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“Sao Paulo is one of the few cities where “garbage picker/scavenger” is an officially recognized profession. Such workers are organized in cooperatives and collect mainly plastic, cans and paper from the streets, to be sold to companies that handle recycling. The scavengers are seen as a solution to the problem.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/global-waste/?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.dce2decb2375
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I’ve always wondered if one day that people in the future will “mine” our old dumps for raw materials/antiques and re-sell them.
I have seen a few documentaries on people digging up old outhouses in New York City, dumps in New Mexico for video games, and various dump sites in Europe and it fascinates me the valuable items that can be found.
The way that dumps are setup, with no air, light, and little water getting to the stuff that is buried, there are probably tonnes of treasure to be dug up.
Just imagine even digging up bags of stuff from 50 years ago – all the discarded clothing, bottles/packaging, items, etc. that were thrown out then that are valuable now. But I guess you would have to sort through a lot of diapers, rotten food, medical waste, etc. to get the good stuff.
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YES! There’s a listener to this podcast who contacted us about scavenging in garbage heaps from the 1800’s. He lived in Baltimore and would get permission to dig a ten foot hold in people’s backyards. People had outhouses and would throw away bottles there. He says he finds bottles that can sell for hundreds each. Unfortunately he was too shy to let me record a conversation about his process.
I guess anything is possible in the future. The dumps we have are humongous! You’re right that landfills seal away trash from oxygen. https://www.thebalance.com/how-long-does-it-take-garbage-to-decompose-2878033 Be a great place to mine plastic.
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There was a documentary released a few years ago about the garbage pickers of Brazil. Pretty neat.
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Our md’s dump actually has a “salvage centre” (i.e., thrift) attached to it. Good place to pick! The vintagy stuff is all marked pretty high but anything weird/industrial/automotive is a few bucks.
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This is a good video from the BBC on where all the stuff that thrift stores, retail arbitrage, and just overall garbage that gets shipped to Africa and what is done with it (sorted, materials split, recycled, etc) and how the people live and make money that do this work:
The Insider S01E01 Reggie Yates A Week in a Toxic Waste Dump
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x61frsmYou would think that first world countries would be able to avoid this, and build systems to recycle materials safely (and humanely) in our own countries.
I’ve seen stories on CBS Sunday Morning as well about “well intended” donations (recently after the hurricane in Houston) and how they are hurtful to the communities that receive random truckloads of donated goods and how they all end up in landfills.
I always wonder what different generations – 50, 100, or even longer ago, would think of our throw-away societies today.
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