thinking about rubbish and landfill where does more stuff come from all the time aren't there just a limited number of molecules in the world?

[zippitippitoes]

....where does the albert hall worth of landfill rubbish every hour in this country come from if the earth doesn't keep getting more stuff/molecules to make it from?

er

one reason i can think of is you can grow stuff like trees -> wood ->paper -> nappies

things from inside the earth like oil are used to make plastic milk cartons which live forever

metals are extracted from the earth to make cars

if oil is made into plastic, is there no way that plastic can be made into something else unless it's a special kind of plastic? Subject to huge pressure or something?

why can't all plastic be biodegradeable?

i think it comes down to money as always

making un-biodegradable plastic is a helluva lot cheaper than making any biodegradable environment-friendly kind

You know, I've thought this too.

And Water, I don't understand why water 'disappears' if you flush the loo or let the tap run while you brush your teeth (no, I don't). I thought it went into the drains where it goes to the sewage plant, where it is cleaned and recyled (that's what Auntie Mabel told us). Isn't that one of the reasons we pay water rates?

Even if that's not the case, it can't all just disappear, shouldn't it drain back into the water-table?

I've often thought that with water shortages zippiti - why is the world short of water when surely there can't ever be any less of it? Is it just that it's in the wrong place / wrong format?!?

who says the world is short of water?

well we often hear of areas suffering unusual droughts. and there are the water shortages in the UK (altho' I think that's mainly cos of overpopulation in some areas, with building schemes continuing to make the problem worse).

Isn't most of the developing world short of water?!

the developing world has always been short of water

some areas are short of water and then some areas are being flooded again and again, the sea is reclaiming the land etc

The problem with wasting water is that you are wasting energy. It takes energy to pump the water from a to b, energy to build reservoirs and pipes to contain it so that it is there when we need it, and so when it magically appears out of your tap, and down the drain, it will take lots of energy = electricity = more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to replace it. (I think)

and what about the chemicals used to treat the water ?

hope you were expecting a serious answer..

hey ho - resources/molecules are finite, ask anyone who lived through WWII about having to cope without imported goods.We are shifting biomass & resources around this planet at a momentous rate.

many plastics are recyclable, the triangle on the bottom of plastic packaging tells you what kind of plastic it is for this purpose, but we aren't geared up for it in the UK because it needs to be sorted by type eg PP, PET, PPT

the water cycle is a bloody complex thing (understatement), AFIK, runoff & sewage eventually finds its way back into rivers/streams then the sea then depends on weather systems as to where it gets precipitated.
water tables rely on groundwater permeating through to them but many ground areas are now impermeable due to pavements,roads, civilisation generally (add up the number of gardens now paved for offstreet parking in the UK & you'll get an idea how a small surface area becomes a big deal).(NB a local company in Reading wanted to create Park & Ride on water meadows that are flooded every year- savvy planning officials refused it fortunately)
Bramshott yes - sometimes water volume isn't where its used most but abstracting it from elsewhere causes other problems, in the USA increased abstraction from the Colorado river upstream causes big shortages downstream, in India building deeper wells to get to previously unobtainable water has increased population density & also water use so the water table is depleted and even deeper wells need to be bored...
dum di diddly dum
I'm no expert on this, but it's troubling ...

hooleymama has answered much of this I think. Just to add some other things;

1. Only 2% of earth's water is fresh. More and more of this we pollute, particularly with nitrates and pesticides run-off from farming. That's why organics is so important.

1. Huge air pollution from the US has caused a shift in the world's weather systems. These weather systems that wrap around the circumference of the globe have shifted south. This has changed weather patterns for whole continents and for particular countries. The Sahara is drier and expanding for example. This seems also to have changed precipitation patterns for the UK ad particularly the S-east as well.

1. Yes, more and more countries are trying to solve increasingly erratic rainfall by boring down deeper into reservoirs, which have been filling up slowly over millions of years. Needless to say those resources are fast getting depleted. This is happening in Dehli, Western China and the West coast of the US for e.g.

1. Yes, (molecules) mineral resources are basiclly finite because they take millions of years to form. Oil/gas are reservoirs of carbon stored away for millions of years but we have releases them all at once....hence global warming and all the problems it brings.

Sorry, a bit long but it's a complex subject!

yes interested in serious answers or philosophical answers...

just contemplating how long we can keep changing raw resources into goods, the rate must now be extremely quick and what is going to happen to ameliorate the depletion of resources amongst other things

where does China get its materials from to feed its factories

I think China is relatively rich on natural resources, very big country and all that, but they may also do a bit of what the British Empire did and snaffle resources from other annexed countries..
eg BP was originally Anglo-Iranian oil

Chinas biggest resource is its very large and relatively cheap workforce.

when I'm feeling pessimistic I think the philosophical answer to when is it going to stop- when it has to- when it all goes tits up. human nature seems to work that way. Unless its legislated for, but green policies aren't the biggest vote winners.

optimistically what you can do as an individual is to be aware of the environmental impact of the resources you use and how to limit it...oh and tell the people around you, maybe they won't all care but some will.

China in now increasingly practising something called 'soft power' diplomacy around the world, with whatever country has resources that it needs to feed its factories and ultimately our products. S-P diplomacy means they say whatever the country they're sucking up to wants to hear. Often this means nothing is said about 'democratic ideals', as the US does for a supposed prerequisite to trade. Sudan is an example of where China is becoming a big player in extracting oil; Sudan accounts for 7% of China's increasing oil imports. China, much to the concern of the US, is cozying up to central asian oil rich countries too.

Brazil is burning down the Amazon even faster now with soyabeans being a major crop. Vegetarians beware and organic food buyers....sorry!

How do we slow down this mad scramble for resources? I doubt the answer is a particularly nice one. But we have to live in hope that we can all change things for the better over the next 2 generations.