[insaneirish]

> That should say "reducing carbon emissions", not adding. Burning plastic for energy is a net reduction in CO2 emission.

Not sure I understand that math. You have plastic. You burn it. That is a net increase in atmospheric CO2.

The other option is you bury it, which sounds horrible, but at least doesn't increase atmospheric CO2.

The problem is you're going to say that instead of burning the plastic, we burn something else. But maybe we don't do that, either?

[ars]

> But maybe we don't do that, either?

Explain what you mean by that? I mean, out here in the real world, we are burning things for energy.

Are you talking about some theoretic magical world that doesn't exist?

Because in the real world burning plastic for energy reduces CO2 emissions.

[MrVandemar]

> Because in the real world burning plastic for energy reduces CO2 emissions.

This is a monstrously insane statement.

I am looking at a piece of plastic. Let's say it's a plastic bag. Other than the (considerable!) emissions that came from its mining, manufacture and shipping, it has zero CO2 emissions.

I now set fire to it. I'm, uh, seeing a fair bit of smoke come off it. I'm thinking there might possibly be some emissions happening there.

It also smells really acrid, and I'm getting these weird premonitions of winding up in a cancer ward suddenly.

[ars]

Did you just overlook the "for energy" part of the sentence?

You burn plastic instead of oil, and if you burn it properly it has zero toxic emissions.

In the net, you have reduced CO2 emissions, because now you don't need to pull extra oil out of the ground - you instead burn the oil in your hand.

> This is a monstrously insane statement.

I suppose if your plan is to hold plastic bags in your hand and burn them. Of course that's not the actual suggestion you were replying to - so you basically made up a scenario, then criticized it.

Yes, that's a good plan - don't do the thing that no one was suggesting anyone do.

[insaneirish]

> Because in the real world burning plastic for energy reduces CO2 emissions.

Compared to what? Over what period? Consider this at the extremes. Instead of investing in any photovoltaic, 100% of PV demand should be shifted to burning landfilled plastics. Would you argue that makes sense?

[Dylan16807]

> Compared to what?

Compared to not burning it.

> Over what period?

I don't know what you mean by period. If you mean period of effect, then indefinitely, since the CO2 sticks around, I guess?

If you mean period of burning, then at least as long as there's direct fossil fuel plants for it to compete with.

> Consider this at the extremes. Instead of investing in any photovoltaic

Who suggested a reduction in investment in anything?

I could also say that if we burned plastic for energy instead of... running hospitals, that would also be bad. Does your comparison make more sense than mine?

I don't think your scenario is even possible, numbers-wise.

[ars]

Compared to what exists today, over the time period of right now.

Do you only work in extremes? Either 100% plastic, or 100% pv?

There is fuel that was pulled out of the ground, we can use it, or we can spend even more energy to pull even more fuel out of the ground and then burn that.

Which is better?

[insaneirish]

There is already an argument that says "let's stop pulling stuff out of the ground purely to burn" and instead use renewable resources. That's a difficult enough argument that lots don't agree with.

Saying "let's burn the plastic" without a plan to stop creating single use plastic creates a backdoor reason and economy to keep using plastic for everything.

[ars]

So basically your suggestion is let's make everything worse in order to hopefully convince people to maybe at some future date make things better.

> without a plan to stop creating single use plastic

Not to mention this is not something that will ever happen. No one is planning for this because it's a bad idea.

Plastics REDUCE CO2 emissions compared to the alternatives. Unless your alternatives are everyone not eat and not do anything, and just sit at home.

A tiny example: Wrapping an English Cucumber in plastic dramatically increases its life. Or you could not do that, but then we'll need to grow 3 to 10 times as many of them, and/or ship them by air to every store.

So what do you choose? The single use plastic? Or the alternative that consumes dramatically more resources, and emits far more CO2?