The Sietch Blog

Feb 23
Natural Recycle

Written by Rt

In the natural world the system supports itself. Life and death are part of a closed continuum. Much like the law of conservation of mass and energy there is a law that nothing is wasted. All life forms are continuously consuming and being consumed. Beings so small, if you will allow that virii might be defined as beings, that this occurs on almost a molecular scale. There are bugs so small they live on our eyelashes. The humans, being biological, fit into this framework. That is where the similarity ends.

Humans are the least efficient animals on the planet. It would be interesting to examine our excrement to see which animal has the most efficient digestive system but we won’t go there. Food gathering would be another interesting comparison, but I’m talking about the things we use beyond food. Granted, other animals don’t make fire to survive cold but we go places they don’t. We like to cook our food, they don’t. There are many reasons we do things other animals don’t do but those reasons are not what I’m addressing here.

I’m talking about our waste. No animal considers its waste. No animal reuses its own waste (tho I have seen dogs eat their vomit and I have heard of animals eating their placenta). Not only don’t we try to reduce or reuse our waste, we make it difficult for other life forms to utilize our waste - in very rare cases it may be impossible. Do we want the legacy of the humans to be our waste? Besides being a problem for other organisms this can be a real problem for us. There are two aspects to this problem, toxicity and volume.

The latter is more easily addressed than the former. Why do you think we have the Grand Canyon? Just kidding. Even tho we have difficulty finding new places to dump our waste that is not the greatest problem. We can always burn it, crunch it, or find a deeper hole for it, but none of those solves the toxicity problem. Indeed, each one, in its own way, exacerbates the toxicity problem.

Why is toxicity a problem? Two reasons. There is the problem of the byproducts of decaying mass, then there is the composition of the mass itself.

In small, evenly distributed, amounts the earth is capable of handling decaying mass, I would even say it was designed for it. Everything decays, the time may vary until the right bug finds it but it decays. During that process the byproducts of that decay are consumed and turned into harmless elements. Our problem comes from the volume of decaying mass we produce. It sends noxious fumes into the air, it produces those dreaded GHGs, and, more importantly, it leaches into the water supply. Talk about a problem, humans can live longer without food than water. If you wipe out an entire supply you have done some serious damage. This is why we now have diapers on our landfills. That is one level of toxicity, and the most easily negated.

Another problem with toxicity is the waste materials. Tossing several thousand tons of organic waste isn’t the same as tossing several thousand gallons of sodium cyanide or sulphuric acid (for instance). I use those instances because they were (are?) used in the extraction of gold from low-grade ore. Gold is important because it is used in all of the electronic devices we use today. Indeed, there have been companies arise solely to extract gold from circuit boards. The gold itself isn’t harmful, one of the most inert elements there is, it’s the way we get it that’s the problem.

There are other substances we use that are a problem in themselves. Cadmium (read the “Precautions” toward the bottom of the page), for instance (the cad in ni-cad) caused such problems that governments forced manufacturers to accept used batteries to process them in a safe manner.

There are other examples, phosphorous and mercury, to name two. The problem is, what is the solution? Given the distributed nature of the problem, the pollutants are distributed throughout many products, the solution is not simple.

The issue of our waste has to be primarily addressed by us. We must emulate a closed loop system. Where do our wastes go? To our natural allies is not a bad answer, it is just not the complete answer. We need to develop a system by which we reclaim as many of the components as possible. Possible - that is the key word. At what point is “possible” Pyrrhic? That depends on technology. Yes, technology got us into this and it can get us out of it.

Most of the issue is based on economic factors. It is cheaper to “dump and run” than to reuse. That changes when the waste is processed at a central location. The economies of scale start to take effect. All these “wastes” start to have value. How to facilitate such facilities? Design in re-usability. What does that mean? Use materials that are easily consumed by our allies - the bugs. Create collection points that maximize the efforts of individuals to contribute to the process.

The Europeans are ahead in this effort, compared to the Americans, but this is cars. What about computers? Naib did a good piece on that. Here is another place to start. Indeed, there is very little difference between electronic components. Once a reclamation center is established success breeds success. Cell phones, ipods, wii stations - all go into the pot. Unfortunately, most of the pollution of electronic devices goes into the manufacture. Just like solar PV devices.

No matter what you do you create waste. What you do with that waste is up to you. There are no natural cycles for humans - we plot our own course.