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ImmediateSympathy752 t1_jcboyp5 wrote

I’ve heard in parts or Europe they burn the plastic and convert that energy to electricity. Why don’t we do that? There’s a giant bio-mass plant in Berlin that’s going to provide heat to the downtown streets. What if the bio-mass was plastic waste instead?

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EnergyNewsNetwork OP t1_jcbrdfx wrote

Some parts of the U.S. do burn plastic for energy (this national lab says about 9% of all plastic waste went to that in 2019 https://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2022/nrel-calculates-lost-value-of-landfilled-plastic-in-us.html). But there are definitely concerns that burning plastic could create a lot of air pollution, and it emits greenhouses gases just like any fossil fuel: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/should-we-burn-plastic-waste

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Umbert360 t1_jcchabi wrote

As bad as putting plastic in a landfill is, doesn’t it serve as a carbon sink? Wouldn’t converting the plastic to diesel, then burning the diesel re-release the carbon back into the atmosphere, not to mention any other pollutants in the plastic?

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