The whole world has a problem with what to do with waste. Some is incinerated, some is buried, some is recycled. New Zealand ships our recyclables to China, who then just buries them because it's cheaper to do so, and we pretend to be morally superior recyclers. Gazans, due to necessity, may have developed techniques for dealing with waste that the rest of the world could benefit from.
I know that wasn't your point, but I take your point.
The whole recycling “industry” is a scam. They only bother for some items where there is profit and that’s only true some of the time, most of the time it all goes into the same landfills as everything else.
It’s not a serious problem though, we’ve barely scratched the surface of available resources on earth and have plenty of space for refuse (maybe not the Gazans, but the rest of us do).
I think that is correct. I think we are not anywhere close to running out of space to bury this stuff. And eventually, if need be, with the much more developed economy of the future, it will become cheap to reprocess that tainted landfill land into more natural stuff.
But hey, they developed a better egg crate that farmers prefer. I think that is pretty cool.
In HK there are entire apartment complexes with 50,000 people living in them, built on top of former landfill sites
Poverty is the least fun but most efficient recycling program
Some materials take centuries to decompose. The US annually exports 60,000 tons of clothing to countries like Ghana and Chile - where people have no choice but to build homes around it, and live along this enormous junkyard with chemicals polluting their lands that they harvest on, greenhouse gasses are released, flies, and all kinds of unhygienic stuff.
Hazardous liquid chemicals are also sent to poorer nations to be “stored” and these countries’ gov’t are not going to be bothered about their people’s welfare, in pursuit of easy profits.
Countries exporting waste should address their waste issues domestically. - I’d reckon New Zealand has ample empty land that can be used to bury waste - but no - ship it to China. This concept of “let some other country suffer from my rubbish, as long as it's not in my neighborhood” is not right.
I read your other comments. I don’t understand why recycling or climate change becomes a trigger factor for people. Yes, people abuse it, WEF monetises on it , gov’t are idiots, the term vegan is 90% bullshit - vegan fabric causes more harm than real leather. In fact, even natural disasters like the Laki eruption in Iceland had significant environmental and societal impacts. But it doesn’t change the fact that climate change is a real, and ongoing issue that won't disappear on its own.
Paper waste recycling, egg trays may not seem big, but to a bunch of people there, it gets a tiny bit of the economy going, gets the place cleaned up, get’s the machines running (big deal for small manufacturers), they put food on their table for their kids and they find purpose. And its a stepping stone. recycling techs can expand - people are making bricks out of it these days. And maybe that could help Gaza rebuild. I remember talking to a Cuban friend a long time ago in turning wok into satellite dishes to tap into receptions he was keen on. It may not be a big deal to you and me, but it was a big deal to him.
I think that’s why MacGyver is super cool. He understood how things worked and made the most out of it =)
