nonsense

Some resources may not be consumed (a sandy beach at a resort), but some are (if you burn oil it's gone), and others may be scattered so that they can't be reused at a reasonable cost (there is a little bit of gold in most things like cell phones, cameras, computers... but the cost of getting it back out at the end of it's useful life is more then it's worth).

Economists are famous for defining a resource as something THEY can make money from while ignoring any external costs.

I define thee

Economists have much in common with environmentalists. They both make up a load of crap as they go along. And I dislike them both.

We shouldn't invent fancy math to prove that being utter selfish bastards "is economical" and we shouldn't be hysterically shouting around unfounded or even provably untrue propaganda. Neither economics nor environmentalism? What I want then? A little of both, a boatload of neither. I think we ought to take good care of the earth we have, and see it as a custodianship for our kids' kids' kids' and so on. Least we could do, really.

So yes, do go ahead and figure out how to make waste useful again. Even if it isn't quite "economical" right now. Do keep an eye out for not making the cure worse than the ailment, too. And don't keep on spending subsidies just because "it is green", especially not if doing so pushing out other promising technologies. Do, however, keep an eye on the total short and long term costs, and calculate them in full, including "creating" the resources for the process and cleaning up the mess afterward. It's not difficult, really. But it does require elbow grease, clue, vision, and realism. That's, like, hard, man.

critical understanding fail

You missed the point

If we did not have the technologies that require oil (plastic/petrol/tarmac) oil would not be a resource it would just be black sludge that we don't need.

Not that simple

It would not be worth it if they had to pay to collect the phones and only received the value of the gold.

There are now laws that require companies to deal with their end of life products, and fees to pay for recycling them paid at the time of purchase. People are told not to chuck it in the trash but to take/send it some place for recycling. The cost of breaking up the phones is subsidised so it's worth doing (and they don't end up in landfill or trash mountains in India or Africa).

Not yet.

There IS a need for some expediency right now, but most of it has been properly directed at keeping people out of harm's way, keeping the problem from spreading too much...and with keeping the stuff flowing into the Danube from being too alkaline (one tributary seems to be toast, but the effort on the Danube itself is proceeding; nothing long-term is expected as long as they keep pace). Once the immediate situation is done and dusted, everyone can take a deep breath, go, "Okay, that's over with," and start laying out the plans for dealing with the mud, which doesn't have to proceed so quickly.

I see that a bit differently...

"as well as drowning people - as happened to some unfortunates in Hungary." reads (to me) as "similar to what happens with other types of flood, like, y'know, water."

And "Greenpeace (hey, surprise!)" is dead on - name one environmental "disaster" that Greenpeace didn't jump on as either the end of the world, or leading to the aforementioned apocalypse...

Not so obviously then

Does it read uncaring? Callous? Not to me. The article is about red mud and its properties. One of the properties is that you can drown in it. Did you know you can die under an avalanche too? Oh noes, that ebil ebil DHMO stuff struck again! Get over it already.

As to arrogant, well, if you're referring to Tim the term you're looking for is "irony". Of course greenpeace can be depended upon to do their shouty bit. You can also depend on them overstating things to the point that they must have an intern or two on the task of finding technically correct but completely irrelevant things to produce flashy terror-laden headlines with. Which, as we all know, is a very helpful thing to do in cases like this.

Not a lot of acidic waste.

The most common source of acid waste is from mining and rock cutting. Last I checked, there aren't a lot of significant sources of acid mine/rock drainage near Hungary (the closest ones I know are in Spain). There's also the fact this drainage is pretty complex stuff. Mixing with caustic soda can be unpredictable.

So shine a light then, o wise one

I look forward to reading your analysis enlightening us about all the deleterious effects on the ecosystem that haven't been expounded upon in Tim's analysis. I mean this in simple straight up fasion: If you know better, do tell.

Shaver's disease

Hardly a huge ENVIRONMENTAL catastrope.

Sorry, no relevant facts...

...in your otherwise interesting posting.

Quicklime? New place for the BOFH's, um, "unsatisfied clients"?

I hesitate to make light of what is clearly a horrendous situation (not just a wall of mud, but a wall of highly alkaline mud, with who- knows- what ecological eventualities), but if a resource presents itself it's a shame to waste it.

In the context of Worstall's views, "disaster" has little meaning

Given what I have seen of Mr. Worstall's writing since I found his Danube piece offensive, I think it likely that he has scant concern or sympathy for the dead along the Danube, the dead in China, the dead in the UK, or the dead anywhere else.

Mr. Worstall has a disturbing take on the world; he seems to believe that people's fates are almost entirely determined by individual merit and effort. Rather like the Calvinists, Mr. Worstall appears to regard individuals' good and ill fortunes to be the result of some intrinsic self-worth (or, for the Calvinists, worth in the eyes of God).

My wife is a wildlife biologist. She regards the almost-certain destruction of the fauna and flora of the Danube as a long-term environmental catastrophe. It will take years for the river system to recover, and the resulting ecology will likely be rather different than the one that existed before the spill. Invasive and disturbance species (these are two separate groups) will have the upper hand for a long time to come. Exactly how long is speculative, and good scientists don't speculate.

The environmental problems of the Danube basin have not been ludicrously overhyped. The deaths resulting from the incompetence of the corporation which produced the red sludge will lead to changes in laws and behaviors--and this will be another long-term environmental consequence of the affair, Mr. Worstall and Mr. (or Ms.) Miller notwithstanding.

As to the attempts at sarcasm and denigration: they are inappropriate in such matters. The effect of such attempts, at best, is to amuse those who agree with you and dismay those who do not. Put another way, such behavior does not advance either your argument or cause.

Yes ... but

You and everyone else taking issue with this article seem to be objecting to the tone rather than the facts as given. According to Hungarian officials (Interior Minister Sandor Pinter and Tibor Dobson, a spokesperson for disaster crews) the risk to the Danube is now 'negligible'.

So if the science in this article is good (and I've yet to see a proper rebuttal), then quite frankly, I'd rather take the 'sarcasm and denigration' than hysteria.

But please step forward. Show us that 'the almost-certain destruction of the fauna and flora of the Danube' is indeed happening as a result of this spill. Otherwise, with all due respect, shut up.

There's still time to remove that foot

"I think it likely that he has scant concern or sympathy" - oh well, if you 'think' so, that's clearly an end of the argument. If you don't have any evidence, perhaps an apology might be in order.

"almost-certain destruction of the fauna and flora of the Danube" - is this a fact, or just something else you 'think'? I've seen no evidence to support such a view or, as it might be, ludicous over-hyping.

There are many valid reasons to be concerned about the health of the world's waterways and wetlands. Last time I was in Eastern Hungary, there was great concern about the pollution of the local rivers by cyanide from mining operations across the border in Romania. But Greens leaping onto the bandwagon of the latest news item, only serve to weaken the rational case for environmental improvement (the boy who cried wolf, etc.)

True but...

"I'm not sure of the modern numbers, but an old 286 chip will get you a tenner from a gold scrap dealer."

But what about the rest of the computer? Chuck it in a container and ship it off to India?

If you have to deal with the whole computer it's going to cost to tear it apart and sort all the different materials, and some stuff you will have to pay to get rid of (mixed plastics, the motherboard with lead/tin solder for example). The only way you can make money is if you are subsidised. More places are charging e-waste fees at the time purchase to subsidise recycling at the end of life of the product.