Nov 9th, 2016: Trash to Treasure

[xoxoxoBruce]

Seems one mans trash is another man's treasure.
The Covanta trash to steam plant in where my trash goes by law.
It's illegal for trash haulers in this county to take it anywhere else.

[There’s a Covanta Holding Corp. incinerator outside Philadelphia that produces electricity from burning garbage.
It also produces something else: stacks and stacks of blackened, sooty coins.

Over the course of a year, those nickels, dimes and quarters add up to about $360,000. That’s seven times
the average income in the Philadelphia metropolitan region, and the money is piling up as Covanta waits for the
U.S. Mint to resume coin purchases under an exchange program it suspended in November.

What? People throwing away money?

About $61.8 million of loose change is accidentally thrown away every year in the U.S., Covanta estimates.
The coins get swept off restaurant tables, mixed in with scraps when people empty their pockets, and vacuumed
up from carpets or sofa cushions. The money used to end up in the dump, but as trash volume increases and
open space dwindles, landfill-disposal costs are up 25 percent in the past decade. That’s created an incentive
for Covanta and other companies to develop ways to sift through mountains of garbage and extract steel, iron,
aluminum and copper for sale to recyclers.

That shows just how fat this country is.
I've sucked up coins with My central vacuum system , but my vacuum doesn't get dumped in the trash.
The last time it sucked up my hearing aid, what a pain in the ass in was to dig that out.
Link

[Pi]

Let's talk about landfill mining. They estimate that in Germany non recycled metal worth 9 billion € has been thrown away and lying with other trash in landfill (mostly from the 60's and 70's).

[Snakeadelic]

Hell, all over Europe and Russia copper scavenging is a huge problem! Even in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone they've found evidence of people ripping apart structures for the copper wiring. I'd bet there are some folks in every US urban area who'd be willing to muck through landfills for the stuff--greedy, like stupid, is pervasive these days. Offer people a free gas mask, 10% return on coins, and a suitable percentage return on things like jewelry, old metal toys, and wiring, and I'd bet our landfills would be sifted as thoroughly as pigs will turn over your compost pile if you throw handfuls of corn kernels in as you build it up. Offer increasing-percentage-return incentives on things like separating biodegradables from others, and dumps might start turning a profit.

If what all the Democrat predictions are saying and my entire family is about to be starving and homeless (because all of us are on disability, which of course the fearful believe is in the top 5 things Trump will ruin before going on trial for assorted non-political crimes), I can imagine there are families out there with kids to try to support who'd be willing to 'suit up' and go digging. I can even imagine territory fights breaking out over garbage from the richest neighborhoods! If Philly coughs up over $300K a year in just coins, imagine what kind of stuff gets deliberately or accidentally chucked in Beverly Hills...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hell, all over Europe and Russia copper scavenging is a huge problem!

It is here to. So many foreclosed, empty houses are being stripped of wiring/plumbing, and destroyed in the process, it's a major problem.

[footfootfoot]

I remember in the 70s all the copper drain pipes and gutters were being stolen from apartment and commercial buildings. A few people were nabbed when they plummeted with copper in their hands that had detached from the wall they had been climbing only moments earlier...

[glatt]

They were just practicing their rock climbing skills, you see.