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Burning plastic is only good if you capture the released CO2. Otherwise, I have a hard time imagining plastic is a more efficient fuel than most fossil fuels, m

Burning plastic is only good if you capture the released CO2. Otherwise, I have a hard time imagining plastic is a more efficient fuel than most fossil fuels, meaning you release more CO2 for the same result when burning plastic.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
To be clear, if what you have is just plastic, you should really be recycling it. If it's mixed solid waste and it's too late for that then... > According to the Environmental Protection Agency, burning municipal solid waste emits nearly as much carbon per unit of energy as coal, and almost twice as much as natural gas. And while gas is definately better than coal (due to burning clean, cheap to build, fast ramping) many estimates of methane leakage in the fossil fuel extraction process mean it could be (depending on how and where you source it) more than double the GHG impact than just the burn itself. For me, the extra money diverted from the fossil fuel industry tips it in burnings direction, as long as sufficient effort is made to scrub the exhaust gas of toxins and if recycling wasn't clearly better. Which it is. So we should do that instead. I just see a lot of people saying it's worse than landfill, which it isn't.
- ErikCorry 4y ago
  Agreed. In addition I think people overestimate the CO2 produced by burning plastic. A plastic shopping bag is 6-8 grammes. Burning it produces about as much CO2 as driving a car 200 yards. If you pick a supermarket one mile further from your house because they have a better policy on plastic bags then the environment loses.
noselasd 4y ago
You can either pull oil out of the ground, make plastic of it and bury that plastic, where the decomposition will release greenhouse gases. Or you can burn it and capture the energy. The difference in greenhouse gases isn't big - provided you burn it properly. Except if burning the plastic is a replaceement for buring other kinds of fossil fie, in which case it's a win vs burying it.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

To be clear, if what you have is just plastic, you should really be recycling it. If it's mixed solid waste and it's too late for that then... > According to the Environmental Protection Agency, burning municipal solid waste emits nearly as much carbon per unit of energy as coal, and almost twice as much as natural gas. And while gas is definately better than coal (due to burning clean, cheap to build, fast ramping) many estimates of methane leakage in the fossil fuel extraction process mean it could be (depending on how and where you source it) more than double the GHG impact than just the burn itself. For me, the extra money diverted from the fossil fuel industry tips it in burnings direction, as long as sufficient effort is made to scrub the exhaust gas of toxins and if recycling wasn't clearly better. Which it is. So we should do that instead. I just see a lot of people saying it's worse than landfill, which it isn't.

ErikCorry 4y ago
Agreed. In addition I think people overestimate the CO2 produced by burning plastic. A plastic shopping bag is 6-8 grammes. Burning it produces about as much CO2 as driving a car 200 yards. If you pick a supermarket one mile further from your house because they have a better policy on plastic bags then the environment loses.

noselasd 4y ago

You can either pull oil out of the ground, make plastic of it and bury that plastic, where the decomposition will release greenhouse gases. Or you can burn it and capture the energy. The difference in greenhouse gases isn't big - provided you burn it properly. Except if burning the plastic is a replaceement for buring other kinds of fossil fie, in which case it's a win vs burying it.