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You don't even have to recycle it. Burning it for heat energy is enough. Most plastic only produces water and co2 when burned...
by Double_a_92 9y ago
You don't even have to recycle it. Burning it for heat energy is enough. Most plastic only produces water and co2 when burned...
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoAre you sure about that? As a younger person I burned a few samples of various things called 'plastic' and the fumes sure smelled like maybe I should be sterile by now.
- msl 9y agoPlastics tend to consists of carbon and hydrogen chains. See for example polycarbonate [1], polyetene [2] and ABS [3] (contains nitrogen). They might however contain all sorts of additives. In order to produce just water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen the burning must be carefully controlled [4] - in your experiment the burning was probably not complete, which explains the fumes (that might have been carcinogenic [4]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarbonate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarbonate [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styrene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styren... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Incineration_of_plastics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Incineration_of_plasti...
- scq 9y agoYou generally don't want to burn halogenated plastics like PVC though. As I understand it that will release highly toxic dioxins (which cause cancer and birth defects among other things) unless they are incinerated at high temperatures.
- pjc50 9y agoI don't know why this is downvoted, it's correct - incineration of plastics is needs to be done at high temperatures to avoid this problem.
- adrianN 9y agoMaybe it was PVC. That releases plenty of nasties when you burn it.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoDitto, the sibling posts seem to cover it except for printed plastics, even if the plastic is good the printing probably wasn't/isn't.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago"the fumes sure smelled like maybe I should be sterile by now" You, sir, have just enriched the English language.
- Someone 9y agoThe C in PVC stands for chloride. Wikipedia claims it is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic plastic polymer, after polyethylene and polypropylene, which are pure carbohydrates. So, technically, it is 'most', but chances are fairly good a random selection of garbage plastic contains chloride, too, and that can be nasty.