Paper or Plastic?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

You know that it's resilient enough? How do you know that? It has to do with what is known as "The Problem of the Commons". Since nobody owns it (which seems to be the same as "the government owns it") we can just dispose of our trash there however we please. Your attitude is just an extension of that very same attitude. It's the same attitude that lead car manufacturers to say, "Hell, there's plenty of air, we can just exhaust the auto crap into the air, the air is a resilient ecosystem and it will dissipate eventually." Or... how about, "We'll just dump this toxic waste into the river and, presto!, it's gone...the river is a resilient ecosystem and will get rid of the toxic waste." That is the mindset you are demonstrating so damned well.

You have completely gone off the deep end. I have seen the test site, there are pictures available online, and the plants and animals live there. There are numerous reports and pictures online regarding the flora and fauna there, which includes tortoises, coyotes, antelope and other such creatures normally found in the Mojave. Here's one report Nevada DOE report PDF 2003

Now, if the ecosystem can recover from atomic fucking blasts in less than a century, I am sure it can recover from coffee grounds and tampons (both of which are biodegradeable, most tampons are even flushable) and yes even buried plastic bags and diapers, just because they don't biodegrade doesn't make them harmful if buried. Most consumer garbage is not toxic.

Bullshit. What's the half-life of the radioactive isotopes? In order to bury the bullshit you want to place in it, you'd have to have workers who would compact and doze soil. Are you volunteering to work at an atomic test site?

People work at the test site all the fucking time. You can even tour it if you're so inclined.

A unique national resource, the Nevada Test Site is a massive outdoor laboratory and national experimental center that cannot be duplicated. Larger than the state of Rhode Island, approximately 1,375 square miles, making this one of the largest restricted access areas in the United States. The remote site is surrounded by thousands of additional acres of land withdrawn from the public domain for use as a protected wildlife range and for a military gunnery range, creating an unpopulated land area comprising some 5,470 square miles.

Established as the Atomic Energy Commission's on-continent proving ground, the Nevada Test Site has seen more than four decades of nuclear weapons testing. Since the nuclear weapons testing moratorium in 1992 and under the direction of the Department of Energy (DOE), test site use has diversified into many other programs such as hazardous chemical spill testing, emergency response training, conventional weapons testing, and waste management and environmental technology studies. http://www.nv.doe.gov/nts/default.htm

I know what they do with garbage. You cannot just site a landfill whereever you happen to think it's a good idea. A sanitary landfill must have a liner to prevent seepage into the groundwater. How about hazardous wastes? Are those being removed or not? Are you sure?

Oh for fuck's sake. I mentioned the test site as a possibility and it hasn't contaminated the ground water for populated areas. There are thousands of square miles of empty desert in Nevada and the water table is extremely deep...this is a desert remember? We do not get our drinking water from the ground anyway.

I don't know about hazardous wastes, how are they disposed of in our landfills now?

All I was suggesting is that there is much empty land, throughout the country, not just here, that could become large regional landfills under the same guidelines as current smaller local landfills. What's the difference if the garbage goes into 50 small landfills or one great big one?

An episode of Bullshit!? An unquestionable sourse, no doubt. Well, USEPA says, "In 2001, U.S. residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 229 million tons of MSW, which is approximately 4.4 pounds of waste per person per day, up from 2.7 pounds per person per day in 1960." So, if this one spot in Kansas can take 229 million tons of MSW (which is municipal solid waste) each year for the foreseeable future, it must be one fukken BIG spot....maybe like the entire fukken state of Kansas. (Actually, I'd rather see Nevada take this on, as they seem to have gotten a jump-start on it already.)

How much of that garbage is entirely or partially biodegradeable? Where is that garbage going now? And, IIRC the expert based it on the information below.

From the NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
MYTH NO. 1: We are running out of landfill space. All of the garbage America produces in the next 1,000 years would fit in a landfill that occupies less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the continental United States. http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s165/s165.html

They took the 1/10 of 1% and made it a spot on the map, putting it in Kansas.

Waste is waste. Some is more difficult to safely deal with than others, but they basically have similar problems. My issue was that it shouldn't matter to you because it's not protected, and it's government land, your earlier stated standards for locating a landfill. Yucca Mountain is just a sophisticated landfill for a specific type of waste. It fits your categories, but now you're adding new specifications....which is exactly what happens with ordinary landfills, too. NIMBY. Somehow you don't see it as problem if it's your ordinary waste, but if it's somebody else's, it's near you, and it's nasty, then you complain. Is that not right?

Waste is waste? Toxic, radioactive waste and coffee grounds are equal in your eyes, are they? A truck carrying comsumer garbage getting blown up and a truck carrying nuclear waste getting blown up are of equal danger to the public? Is that what you're really saying? An earthquake at a landfill in California and an earthquake at a nuclear waste depository are equally dangerous?

Are you serious?

Fine. Actually, it was not a paper or plastic issue, but a "what do you call this" issue. You oughta know, you started the thread.

You brought up the plastics and such and went off on some kind of tirade in response to I don't know what. Fine, we can discuss that, but why do you get so goddamned personal and nasty right off that bat? Why did you make up an argument to have.

I quote..."Sure, you can go ahead and claim that a plastic bag can be reused, but then so can a paper one. Then, you can claim that plastic sacks can be reused more times...and I'd agree."

Who is "you" in that sentence? Who were you talking to in that quote? You started arguing with nobody as a reponse to a quote from me about handled paper bags being expensive and that most stores use plastic anyway. Was this aimed at me and therefore arguing something I never said, or was it just a rant for no reason?