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Clean incinerators have been around for at least a decade[1] - potentially longer, as the Japanese have been separating out their burnable garbage from non-burn

• ahevia 5y ago
  Hadn’t heard of this. Very cool! Thanks for sharing
  • fouric 5y ago
    You're welcome! And, to be clear, I share many of the concerns that you pointed out in your comment - plastic going into landfills and older, unclean incinerators is a problem, and it can be really hard (if not impossible) to tell its final destination. I just wanted to clarify that (the right) incinerators are a solution for disposal - but it'd be better to not use plastic in the first place (or, at least, not in disposable packaging - long-lived goods like phone cases and Legos are slightly better than one-time-use things like plastic bottles for sodas).
• stronglikedan 5y ago
  A city near me does this, instead of recycling. Although, they still provide recycling bins, and still ask residents to separate their trash. I presume it's because it makes it easier for them to separate the burnable trash from the "wet" trash.
• sysadmindotfail 5y ago
  I think indeed this is the likely future for the US. There's much stored energy potential in our waste that it seems like an eventuality.