The Oil Drum | On likely alternatives to conventional oil

107 comments on On likely alternatives to conventional oil

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copperweaver on November 28, 2005 - 8:34pm

Another conservation idea that would create jobs and cut down on waste.......

I have been dumpster-diving for years, and some of the best spoils come out of renovation and construction site dumpsters. The amount of nails, screws, steel pipe, aluminum, and copper wire I find in the garbage is amazing, and sickening at the same time. Jobs could be created to collect these items and prevent them from ending up in the land fill. I use much of what I find for art or I give away what I collect to folks who have a use for it. There is no excuse for such wast. I know it is cheeper in the short term to haul it away instead of paying someone to re-cycle it, but when you think about the energy expended mining, refining, and manufacturing these products, it makes a lot more sense to re-use them....... Conservation of the resources we have is a vital part of reducing energy consumption.

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DIYer on November 28, 2005 - 8:48pm

Recycling, on the other hand, is an excellent idea. One remark I have heard about aluminum is that it is "congealed electricity" since the reduction process consumes so much electric energy.

Same goes to a lesser extent for copper, steel, plastic, paper, and glass in descending order of importance (by my estimate). A lot of energy was used to create them and recycling doesn't get much attention from the powers that be.

In part, I think it may be lobbying by the extraction industries, but mostly it's cultural.

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Donal on November 28, 2005 - 9:54pm

When we began renovating our little house, my wife couldn't believe that I was reusing nails. But nails aren't cheap. We recently removed the plastic bumpers from our chair legs, which I collected in a jar. She complained to her son, who agreed that we might need them again some day. I've used old pipe to make closet rods. Virtually all the trim in the house was carefully removed, scraped, restained and reinstalled somewhere.

BTW, when did Ianqui become Yankee?

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Twilight on November 28, 2005 - 10:40pm

Sigh - it's a sickness, and I have it too! But there is precedent - in earlier times a nail would never have been wasted. They would burn old stuff just to get the nails out of it. I'm sure that changed after machine cut nails came about.

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Yankee on November 28, 2005 - 11:04pm

'bout a week ago. Just some personal housekeeping changes...sorry I didn't announce it, but I see you all figured it out anyway.

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Dan Ur on November 29, 2005 - 12:17am

A long time ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away I read an Article about recycling That changed how I looked at the act.

20 years ago we had guys that collected ceratin kinds of scrap metal. Today they keep on collecting that scrap metal even thoough it is in beat up Pickups.

Here is the problem, many of the of things we throw away are not totally trash!!

Dumpster diving has become a survival form for culture.

Look to other cultures and see what they find!!

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davidsmi on November 29, 2005 - 3:33pm

I'd be willing to bet that these jobs will come about. But they won't be minimum wage. They'll be the way some people survive. There are already examples of this in poorer societies where entire families live by sifting through the land fills.

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copperweaver on November 29, 2005 - 3:40pm

They already exist in this country. Not in the landfills but in the dumpsters. When I use to make my rounds in Athens, Ohio I would see the same families, filling garbage bags with the beer cans discarded from the fraternity houses....

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Engineer-Poet on November 29, 2005 - 7:14pm

I know it is cheeper in the short term to haul it away instead of paying someone to re-cycle it...

Copper, aluminum and other scrap are worth money. So are some whole articles in good condition, like doors. If people could get separate bins for those and get paid (or rebated) based on the value of their scrap, they might separate things themselves.

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