this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Lettuces in landfills take up to 25 years to decompose.
Wait, what? How is that possible? When its in my fridge its a race against time but in a landfill its just chilling?
Lack of moisture and oxygen because it's so compacted
Why do we need fridges if we can just put things in the landfill and have it last longer
Shit you're into something
I find this so hard to believe.
Had a quick search, nothing really credible.
Of course it's going to depend on a lot of variables, but I can't imagine it taking more than a year in any case.
A lot of bacteria doesn't need significant oxygen to decompose things, and it's not like it's the bottom of the dead sea.
Hard to believe was what was being asked π the number is present in many websites about trash or composting, but I don't know it's exact origin. But I guess at some moment someone digged on a 25 year old landfill and found remains of a lettuce.
Even if this is exaggerating, the moral of the story is that it's such a waste to send organics to landfills at a time where we're losing soils at record pace. Food waste should be composted and returned to the soil.
But it's possible that that lettuce was a fresh and plastic wrapped thrown to the landfill like that, because that does happen as well. And maybe that created optimal conditions to prevent decomposition.
Not really, Hard to believe but true was the question - but there's no evidence or even theory that this one may be true.
Ordinarily I'm not a super nitpicky asshole, but given the 100% true requirement it feels kind of appropriate?
The number of websites quoting the same thing makes it seem credible but ultimately doesn't mean much. All I can find is blog-spam quoting this number. Suppose I write on my blog that lettuce decays in 25 days.
Obviously, we shouldn't be putting vegetable matter in landfill, but hyperbole has ever been a very poor way to promote ones cause.
The anaerobes are already present on the lettuce from day 1. Wrapping in plastic doesn't keep them out because they're already in. Even if you could create optimal conditions for preserving lettuce in landfill, that's not really the same as the claim which is being made here.
I really don't know anything about this but ... It looks as though most vegetables will be 100% sludge after 8 weeks in anaerobic conditions.
I suspect that this 25 year factoid is derived from some specific conditions and very specific use of the term "completely decomposed". For example, maybe under laboratory conditions, anaerobic decomposition quickly turns a lettuce to sludge in 8 weeks, but can't break down cellulose polymer chains or something. So for all intents and purposes the lettuce is gone but if you looked at the sludge 20 years later you would still find some of those polymer chains present.
I first heard this number at a conference by a PhD expert who studies these issues. But I never went looking for the exact origin, because I didn't find it so hard to believe (given the context).
Certainly there are some specific conditions that freeze that decomposition and that might not always be present. This article mentions the lignin effect, that delays decomposition in anaerobic conditions, but no specific reference to lettuce. Can't open other articles that seem more directly related.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0956-053X(03)00062-X
So the claim is something like
Thank God you're not super nitpicky.
It's a fact published in dozens of websites included official websites of trash management services and companies.
This is not my area of expertise and I won't look up anything else, but do feel free to do it and inform all those websites about your findings
I'm not sure it's "nitpicky" to ask for clarification of a claim of 25 years when in reality 8 weeks is far more likely.
Is it so hard to admit that perhaps claim is misleading at best and therefore probably not "100% true" ?
Can you prove the 8 weeks in landfill claim? With a proper study, I'll take nothing less after this talk.
Don't be daft mate. You're pushing the ridiculous 25 year claim without any support. Sadly "someone with a phd told me so" is not really adequate.
Do you honestly believe that it's true or just too pigheaded to admit that this is not really a fact?