HACKER Q&A
📣 in_vestor

Is anyone pursuing longshot tech for recycling / remediating landfills?


I have had a lifelong interest in cleaning up trash—-something that’s probably rooted in deep-seated aesthetics and maybe a bit of OCD.

My first career was in standard finance/tech and left me with enough flexibility to try to do something I’m really passionate about.

I have rigorously followed the academic literature and commercial development of recycling tech. It has been a disheartening journey. Recycling doesn’t work as well as people think. Promising solutions like plasma gasification had lots of engineering and economic challenges. A recent push in Europe for landfill mining went nowhere.

What is really needed is a single stream solution where almost any material can go in the front end, and out the back end comes useful elemental products or inert products.

Is anyone working on long-shot technology that would do this? If so, I would like to network. I’m not interested in something to make incremental changes around the edges. I’m interested in the type of tech that would be revolutionary.


  👤 PaulHoule Accepted Answer ✓

👤 giantg2
I haven't heard of anything that actually works. I would maybe look at prevention as an alternative - things like compostsble packaging, reduction in packaging, bring your own packaging (zero waste lifestyle), etc.