chrisv <chrisv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> Mark Kent wrote:
>
>>Replace a horse with a car, and you create a vast chain of waste and
>>pollution across the whole supply-chain which the horse couldn't come
>>close to creation of.
>
> "Polution", yes. "Waste", I'm not so sure. Tapping the "free" energy
> of fossil fuels to power our machines has been quite the bargain for
> mankind.
>
The fuels have been wonderful, but the cars and all the associated bits
to make them litter the landscape in landfills, slag-heaps, dumps and
soon on. Consider that oil-rigs have to be disposed of somewhere, as do
oil-tankers, and so on. It's all pollution and waste materials which
we're not very good at disposing of. Please don't misunderstand me - I
like cars very much, but I am very aware that we (industrialised
countries) have now had a couple of hundred years of solid dumping of
waste behind us, much of which cannot biodegrade in any reasonable
timescale.
The current drive here for recycling is a very positive thing, of
course, and I hope we see more of it, but I'm not sure that it's enough
on its own. I can't recall the exact numbers, but the rate at which we
dump into landfills is just not sustainable, and must be reduced somehow.
Anyway, I'm very pro-technology, but I'm not pro-pollution and waste...
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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