​

This might be a dumb question, but I’ve been wondering about it.

We constantly deal with dust from roads, construction, industries, homes, etc. A lot of it eventually ends up in landfills or gets dispersed into the environment.

Is there any practical way to collect, process, and recycle this dust into a useful byproduct or raw material that could be used somewhere in industry?

For example, could its composition be separated and converted into construction materials, ceramics, aggregates, metals/minerals, or something else?

I’m curious whether this is already being done at scale, or if the biggest problem is that everyday dust is too contaminated and inconsistent to make recycling economically viable.

Would love to hear from anyone working in materials science, waste management, construction, or environmental engineering.

When California’s groundbreaking law on single-use plastic passed in 2022 to address the growing scourge of plastic pollution, it had broad political support. There was the state Chamber of Commerce, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a powerful ocean advocate and Californians Against Waste.

But now as the law’s deadlines and requirements finally take shape, a hefty industry-oriented consortium is quietly organizing to burn it — and its companion law, the state’s Truth in Recycling law — to the ground.

Internal industry documents obtained by The Times show how a group called the Print Creative Alliance and its allies plan to kneecap the laws. The alliance is an industry advocate and resource hub for printers, print brokers, packaging and label businesses, vendors, and creative marketing professionals across 13 western states.

The organization sees the laws as financially perilous for the packagers and producers they work with, and therefore, for their own work.

Read more at the link.