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How good are American roads?

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193 points chmaynard | 1 comments | 20 Nov 24 14:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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digitalsushi ◴[20 Nov 24 15:11 UTC] No.42194555[source]▶
I heard a civil engineer make a claim once that the dust on the side of the road is about 300% more laden with precious metals like platinum, than random mining. I suppose this is all roads and not just American roads, though.
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mikepurvis ◴[20 Nov 24 15:16 UTC] No.42194600[source]▶
Isn’t it supposed to be mostly brake pads, rotors, and tire rubber?

Would be fascinating to imagine it being economically viable to vacuum up and reprocess it, but based on the above I’ve assumed it was worthless.

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alt227 ◴[20 Nov 24 15:19 UTC] No.42194625[source]▶
Sounds a bit like the guys that collect the sludge from the sewers in jewellery and gold smithing districts in cities, then pan it for gold. Its not going to make anyone rich, but theres enough gold dust in there to buy some food and shoes for somebody hungry enough to dive into a sewer and collect sludge!
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mikepurvis ◴[20 Nov 24 15:23 UTC] No.42194664[source]▶
Supermarkets that make you put in a quarter to take a shopping cart are really just paying the homeless $0.25 each to return them from the parking lot.
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1. permo-w ◴[20 Nov 24 17:37 UTC] No.42196322[source]▶
it's the same for bottle deposits in parts of Europe. anything in a plastic bottle costs an extra ~10c which you can retrieve by depositing the empty in a machine at the supermarket