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I don't know, but even if they end up in a landfill, they still take a long time to break down. If they take longer to decompose than their life cycle, there's
by imgabe 6y ago
I don't know, but even if they end up in a landfill, they still take a long time to break down. If they take longer to decompose than their life cycle, there's going to be an ever-increasing number of plastic bags in the waste. That's clearly not sustainable.
Say it takes 1 year (probably less) from when a bag is created to when it gets thrown away. After it gets thrown away, it takes 100-1000 years to completely decompose. That means bags are entering the landfill faster than they are "leaving" via decomposition. That's going to be a problem. After enough time we'd just be like a malicious or poorly-designed AI that covered the Earth in plastic bags rather than paper clips.
- wongarsu 6y agoIn general Europe isn't big on land fills. Space isn't nearly as plentiful as in the US, which makes just burning any unrecycled waste a much more attractive alternative.
- lmm 6y ago> Say it takes 1 year (probably less) from when a bag is created to when it gets thrown away. After it gets thrown away, it takes 100-1000 years to completely decompose. That means bags are entering the landfill faster than they are "leaving" via decomposition. Supposing for the sake of the argument you're right, that means we need enough landfill space for 500 years' worth of plastic bags. Is that really so much space that it's a problem?
- smsm42 6y agoNot sure how you got 500 years. That obviously depends on how much landfill-able space we've got. In US, that's a lot.
- smsm42 6y agoThis source: https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/what-you-think-about-landfill-and-recycling-is-probably-totally-wrong-3a6cf57049ce https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/what-you-think-about-landfi... claims that there isn't actually problem with sustainability of landfills, at least for any reasonable time.