Tuesday, July 14, 2026

LMG

It'd be great if we could change the mental image that pops into our heads when we hear the word "garbage".  We tend to think of stuff that fits in bags or even trucks, which is not wrong, but what about Large Modern Garbage (or LMG as no one calls it)?  I'm talking about yachts, cruise ships, trains, airliners, large office buildings... stuff that for thousands of years, didn't exist, so people never had to face the issue of throwing it out.  Everything carries some amount of end-of-life debt.  Some things carry a lot.  

Most of the steel is recovered, but tons of things are left to rot, which I suppose will happen over a couple hundred years.  Maybe.  I guess we'll just stick these things in some forgotten corner of the globe (or China as it often turns out) and hope that we don't build them fast enough to overwhelm their graveyards.  These gigantic things are usually seen as great achievements but we don't always think about how good we've become at creating things that are too large to throw away.

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