The Future is Full of Zombie Garbage
mrpg writes:
https://hakaimagazine.com/news/the-future-is-full-of-zombie-garbage/
In the early 2010s, garbage started falling out of the sand dunes in Lingreville, France. Beset by chronic coastal erosion, a long-forgotten landfill was spewing its rotten trove into the ocean. In 2016, a powerful storm dug into the site. The next year, cleanup crews stripped 14,000 cubic meters of sand mixed with waste-including asbestos-from the site. Now, researchers are warning that coastal communities around the world are set to face the same fate, with destabilized landfills on the verge of releasing large amounts of waste into the ocean.
Humans have been throwing everything from hazardous industrial waste to domestic rubbish into landfills for decades. Landfills were originally seen as eternal dumping grounds that could hold waste forever. It didn't take long for environmental concerns to arise, and today legislation often dictates what can and can't be chucked into a landfill. But the vast majority of landfills predate such rules. And with sea level rise causing more extreme erosion, flooding, and storm surges, we are on the verge of being reunited with much of this refuse.
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