Smart plastic incineration posited as solution to global recycling crisis

Re:Smart plastic incineration posited as solution to global ... by benj111 on Sunday August 18, 2019 @09:40AM (#20730068)

All of what esotericn said, plus oil and by extension plastic is a limited resource, it makes sense to reuse it, so yes I would say it is superior, plastic is equivalent to plastic. Co2, heat and a bit of residue, not so much.

I know human nature though. Once that shiny expensive incinerator is built, people will want to use it, for everything, and they'll rebrand it 'smart' incinerating so they can tell themselves its the 'good' solution, and pretty soon we're using more plastic than before, and releasing more co2 than before, so my support (which I do have) is very measured.

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Re:Smart plastic incineration posited as solution to global ... by pfdietz on Sunday August 18, 2019 @09:50AM (#20730118)

I was explicitly talking about plastics made from non-fossil carbon. Why is recycling those inherently desirable, over and above raw economic reasons (if any) for doing so?

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Re:Smart plastic incineration posited as solution to global ... by benj111 on Sunday August 18, 2019 @10:43AM (#20730401)

Apologies, I thought you were talk about normal and bio plastics.

I covered bio plastics with

"Obviously the calculations change once bio plastics start to take over"

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Re:Smart plastic incineration posited as solution to global ... by pfdietz on Saturday August 31, 2019 @06:37PM (#20849246)

I was talking about plastics made from non-fossil carbon. These aren't necessarily "bio". For example, carbon from atmospheric CO2 can be converted to ethane by various processes, and then on to various plastics, with no biological steps involved.

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