[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?