Have YOU Seen This Missing 100-Ton Recycling Plant?
Interestingly, absolutely nobody has offered a supernatural explanation for this disappearance.
Hi and welcome back! Today’s story involves a big cash reward, so listen up! Maybe you will solve the mystery. See, a 100-ton recycling plant has gone completely missing. Yes. It’s just gone. And today, Lord Snow Presides over the explanation nobody is setting forth for its disappearance.
(A while ago, LambChopSuey observed that ‘supernatural’ just means ‘imaginary.’ S’truth!)
A Brief Outline of the Backstory.
The town of Wigan is located a bit west of Manchester, England. It’s about halfway between the city and the coast. It’s also a straight shot northeast from Liverpool. (And I bet that name makes Americans go “oh! the Beatles!” in the same exact way people go “oh! potatoes!” when one says they live in Idaho). Wigan seems like a decent place to live — it’s even got something called Ninja Warrior UK Adventure, which sounds absolutely boss.
A company called Waste Technologies UK happens to have a lot of outlets in that general part of England. In early 2019, they needed a place to store a spare recycling plant. This plant converted plastics to various oils. And I guess they had that end of recycling covered already, so they didn’t need it right then.
So they parked this spare recycling plant, which weighs about 100 tons (91 metric tonnes) and is worth USD$5.6M (£4.2M), at a storage unit in Wigan. Specifically, they parked it at a facility on Miry Lane. If you check out that map, you’ll notice that Miry Lane is a short street that’s smack in the middle of town. In this screenshot of the map, the red dot marks the street.
Okay. So this company called Waste Technologies UK parked a spare 100-ton recycling plant at a storage facility in the smack dab middle of a medium-sized town.
So far, so good. Right?
Wrong.
How Does Someone Lose a Recycling Plant?
In July this year, someone realized that this recycling plant had completely vanished. Its storage space was empty. All 100 tons of it are just gone. In fact, according to this local news site, the storage space itself is no longer even used for that purpose.
(Anybody else thinking of that scene in Grosse Pointe Blank where Marty goes to his childhood home, only to discover that his family sold it years ago? Or is this just me?)
The company’s spokesman sounds like he’s just one harsh word away from quitting to become a travel blogger:
“It is extraordinary that the plant that weighs 91 tonnes and would require approximately 11 truck trailers to be moved could be shifted without our company being aware. This is not something you could just slip under a coat and walk out the door with. Someone might recall a fleet or a convoy of trucks leaving this site on Miry Lane at some point during the last year or 18 months.” (Source)
In hopes of jogging someone’s memory, the owners now offering a £10,000 reward (USD$13,398) to anyone who can help them find their giant missing recycling plant.
Potential Explanations in the Case of the Missing 100-Ton Recycling Plant.
Interestingly, ITV reports that the plant might have gone missing a while ago. Heck, it might have gone missing right after its owners parked it at the storage facility a couple of years ago. The plant’s owners had been asking for photographs from the storage people to verify the condition of their recycling plant. And weirdly, the storage people never gave them any photographic proof that their recycling plant still sat there.
So it seems to me that the likeliest suspects in this disappearance are the storage facility owners. But that’s just me thinking out loud. Really, this massive 100-ton recycling plant could have been stolen by anybody who just so happens to have a bunch of big construction trucks and the manpower needed to dismantle and move a hundred tons of unrelenting metal technology out from under the noses of the storage facility owners and, well, everyone in town.
And we might as well face it: by now, the thieves have probably dismantled this plant into a million pieces, then resold or melted those pieces down for raw components. I strongly suspect the issue now is holding the people responsible accountable, not actually recovering the missing property.
The good ship Recover It has almost certainly already sailed. Now these owners wait at the dock for Justice.
The Explanation Nobody Has Offered.
Interestingly, absolutely nobody has offered a supernatural explanation for this disappearance.
And of course nobody has. This is a 100-ton recycling plant we’re talking about, not lost keys or a parking spot or a missed connection on the subway. Nobody’s going to blame this one on demons or pixies or malevolent Neolithic Bell-Beaker ghosts. Nobody thinks wizards cast a spell to shift a recycling plant into the astral plane.
Heck, nobody even thinks a league of archvillains moved the recycling plant with mutant superpowers, then relocated it to their lair under a South Pacific volcanic island full of fighting forces of extraordinary magnitude, forging their spirits in the same tradition as their ancestors.
No.
Obviously, this recycling plant vanished because actual people made it vanish somehow using very earthly means. Nothing wacky or oogly-boogly happened here. The questions on everyone’s mind are: just how those actual people did it, why they went this route instead of stealing something way easier to deal with, when they did it, and most importantly where the recycling plant or it’s parts might be now.
We get the same way when people go missing, when someone dies in a very strange way, or when art treasures disappear from museums. Sensible people, when they want actual results, don’t reach for supernatural explanations at these times. Instead, they look to 100% earthly explanations — because those are what actually work. The Happy Pretendy Fun Time Game gets set aside because sensible people know it won’t help anyone solve any very real mysteries. Supernatural beliefs are a luxury at the best of times, and an outright hindrance during crises.
And even the most wingnutty of fundagelicals knows this truth, deep down.
Today, Lord Snow Presides over the way humans get down to business when stuff gets serious.
NEXT UP: Speaking of Barna Group, they’re still trying to figure out how to spin-doctor their toxic, dysfunctional groups into something people actually want to join. They’re counting on Gen Z! We’ll see how next time — see you then <3
About Lord Snow Presides (LSP)
Lord Snow Presides is our off-topic weekly chat series. Lord Snow was my very sweet white cat. He actually knew quite a bit. Though he’s passed on, he now presides over a suggested topic for the day. Of course, please feel free to chime in with anything on your mind: there’s no official topic on these days. I’m just starting us off with something, but consider the sky the limit here. We especially welcome pet pictures!
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EDIT TO ADD: I can’t believe it took this long to remember this song. Here’s a good cover of it:
