[readyplayernull]

Plastic aren't simply plastics, they have lots of additives to give them different properties. Incinerating is transforming these additives into other chemicals maybe making more toxic molecules escape to the environment in ashes, dust, smoke. And landfilling is storing trash for future generations to solve the problem.

[whatshisface]

Future generations will never have a reason to dig up landfills.

[in_vestor]

The most plausible reason they might need to dig them up is to remediate them. Landfills require maintenance in perpetuity, which costs a considerable amount of money. The biggest expense is maintaining the top cap—if it leaks, big problems can result.

After several centuries, it’s hard to imagine that most landfills will still be doing regular maintenance and fighting off entropy maintaining the cap. At some point, with the right technology, it becomes more sensible to reprocess the waste in a more permanent manner.

I think plasma gasification is likely the best idea, but it still needs work.

[reactordev]

I would agree. Burying our post-nuclear family waste worldwide for the last 60 years will come back to haunt us. I also agree that we’ll have the tech to address it then into a more sustainable solution and possibly extract energy from it.

[skybrian]

This is not how haunting works. We won’t be around anymore. We will haunt whoever is there after us.

Maybe they’ll have better enzymes, though.

[reactordev]

it's a figure of speech, not literal. There are no ghosts.