[HankRearden (OP)]

So, we mine minerals and ores at the moment because we cannot artificially create them, and we find them in large deposits. Couldn't there be a civilizations say, 15,000 years from now after modern western society has died out, that mines are huge deposits of plastic and uses them like we use metal?

[Ethos]

So, we mine minerals and ores at the moment because we cannot artificially create them, and we find them in large deposits. Couldn't there be a civilizations say, 15,000 years from now after modern western society has died out, that mines are huge deposits of plastic and uses them like we use metal?

Interesting thought.................

[Chemistry4me]

Use them to do what for example?

[HankRearden (OP)]

Like say they've discovered that plastic becomes pliable when heated and as such they heat shards of it over a fire, and warp them into bowls.

[Mazurka]

Every so often, the waste industry comes up with "landfill mining" of one sort or another.  A good contemporary example is blast furnace slag being used (depending on its physical/ chemical properties) as a lightweight aggregate, concrete additive; agricultural purposes and even in the manufacture of glass.  Old coal tips and mineral tailings dams have also been processed to remove valuable materials.

There is no reason why plastic could not be mined (alongside glass and other inert material) from landfills in the far future particularly when the waste has fully broken down and no longer producing gas.  I guess the difficulty would be that simply melting differnt types of plastic together makes a fairly limited material with variable properties.  From direct experience most older landfills consist of a dark grey/black  poorly differentiated goo...

[chris]

Interesting discussion; I thought I'd bump it back into consciousness!

[SeanB]

Well, most old landfills are pretty high in metals and such, so are actually economical to mine now for the gold and copper content. You can even use sewer sludge residue as a good source of gold and other precious metals, simply from all the particles washed down from wear on jewellery.

[homebrewer]

Their is quite a lot of research going on to clean the oceans and we will probably see some crafts to do just that, very shortly.

[yor_on]

heh, you're the optimistic one aren't you :)

I don't think we will mine it, if it has gone that bad we should be close to extinction, and I much prefer a better scenario. But I guess that those looking at our waste will wonder what the f* we thought we were doing.

[homebrewer]

In the last 40 hours, Orb in the US published to concerns from many imminent scientist from around the world, to raise the awareness of microplastics and fibres in our food chain and in the waters we consume. Specific recent research carried out in Germany found contamination in 24 beer brands from fibres and fragments, as well as in honey and in sugar.

We truly need to begin to open our ears and eyes to this problem, looking away will not work ... in the hope that the problem will disappear by some magic or a God in heaven. Many Countries in the world feed their inhabitants regulary with fish, Countries like India for example. If these fish stocks can not be maintained because of the contamination of our Ocean floors with micro fibres, a great hardship will be the consequence.

What can we do to move forward, and turn our problem into a profit:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firstly, we must ask the DOI, to make funds available to remove microfibres from the effluent of washing machines and the return air from our electric dryers. Many universities would be delighted to undertake such R&D work.

Secondly, we must reduce the amount of microplastics from our cosmetics, as they so small that they can not be filtered by our sewage works.

Thirdly, we should provide grants for UK charities to clean the UK beaches shore lines from plastic residue.

And lastly, we could ask our boys in blue uniforms to sample our ocean floors and shore lines regulary, to appraise our UK  microplastic contamination, "they have the tools let them do the job".

Good night.


PS:  If it came to it, I would not run away "I would do all I can to solve the problem".

[evan_au]

To some extent, recyclers are already mining our rubbish stream for plastics, aluminium and iron, among others - provided we put it in the right rubbish bin.

I understand that infra-red spectroscopy is used to identify the type of plastic in individual items, and deflect them into bins of the right material (it is easier than having a computer read the number in the little triangle).

Where I am visiting, many cultural artifacts have been lost because later people broke them up and reused them for other purposes - this applied to bronze statues and marble blocks. And iron rusts away to nothing relatively quickly.

If we are to mine plastic from landfill, we may need to be fairly quick (in biological timescales) - bacteria have been found in plastic waste dumps that can break down the more common plastics in the dump. If these crossbreed and spread widely, they may digest many plastics in waste dumps.

Recently, it was discovered that wax worms could digest polyethylene, one of the more inert plastics...

[homebrewer]

Excellent article. but how do we stop microplastics entering into our food chain ?

Both from potable water and from seafood ?

Are you aware of any global R&D efforts to this specific problem ?

[yor_on]

We don't, 'avoid it' that is. It's the same as with any other 'rest product' of sorts, that interact in some way with us. It's only when it reaches the point where so many have problems from it that we must act, that we do, normally that is. There is always 'trends' to consider naturally.

We have a lot of stuff in us those days. Gardeners nowadays tend to avoid human dung as not being suitable.

btw: turning it into a 'profit' may be the right way to talk about it, but in my opinion, the wrong way to think about it.

[homebrewer]

We may have a lot of things in us those days,
but we may wish to drink water and eat food,
free of man made contaminations.

To this end, I say Thank You.