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The first problem is there's not enough lava. Per a few sources there have been about 6 billion tons/tonnes of solid plastic waste since the mid-20th century;
by ericbarrett 6y ago
The first problem is there's not enough lava. Per a few sources there have been about 6 billion tons/tonnes of solid plastic waste since the mid-20th century; assuming the density of PVC, .05 g/cm^3, my napkin math says this is over 100 cubic kilometers of plastic waste, or enough to build a small volcano on its own.
(edit) You said "ignoring the logistics" so I agree with the other commenter, the outgassing of the burning would be environmentally devastating. Lava doesn't instantly vaporize things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXJfg_JIUZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXJfg_JIUZA
- Someone 6y agoNitpick: PVC sinks in water. That would make it over 1g/cm³. Polypropylene and polyethylene do float, but don’t come near 0.05g/cm³. They’re closer to 0.9g/cm³ (https://www.plasticseurope.org/en/about-plastics/what-are-plastics/large-family/polyolefins https://www.plasticseurope.org/en/about-plastics/what-are-pl...). That’s close to icebergs.
- ericbarrett 6y agoYou are right, seems I had a bad source—density is closer to 1.1-1.5 g/cm^3 than the 0.5 I used. So only 50 cubic km...
- karamanolev 6y agoIn your post you mentioned 0.05, so that's not a factor of 3 off of 1.5, but instead a factor of 30...
- ericbarrett 6y agoA little more formally, with sources: Density of plastic: https://omnexus.specialchem.com/polymer-properties/properties/density https://omnexus.specialchem.com/polymer-properties/propertie... - Eyeballed at 1.2 g/cm^3 Plastic waste, lifetime: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782 - 6.3 megatonnes (2017) 6.3 Mt / (1.2 g/cm^3) = 5250000 (5.25 million) m^3 = 0.00525 km^3 You were right! My math was way off. Thanks for noticing. This is a great demonstration of peer review :)
- imesh 6y agoThere is certainly enough lava. The eruption that occurred in 2018 in my home town produced 1 billion cubic yards or 914402.757839 cubic kilometers. https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/file_mngr/file-224/OVERVIEW_Kil2018_LERZ-Summit_June%202019.pdf https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/file_mngr/file-224/OVERVIEW_K... I imaging the outgassing of the plastic would be pretty terrible but the volcanic gas is pretty damaging too. But yes, I imagine there are a hundred different reasons this wouldn't really work out.
- minitoar 6y agoI don’t think that math is right. 1 billion cubic yards is like less than 1 cubic km.