Tonga is running out of space for more than 30k abandoned cars

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-09-19/how-tonga-plans-to-recycle-its-mountain-of-scrap-cars/102614772

by adrian_mrd • 3 years ago

55 74 3 years ago

abc.net.au

olalonde• 3 years ago

Is it not economically viable to melt the cars for steel? Or is there not enough demand for steel in Tonga that the steel would need to be shipped abroad anyways?

justrealist• 3 years ago

It's an island chain of 100,000 people, so no. Plus, electricity is extremely expensive, importing the fuel to melt down steel would be crazy.

Semaphor2• 3 years ago

Plus, electricity is extremely expensive

I was wondering how much, and, wow:

The December 2022 review indicated that the electricity tariff would decrease from $1.19 per kWh to $1.01 per kWh, effective from the 1st of January 2023.

-- http://www.finance.gov.to/node/601

jemmyw• 3 years ago

Islands with a total population of 100k. Lack of demand and probably no machinery to melt and process steel, expensive electricity/power to do that kind of processing, lack of other inputs, and a population without the expertise. Given how remote and small it is it's probably not economic to do anything about the problem.

tjoff• 3 years ago

No harbor to ship it?

jcranmer• 3 years ago

The main island of Tonga is 100 mi² with 75k people on it. It's an island that's basically an accumulated coral reef; there's no natural resources you can get from mining it. And it's 2000 miles from the nearest continental landmass.

There is no heavy industry on the island, and the economy isn't really capable of supporting heavy industry.

devoutsalsa5• 3 years ago

In Bangladesh there's a huge appetite for steel because the country lacks meaningful iron deposits. That's a big reason the have a huge ship dismantling industry, and I presume some way to process the steel. But Bangladesh has a population of ~170 million, and Tonga's population is around ~110 thousand. I wonder what the minimum viable population is for supporting scrap metal recycling.

How ship-breaking helped shape the steel industry -- https://www.tbsnews.net/supplement/how-ship-breaking-helped-...

WheatMillington• 3 years ago

As if it's trivial to process steel.

ck2• 3 years ago

So many of the problems we've made seem like they could be great fixed by less people instead of more each year.

Imagine the next population doubling and all that cost and suffering it will bring.

Thorrez• 3 years ago

The population won't double again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow...

shuckles• 3 years ago

The cure is worse than the disease in that case.

psunavy032• 3 years ago

Damn all those people living their own lives and doing what fulfills them instead of what you want!

ks2048• 3 years ago

The problem is too many cars, not too many people.

paganel2• 3 years ago

The truth is somewhere in between, as those people don't want to live the "idyllic" Pacific islanders life anymore, they instead want the same ease in transportation as people in the West have got accustomed with decades ago (i.e. cars). And who can blame them?

paganel2• 3 years ago

And to think that the neo-malthusian discourse was derided just a few years ago. I'd say that in the last two years or so it has established itself as fact, even though nobody calls it out loud by name (probably because of past negative associations).

brutusborn• 3 years ago

Since the problem is proportional a function of population and car importation, you would need to depopulate 100% to ‘fix’ it, anything less just slows it in proportion.

It’s the same as advocating mass suicide to reduce pollution. Absurd.

netsharc• 3 years ago

Technological progress have really doomed the planet. People living in huts and foraging for food are CO2 neutral. Meanwwhile nowadays utopia is a huge house, huge fridge, huge TV, gaming PC, tablet, phone, great exotic food, jetting to vacations. And of course everybody(*) planet-wide wants that, but there's just not enough resources/CO2 budget of the plante to cater for that...

(*) it's a generalization, yes people are different and not 100% of humans want this, please don't be boring and nitpick this word.

ComputerGuru• 3 years ago

Same solution as most problems: import tax should include cost of getting rid of the car when you’re done. Then getting rid of a car is free. Ship it off the island at your expense and you get a refund.

bagels3• 3 years ago

Yes, came for the same comment. Add an import tax of 2x whatever it takes to ship a car out. Each new car that comes in, two cars go out.

booi2• 3 years ago

Isn't this the Mount Everest trash solution as well? You have to carry out more trash than you carried in

lostlogin• 3 years ago

This has the same issue as the proposed ‘no older than 15 years’ rule. It costs money.

It’s hard to get past how cheap it is to just dump a car and buy a 20 year old one. Externalise those costs, what could go wrong?

0xDEAFBEAD• 3 years ago

It's a nice idea, but as the article states:

Located between Hawaii and New Zealand, over 3,000km east of Brisbane, Tonga's archipelago of islands is an expensive place to send a car.
Once a vehicle gets here, it's used for a long time.

So basically you're making cars even more expensive, which will be an unpopular move with the locals, I assume.

I wonder if it would be possible to use old cars and other trash to reclaim land from the ocean?

throe37848• 3 years ago

Maybe unpopular opinion:

Sort it, burn what you can for electricity, dump rest into deep ocean.

mngnt4• 3 years ago

This is actually the popular opinion, world wide. It's what we've been doing for decades. And it's terrible.

The really unpopular opinion is "let's generate less trash and reuse everything we can, plus slap a recycling tax on everything".

eimrine2• 3 years ago

What is the difference between recycling taxes and regular ones?

midoridensha2• 3 years ago

Why is it terrible? The OP said to burn what you can for electricity, so that really should just leave metals. Copper is valuable, so hopefully they'd strip all the wiring and recycle it, leaving just steel and maybe aluminum (which itself is valuable for recycling too). How is dumping steel car frames in the ocean "terrible"? These days, entire ships are sunk (after getting all the fluids out of them) to actually help the ocean wildlife as artificial reefs.

However, I do agree there should be a lot more effort to recycle this stuff.

wkat4242• 3 years ago

It is but on the scale of this island it's a drop in the ocean ;)

All the car wrecks combined would be like one sunk ship.

nomilk• 3 years ago

I hadn't realised just how small Tonga's land area is. Imagine a square 30km x 30km. It's smaller than that (747 square km).

But this table of countries ranked by population densities shows Tonga is not even close to the most densely populated countries (Tonga is about 65th of about 200 countries): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

refactor_master• 3 years ago

It’s strange how bikes haven’t caught on. Similar to Malta, which is tiny and heavily urbanized, but has a massive car problem. 30 km is what some people commute on bike daily.

silisili• 3 years ago

Same thought. The other commenter posted the largest island is roughly 100 sq mi. This could easily be serviced with bikes, scooters/mopeds, or cheap sidecar motorbike taxis like they use in other countries.

devoutsalsa5• 3 years ago

When I was living in America, I'd drive 300m to the grocery store because I could, so I understand the feeling. I'm also sure it's hot & humid much of the time, which makes walking & biking a sweaty affair.

red-iron-pine• 3 years ago

Malta is hot, and hilly.

masklinn4• 3 years ago

I hadn't realised just how small Tonga's land area is. Imagine a square 30km x 30km. It's smaller than that (747 square km).

And that’s for the entire archipelago, the biggest island, Tongatapu, is 260 sq km with a density of 274.

IamAzmat• 3 years ago

They should crush and press them into a small box size, :)

fswd• 3 years ago

this isn't that big of a deal. People do this on purpose. Collect cars, wait until the price of steel goes up, and bring in a moble crusher and truck them out to a port. It's pretty common practice. If you play your cards right, you can make money. It's only 8 acres. I've seen 40+ acres full of cars, which were crushed in a few days with a special machine.

Tepix2• 3 years ago

These people have lived sustainably for hundreds of years. Clearly, our "modern society" is inferior.

glimshe• 3 years ago

With a fairly low life expectancy, unfortunately. How can we live 70+ years while living sustainably? I'm sure we can do it, but we haven't sorted that out yet, maybe the long-living Mediterranean communities will offer a clue.

somedude895• 3 years ago

It's being studied

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone

Tepix2• 3 years ago

Good point. We need to keep the good stuff and get rid of the single use plastics and other aberrations that put profits over sustainability.

Tonga is running out of space for more than 30k abandoned cars

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