"Speculative Accumulation" of CRT Glass: Symptom or Cure?

I went into two hospitals.   One hospital was full of patients who might die.  A group was protesting on the sidewalk.  Any patient's death could be - potentially - malpractice!

The other "hospital" was not, technically, a hospital so-to-speak.  It was a cemetery.  They killed and buried every patient.  They explained they were avoiding any speculation.  

This is the argument today about a recyclable commodity, CRT (cathode ray tube) glass.  Somehow or other the idea is getting out there that "speculation" of CRT glass that might get dumped rather than recycled is so rampant that "landfilling" is the solution.   ADC (alternative daily cover, or layering CRT glass in a landfill) is a "final solution", and trumps CRT "recycling" because it happens in less than 365 days.

Basel Action Network, which receives payola from shredding companies for their "E-Steward" certification, is busy waving the warning flag about the dangers of "speculative" accumulation, or possible future landfilling of CRT glass.  Piles of CRT glass in warehouses or in mining territory have been there for more than EPA's 365 days, BAN warns.   The risk behind of "speculative accumulation" is that you begin to doubt whether the glass at the recycler might wind up at the dump.

Lauren Roman of Transparent Planet (a former BAN staffer) is circulating a petition to get EPA to "enforce" against speculative accumulation.  It is true that the CRT glass in certain piles has not been recycled yet, and therefore true it may wind up at the dump.  The solution?  End "speculation" by dumping it.   Kill the patient and put our minds at ease.

Will any of the piles at recycling plants wind up needing to be disposed?  Possibly.  That's what the "speculative accumulation" rules mean.  If you are granted a "recycling exemption" to not be considered a "waste", you have an egg timer on it.  365 Days.

So some states (including Vermont) are buying into the argument that landfilling, if done in the right order, is preferable to recycling on the 366th day.   Broken pieces of CRTs, applied as as wind cover at the end of the day, are somehow "safer" than the intact pieces covered over at the beginning of the day?  Because after 366 days, maybe the CRT glass at the recycler will - gasp - be landfilled.

"Dump the glass now, the suspense is killing us!"

Some of the patients being treated at some of the hospitals will wind up in the cemetery.  How exactly does that make the cemetery preferable to the hospital?  It's such incredibly bad logic that it gags the mind.

Hurry and dump the CRT glass, before the recycling market has a chance to save it.

The 365 day orbit of the earth on its axis is important to taxes.  Is it important to mineral policy?  Why is leaded silicate from mining - minerals like Angelsite - immune from the 365 days of "speculative accumulation"?  Why is leaded slag (used leaded silicate from metal smelting) allowed to sit for decades before being remanded (recycled), but CRT tube glass is not?

Liabilities become malpractice.  As we posted 11 months ago on this blog, CRT glass end markets are being killed by friendly fire.

Leaded silicates can sit on the ground outdoors for decades after being mined (groundwater monitoring laws apply).  Virgin material is exempt from RCRA, it's a "commodity", not a "waste".  No 365 days, and no harm to the environment either.

Here is a response from Dave Dlubak, who sent furnace ready cullet from Yuma both through my company's purchase order with a Mexico smelter and (in much larger quantities) through a second smelter.  Like Dlubak, we do busienss in Arizona.  It is mining country.   Phelps Dodge has a huge copper smelter there, which can use leaded silicate as fluxing agent, to avoid and replace mined material.

They have an end use, as do three other smelters we work with in Mexico.

The question is, why would these smelters use recycled content, given the uproar?

Why would a hospital seek to cure patients, when no good deed goes unpunished, and cemeteries and slaughterhouses are called "stewards", and lost patients are nothing but a liability?

Recyclers:   We have met the enemy, and he is us.