I apprenticed repairing coal cars and mining equipment and I can confirm the industry is pretty wasteful. we used to get cars that still had nearly a hundred pounds of coal in them. we used to quietly shovel it out in the winter and use it to run little shop stoves we called dumpers for heat.

That's called gleaning and dates back to biblical times or before.

If you look at in based on percentages, you see whilst the amount may be large on a human scale, the time to 'get' that last bit isn't worthwhile.

The bible literally says you have to let widows and orphans glean your fields.

Do you perchance have a reference for that?

We're deep into late stage capitalism now, so nobody gets to glean... expired (but perfectly fine food) doesn't even get donated lest the corporation get sued when someone chokes on a pretzel.

There are many gleaning projects all over the US. I just just looked and here is a nice interactive map: https://nationalgleaningproject.org/gleaning-map/

It is not just “church folk” that participate - my kids public school does it as part of their community service projects.

"late stage capitalism" is a phrase that doesn't really mean anything; but just to be clear - can't pin that on the capitalists! If the government makes it a liability to give away expired food then it won't happen, capitalism or otherwise.

The government doesn't make it a liability. If someone sued you because you choked on something, that's a civil matter. Nothing to do with government.

For 100 pounds of coal, the bulk buyers paid less than $5, typically $2-3. That’s hardly worth the hassle for them.

Nowadays we have waste oil burners to heat shops around here. We used to give all our used engine oil to a mechanic neighbor with a big shop.

Regulated now in the UK - dirty engine oils are ‘hazardous” and need an expensive local council permit.

How do you light the stuff? I toured a coal mine once, and brought some home, and even with a blowtorch I could not get it to ignite - it just popped little pieces off with some sparks.

It was very hard and black and shiny.

It needs a lot of heat and air to get anthracite going. We'd start a fire with wood, get some wood coals built up and then add the coal. It was important to close the door quickly on coal stove as the coaldust is explosive and we once cracked the glass on our stove. There was an electric draft fan on the coal stove we had, I don't know if this is needed or makes it easier to burn.