Is your knowledge of science and physics the result of a US liberal arts degree?
I'm afraid I'm not that smart
I have a technical degree.
I do realize there's no "free lunch". I was merely pointing out the fact that, the reason why we have more waste than the absolute minimum required, has more to do with business than engineering
Let's also not forget that, before cars came along, horses had their own problems, such as constant defecation in public areas, unsanitary conditions, spread of disease, etc. Even animals "pollute":
“In New York City alone at the turn of the century, horses deposited on the streets every day an estimated 2.5 million pounds of manure and 60,000 gallons of urine, accounting for about two-thirds of the filth that littered the city’s streets. Excreta from horses in the form of dried dust irritated nasal passages and lungs, then became a syrupy mass to wade through and track into the home whenever it rained. New York insurance actuaries had established by the turn of the century that infections diseases, including typhoid fever, we much more frequently contracted by livery stable keepers and employees than by other occupational groups, and an appeal to the Brooklyn Board of Health to investigate resulted in the institution of new municipal regulations on stables, compelling more frequent removal excreta and disinfecting of premises. Medical authorities stated that tetanus was introduced into cities in horse fodder and that an important cause of diarrhea, a serious health problem among children at the time, was ‘street dust’ consisting in the main of germ-laden dried horse dung. The flies that bred on the ever present manure heaps carried more than thirty communicable diseases, and the unsightliness and stench of the stable meant that most urban owners of horses ‘boarded and baited’ them at public facilities at inconvenient distance from their residences. In addition, traffic was often clogged by the carcasses of overworked dray horses that dropped in their tracks during summer heat waves or had to be destroyed after stumbling on slippery pavements and breaking their legs. About 15,000 dead horses were removed from the streets of New York each year. . . . These conditions were characteristic in varying degree of all of our large and medium-sized cities.”
- James Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993), p. 136.
