Post-ore* (noun)

/poʊst ɔːr/

  1. Multimetal smelting and welding spillage blobs accumulated to the proximity of furnaces, pouring channels, storage units and waste disposal facilities, over the lifespan of a foundry, casting facility or smithy.
  2. Metal objects that are only worth the materials that are made from. Repurposing of such objects is “post-ore refining”, meaning the extraction of metals from wasteful objects. E.g. Gold extraction from discarded computer circuit boards or repurposing of a decorative steel things. Also unsalvable metal crafts projects, sacrificial metal brace/support used in the construction of other items.
  3. Metals which have been bonded with nonmetallic substances. Salvaging or repurposing such materials is labor intensive and deemed unwise under contemporary economical terms. Post-ore can be found in composite objects assembled from an array of materials (lesser metals, plastics, wood etc.) and hence not accepted by contemporary scrapyard entrepreneurs: “Nah.. We’re not a dump, that thing is only good for post-ore”.
  4. Post-ore age: A future human time when people resort exclusively to ground metals (and occasional meteorites) as their supply. Enough metals have been pulled from the depths of the planet to supply people for any currently imaginable human future. The amount of metals on the the top of earths crust, serves as an insurance that humans will never return to pre-metal ages. No culture or human group can ever be “bombed back to the stone age”.

* Term coined by Jesse when visiting an old foundry and discovering multimetal ingots (iron, copper, aluminum etc.) which had been produced by decades of spillage. He also spotted a fireplace-base-cake containing lumps of aluminum, copper etc. developed from someones efforts in clearing metals from their plastic housing by burning them on open fire. Finnish translation: Jälkimalmi or jälki-malmi.

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