That is why I used the wording .... In some respects.Peteski wrote: ↑Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:56 amI'm not sure that's totally accurate. If we look at air pollution in the UK, it has actually improved significantly since the 1970s. I do agree about the rampant consumerism and greed though!Col Lamb wrote: ↑Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:08 amAnd that is precisely why the world is screwed.Peteski wrote: ↑Fri Aug 17, 2018 10:11 am
I believe most of the millions of small scale batteries used in phones, laptops etc currently end up in landfill, probably because people simply throw them in the waste bin or conventional recycling plants are unable or unwilling to deal with them. But it's not going to be the same situation with much larger car batteries for a number of reasons. In principle these batteries are close to 100% recyclable, it just needs the commercial/political motivation to actually do it
and that's the challenge facing the next generation.
At least with large scale car batteries you can't simply toss them in your bin to dispose of, so the vast majority will end up in specialist recycling plants, probably tied to the vehicle manufacturers. I believe there's already a very successful program of recycling conventional lead acid car batteries and very few of those end up in land fill today (at least in the UK).
Each generation has totally failed to solve the problems of the previous generations.
In fact in some respects things have got far worst in the last twenty years with the rampant disposable consumerism and corporate and individual greed.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel there is only some poor sod with a torch powered by NiCad cells.
From a whole planet view there is minimum benefit from reducing pollution in a country if that and others have thousands of heavy polluting container ships criss crossing the earth transporting goods to them that could be manufactured fairly locally.
Deforrestation in the far east is rampant to satisfy the massive building boom there and in the Gulf, many of the felled rainforests have become Palm Oil plantations which in turn is a very heavy polluting product to produce.
Plastic waste in oceans, microscopic plastic beads in vanity products, unrecyclable packaging the list goes on.