Re:California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that a...
by Robotbeat on Thursday September 09, 2021 @09:48AM
(#28469640)
I don’t think it’s a small effect. There are something like 300 million tons of plastic waste per year, which is about 1 Gigatonne of CO2, or about 3% of global emissions… more than global aviation!
If we cut down all sources of emissions to zero, that would mean humanity using non-fossil plastic (like PLA or electrolytic syngas derived regular plastics) would be carbon negative.
The cost of PLA is about $2/kg, or equivalent to about $600/tonneCO2. About how much Climeworks currently costs for direct air CO2 capture.
Re:California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that a...
by gruez on Thursday September 09, 2021 @11:49AM
(#28470995)
>The cost of PLA is about $2/kg, or equivalent to about $600/tonneCO2. About how much Climeworks currently costs for direct air CO2 capture.
It's probably even better than that, if the PLA cost is for ready-to-use PLA, because presumably dirty/unprocessed PLA costs even less.
Even if it pollutes more to make virgin material than to recycle it -- and I think that's your problem -- if the non-recycled material goes into a landfill instead of the ocean or biosphere, there's a small consolation in that the carbon in the plastic is sequestered.