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Necoras t1_ja9pia3 wrote

Reply to comment by secretqwerty10 in This “Climate-Friendly” Fuel Comes With an Astronomical Cancer Risk: Almost half of products cleared so far under the new federal biofuels program are not in fact biofuels — and the EPA acknowledges that the plastic-based ones may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health or the environment. by nastratin

Ironically, plastic -> oil is worse for the climate than just leaving the plastic in the ground. Plastic, which famously doesn't degrade (though that's not exactly true; there are bacteria which are evolving to eat the stuff) is just another name for long term carbon storage. Obviously we'd much rather have that in a properly designed and build landfill than in the ocean. But turning it into oil and burning it is just putting more CO2 from oil into the atmosphere.

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