On: E.T. cartridges found in infamous Atari landfill

[grecy]

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.

[joezydeco → grecy]

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.

[otterley → joezydeco]

What do you then do with the nanobots?

[philwelch → otterley]

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

[ars → grecy]

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.

[jzwinck → grecy]

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

[dllthomas → grecy]

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...