Title: [GreenYes] Re: Recycle when Energy
Thanks for the note of support, Doug, and thanks to Dan. As an
Arkansas high school debate champion I'm always flattered when someone
responds energetically to my "sophisms."
Dan, putting segregated wastes into landfill mining cells to be dug up
later when the finances change was a fantastic idea, and I credited
Urban Ore with the best of intentions. If the idea is an orphan, I'd
be proud to appropriate it. I've always maintained that most waste is
the direct result of extraction subsidies and an economics that
depreciates investments and economy of scale over too few lifetimes,
and as future generations realize that, they will dig up our waste,
and we should try to make that easier for them.
Perhaps I miscommunicated the point about the $900/ton HDPE
collection. I meant it as an example to be patient, that we should
not label something as "impossible" to recycle if it's simply a
scaling issue (getting enough material to pay off the apparatus to
recycle the material)... What's clean HDPE at now, positive $300/ton?
My experience is that dialectic reinvigorates rather than "betrays
contempt".
(Bob) As for Design, Design, Design, I agree that there is an "Anti-
Gray Market Alliance" which is against reuse, and which practices what
Vance Packard called "Planned Obsolescence" and in fact are now
practicing what I call "Hindsight Obsolescence". I am skeptical,
however, that a perfectly designed 1980s VHS player would survive the
DVD market. In retrospect, the x86 computers were overly well
designed, "solid state", military spec, with lots of metal, built like
battleships to survive 30 years... because the designers couldn't
foresee Windows95.
Peace out, brothers,
robin
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