In the 1800’s we used to give/sell our rubbish to the rag and bone man, sell the ash from the fire grates and encourage people to scavenge through our rubbish.
This started to change 100 years ago when the “authorities” started to become concerned over our health and created municipal rubbish sites. Landfill sites as they became to be called. These sites were usually based in old quarries. Once filled in, we started to build on some. We never thought about what might be happening underneath them and whether they might cause further health problems.
These days, landfill sites are beginning to run out of space. It’s becoming more difficult to find new sites. Landfill taxes have been created to encourage more reuse and recycling. There are expensive incinerator schemes that could be used to take this waste and burn it for heat and power but, that requires us to continue to generate waste and discourages us from creating it in the first place.
Is there anything that can be done with existing sites that haven’t been built on? Well, methane gas is a by-product from landfills so why not capture it and pump it into that National Gas Grid as a”green energy” source. Once that has been taken out, start “mining” the site. Think of all the plastic based products that are in landfills that could be reclaimed. Then think of all the glass and metals that are in them.
It would take us back to where we were 200 years ago, scavenging. And as any Liberal Democrat will tell you, “where there’s muck, there’s brass”.
See this link for the original material for this piece.
