Beijing has a new solution to their huge, stinking garbage dumps: hosing them down with high-pressure deodorant spray guns.
With millions more people now able to afford Starbucks, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and other elements of a western, throwaway lifestyle, the landfill sites and illegal tips that ring the capital are close to overflowing.
We might be going down, but we’re damn well going to take everyone else with us.
DUstin
Wait, why am I all of the sudden thirst for a Brawndo?
freelancer
When you’re in a landfill, look for recyclable goods, when you’re in 3 Beijing landfills, you better bring some Right Guard.
Linkmeister
Taser that crap. If it’s good enough for the Seattle cops to use on a pregnant woman who was going 32mph in a 25mph zone . . .
What’s really disturbing? This was the 9th Circuit which said “okay, fine by us.” That’s theoretically the most liberal court of all the Circuit Courts.
gbear
Wait until they discover they can fire it all off into space.
Roger Moore
An interesting juxtaposition with Mr. Cole talking about throwing away garbage bags of stuff from his old apartment because he can’t be bothered to sort through it.
Of course people have always had a throw-away culture. Some of the best archaeological data comes from ancient garbage dumps. It’s just that there are so many more people around now that we’re both taking up more usable space for ourselves and needing more space for our junk.
dr. bloor
I eagerly await their over-the-counter solution to the toxic computer waste we send them.
Svensker
@Roger Moore:
Your place or mine?
Svensker
@dr. bloor:
They’ve been making it into cheap jewelry that we, in turn, sell to little girls. Win, win!
Alan
OT: Bruce Bartlett’s clarification and apology for intimating AEI muzzled it’s scholars.
I haven’t read it all yet, so hopefully I phrased that right.
Sentient Puddle
Interesting that this is tagged beer blogging. I think I’ll have one.
Mark S.
@Alan:
He walks it back a little, but not much:
electricgrendel
And while the seagulls are crying, we’ll fall but our souls are flying.
SGEW
Thank God we’re not clever enough, yet, to kill everything.
frogspawn
The high-pressure guns, which can spray dozens of litres of fragrance per minute over a distance of up to 50m, are produced by several Chinese firms and based on German and Italian technology.
Krupp perfume guns? Now I’ve seen everything.
Davis X. Machina
The number of people who ever presumed that AEI output was balanced, objective or reliable could be counted then, and can be counted now, on the fingers of one elbow.
cmorenc
One of the best uses for former landfills is as ball playing fields for soccer, lacrosse, etc. One big caveat is that any lighting support poles must be made of concrete rather than metal, because otherwise the metal could spark the combustable gas forming underground. The other big caveat is that with self-containment against toxic leakage a potential issue, irrigation of the grass playing surfaces can potentially aggravate the leaching of contaminants. However, there’s a further solution: artificial playing surfaces which of course need no watering, just vacumning (and no sports drinks either – they’re as much of a potential sticky problem on artificial turf as they are on your living room rug).
The Chinese could probably use some more soccer fields around Bejing etc.
Mike in NC
Can we try this with Texas or South Carolina?
EdTheRed
@DUstin:
It’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes. Don’t be tarded.
Short Bus Bully
We need to get those lazy scientists to finish up cold fusion/flux capacitors and we can turn that refuse into PURE POWAH….
And then sell it to other foreign countries. THAT is The American Way.
Dr. Loveless
I could definitely use one of those deodorant cannons at Comic-Con in July.
MikeTheZ
OT, but related in that its about the effort to clean up Wall Street’s garbage, Ezra Klein pointed to this article about regulation, and highlighted this point…
Lets hope the Dems see it that way.
soonergrunt
@Davis X. Machina:
You pretty much beat me to it.
The only world in which AEI is balanced is one in which the political spectrum runs from the Teabaggers to the Corporate Thug Republicans.
Pigs & Spiders
The Chinese are going to be putting this stuff in space before 2020, mark my words.
mistermix
@electricgrendel: Perhaps we’ll meet someday on my vast veranda.
Mike Kay
I wonder if they have General Tso’s chicken take-out?
Brandon
I was in China a couple weeks ago, Beijing and parts around there. And my word. Those folks love them some KFC. KFC’s were everywhere, like Starbucks in Manhattan. And every, single one of them was completely full. Amazing. One of my hosts even wanted to take me to KFC because it is the thing to do. I politely declined.
Ben S.
Glad I’m not the only one to appreciate the Decemberists here…
thomas Levenson
@Mark S.:
That quote illustrates why Bruce Bartlett, for all his damascene moment, is not yet ready to eat at the grown-ups table.
Who, outside those who still pine for the proper sort of right-wing approval, would have said that the AEI could claim a “presumption” of balance, objective or reliable work?
I have to say, cynical and past fifty as I am, I still can’t quite get how hard it is for so many to look at the plain experience of the last thirty years and say sh*t like that.
Zuzu's Petals
OT, but what’s the deal with the Mesothelioma link under the “Science” category on the right?
Calming Influence
Damn! If NYC had thought of this, Fresh Kills would still be open and holding the record for the world’s largest landfill!
Red card – the Chinese are cheating.
SGEW
@Calming Influence: I still think we should have kept Freshkills the way it was, and dedicate it as a national monument. As a warning. World’s largest manmade object! You can see it from orbit!
PeakVT
We might be going down, but we’re damn well going to take everyone else with us.
No kidding.
Central Africa gorillas extinct by mid-2020s
Nellcote
They’re ready for methane digesters.
“A landfill gas-to-energy system consists of a series of wells drilled into the landfill. A piping system connects the wells and collects the gas. Dryers remove moisture from the gas, and filters remove impurities. The gas typically fuels an engine-generator set or gas turbine to produce electricity. The gas also can fuel a boiler to produce heat or steam. Further gas cleanup improves biogas to pipeline quality, the equivalent of natural gas. Reforming the gas to hydrogen would make possible the production of electricity using fuel cell technology.”
Mark S.
@PeakVT:
I hate our species sometimes.
@thomas Levenson:
I don’t know much about AEI, but I do know whenever I see someone citing a think tank I take it with a huge grain of salt because it seems like at least half of them are just right wing propaganda factories. I don’t know if there was ever a golden age of think tanks, but conservatives have really shit all over them and ruined whatever reputation they might have once had.
SiubhanDuinne
@frogspawn #14:
Who needs to go to Beijing? There’s a woman in my office who marinates in scent. I’m a tolerant and patient person, but some days, the aroma, it causes me to retch.
SiubhanDuinne
@PeakVT #32: That is unutterably sad. I am torn between rage, and tears, and a kind of what’s-the-use despair. Need to go back to it refreshed tomorrow. I still call myself an optimist and a cheerful person at heart, but godDAMN it’s hard sometimes.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Brandon: KFC is also absurdly expensive there. I’ve only ever gone in Beijing to try it out and see what was different, and after that, there really was no reason to ever go again.
Yutsano
@Thoroughly Pizzled: There really is only one country where KFC is worth eating: Canada. All the profits from the stores there go to charity although I forget off-hand which one.
http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/sanders.asp
Money quote is at the end.
OriGuy
@cmorenc: Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California is built on top of a landfill. It’s an outdoor theater with a large lawn seating area behind the fixed seats. The year it opened, there were several small methane fires in the lawn area. Eventually they built a methane recovery system under the lawn.
SRW1
@Mark S.:
Oh Nos, not AEI ! What is next? Fox isn’t really ‘fair and balanced’? The Chamber of Commerce isn’t striving to better the life of workers? The world around me is crashing!
Mum
@Brandon:
I think that several years ago KFC tried to make inroads into India and my understanding was that after a while they pulled out. I remember thinking at that the time that, if you had a choice between a plate of dal or masala over rice versus some greasy chicken and mashed potatoes, why would you choose the chicken?
And while I realize that Chinese food in China is not necessarily the same as it is here in the states, I can’t imagine that it isn’t better and better for you than KFC. Is it just the novelty of it? Is it something that appeals primarily to the youth culture?
Alan
@SRW1:
Yes, political think tanks are biased. But they exist to be on the bleeding edge of political thought on the issues of the day. With respect to the Right, all they end up doing is repeating conventional wisdom that in reality has proven false–like deregulating banks in a laughably self correcting market or tax cuts pay for themselves. Even Frum repeats conservative conventional wisdom and it’s still just as stupid. The Right has painted itself into the dunce corner.
hidflect
The Chinese eat KFC out of snobbery. To show they’re “wealthy” and “advanced”. It’s their great failing. A business associate of mine was taken to eat eagle once. He said it was disgusting in taste. But the prestige, ah!
Anyone who says China is going to become the global dominant player hasn’t seen the rivers literally full from bank to bank with plastic rubbish and doesn’t explain why their p1ss-poor imitation of the Japanese growth model isn’t going to collapse a 100x worse than the Japanese economy did…
Shoe
@Mum: I imagine most mass produced chinese food in China is similar to mass produced chinese food in the US. I can see how US fast food can compete. Heh.
Mark S.
@hidflect:
I think a crash is inevitable. I don’t think 10% growth every year is sustainable. It’s going to be ugly.