While we still use hydrocarbons for a while for power, we might as well let some of them hang out as our stuff for a bit before being burned for energy.
I get that argument, but wouldn't it be better to bury it deep so that the carbon is taken away rather than added to the ecosystem?
Sure, small-scale "energy recycling" makes sense, but if everyone did it with all our waste plastic outout then we'd pretty much just be using fossil fuels with extra steps, and the carbon will end up in the atmosphere.
It is fossil fuels with extra steps but see that when you burn garbage for power that’s displacing the equivalent amount of power that would be provided by fossil fuels (almost everywhere around the world today).
Therefore you get to leave some oil or whatever in the ground instead of going to the trouble of burying garbage.
Burning garbage instead of fossil fuels should be carbon neutral with some benefits of not filling landfills etc.
While we still use hydrocarbons for a while for power, we might as well let some of them hang out as our stuff for a bit before being burned for energy.