumers constantly and policy makers should have better supporting local infrastructure like color coded sorting bins. And clear labeling on what goes into each… I read an article mention South Korea noticing their potential to compost was not being maximized so they started to promote sorting and composting…. I think they are now composting like near 97% of their food waste…. If we have more bins made for collecting food waste and local parks can mix our food waste in with wood chips etc we could also potentially reduce lots of waste…
Excellent video to inspire us all to reduce and reuse. Thanks