Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and plastic

Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by XorNot on Thursday October 21, 2021 @06:25PM (#28951564)

Reusing plastics is honestly one of those "do we need to" things these days. The theory is that if we reuse them, then the waste doesn't pollute the environment - but landfilled plastic waste is basically sequestered carbon, and plastic pollution is ocean-borne and mostly being directly produced by poor environmental practice - not unrecycled plastic waste or landfill escape.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by gonzo41 on Thursday October 21, 2021 @06:50PM (#28951780)

Yeah I agree, I'm pretty pro, bury plastic in the ground, but I figure if we need to coke steel rather than digging up coal we can just divert a few trucks.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by gremloni on Thursday October 21, 2021 @06:51PM (#28951795)

Yeah seriously, bury the plastic really deep away from water tables and forget about it. We clearly can’t recycle most of the stuff. Couple that with moving away from a frivolous use of plastic and I think we are golden. There are a bunch of abandoned mines miles away from substantial water tables. Fill those up.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by politician on Thursday October 21, 2021 @08:41PM (#28952554)

We can’t figure out how to store a minimal quantity of radioactive waste in a purpose-built salt mine dozens of miles away from any small town. I have no faith that we can find places to store megatons of plastic waste.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by potatoman22 on Thursday October 21, 2021 @08:52PM (#28952614)

Plastic doesn't radiate.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by politician on Thursday October 21, 2021 @09:57PM (#28952975)

NIMBY neighbors don’t compromise.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by haimez on Thursday October 21, 2021 @10:14PM (#28953052)

They might if it affected their states tax revenue and was only a plastic landfill (which is to say, not a compromise but a pure self interest play).

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by gremloni on Friday October 22, 2021 @02:12AM (#28954164)

There shouldn’t be any neighbors in the middle of nowhere.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by Chris2048 on Friday October 22, 2021 @11:30AM (#28958464)

funny question: could we mix the nuclear waste with the plastic to make (the plastic) degrade faster?

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by politician on Friday October 22, 2021 @02:51PM (#28961053)

That's brilliant. I would love to learn if that could work and wouldn't just create a bunch of radioactive plastic.

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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by Chris2048 on Friday October 22, 2021 @02:54PM (#28961113)

Even if it did, if it ended up enriching the soil carbon-content, would it matter?

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