[Duffman]

First off technically steel doesn’t decay it corrodes. What this means is that it turns into Fe2O3, erodes off the main body and is blown away by the wind or water current. Yes we recycle steel, but it’s that rusting car in the field or that ship at the bottom of the ocean that is not being recycled. It’s the material that erodes away before the part is deemed unserviceable and recycled. We as humans take rich ore bodies, process them into metals and then slowly allow the metals to be transformed into dust and sprinkled in an even layer over the surface of the planet. A better example of entropy you will not find.

The nuclear industry is actually better than this yet you don’t see it because in your heart you do not want to. First off the fuel is recyclable (no different than steel), we just currently do a poor job of it. Second the small quantities that are not recycled are returned to the earth in concentrations higher than the ore that was originally mined, allowing them to be recoverable in the future. May I add that to my knowledge no material has been permanantly desposed of as of yet, its all still in manned facilities.

Uranium has but two purposes in the world, it provides a dense hard material and it is fissionable. When we don’t use it, it still sits in the ground being radioactive with a half life much longer than that of plutonium, but providing no value to humanity. Not using it doesn’t make it go away.