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I saw a funny, but also sad, bit by a comedian once. I wish I could remember his name.

"Everything you've ever owned is still out there," he said. "Remember those rollerblades you used once in 1994? Those still exist. Except maybe in little pieces. Maybe in the ocean."

Maybe in 20 years someone will dig up a few of those millions of plastic Guitar Hero guitars that are now wasting away in landfills for a documentary.




That would be the great Bill Burr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vJty38k7n4


Thanks for pointing to the hilarious source!


I look forward to the day humans are forced to mine landfills to get previous goods.

It will be amazing when the cheapest (maybe only?) way to get <raw material> is to recycle old discarded stuff.


I always thought we would have swarms of nanobots that chewed on the landfills for a decade or so and sorted the mess into tidy piles of pure elements.


What do you then do with the nanobots?


Turn half off and have the other half chew through them, recursively.


For some elements maybe.

Iron, glass, paper and plastic will never run out though. And we already recycle lots of metals.

You would probably like this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification That's how you recycle bulk garbage, but it's expensive in terms of energy, so we have to solve that first.


You need not wait, the future is here today, in Brazil and elsewhere: http://www.wastelandmovie.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_picker


Yeah, I've been wondering if mineral rights in landfills would make sense as an investment. It's an interesting collection of stuff-humans-once-had-use-for, and as recycling tech improves...


This isn't always the case. In Norway, for example, landfills are rare and most non-recyclable trash is incinerated to provide heat. So if you put something in the garbage here, odds are it'll be turned into carbon dioxide by next week.




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