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by aziaziazi·3y ago·view on hn ↗
Google “global waste trade”, it’s the same mafiosi level as carbon credits: rich countries proclaims to have clean hands because someone in another juridiction accept their money.

Waste management is also a joke within the rich countries: landfills still exists and those recycling program seems nice on a consumer (=voter) side: you have a colored special bin, state flyers tells you how recycling (is supposed to) work and buy sometimes a (partially) recycled bootle or pullover. In practice 5% of stuff put in the bin is recycled, the rest goes to landfill or incinerators.

1 comments
Both landfills and incinerators are good places for waste as long as they're not next to water bodies.

They don't contribute to the waste in oceans that this sub-thread seemed to be about.

They do: landfill are surrounded by fence and/or buried but most (not all) plastics degrades due to heat, sun, rain, ph of other materials and micro organism. Then all of those little flakes

- fly away with the wind

- are carried down the groundwater by rain. This is called leachate Modern landfills are protected by liners but those have a lifespan and eventually any of them could leak.