Re:There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
by M95D on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @07:55AM
(#46615481)
Did you ever try to burn plastic?
1) Plastic is not liquid, so you can't pipe it to a gas or oil power plant. You may argue that coal isn't liquid either, but continue reading...
2) Burning plastic generates toxic fumes.
3) Plastic ash is sticky and very difficult to clean.
Re:There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
by eru on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @11:09AM
(#46617778)
You might like to read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste-to-energy_plant
It's a fascinating topic. There's even more problems than the ones you bring up, but engineers are also pretty smart.
My argument is that as long as we are still burning oil and gas, we might as well burn old plastic instead of new oil and gas.
If/when we stop burning oil and gas, then we can think more seriously about recycling plastic.