[bell-cot]

That depends on the definition of "properly" - which is mostly a social thing.

If we were pragmatic and competent enough to send cleanly-burnable household waste to (say) power plants designed for that, there wouldn't be much of an issue. It's the stupid litterbugs and performative-virtue "recycling" lobby who really drive up the disposal cost.

[tsimionescu]

Note that burning plastic is one of the worse things you could do with it - probably even worse then it ending up in the ocean. Global warming is the single biggest threat to our current civilization, and, for all its faults, plastic traps carbon. Burning it releases it back in the atmosphere, where it does far more damage then if you just bury it.

[bell-cot]

In a world where one 787 (full of tourists?) burns 5 tons of fuel per hour, and one big container ship (full of stuff outsourced to where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are pretend?) burns 120 tons of fuel per day, I'd figure that "but plastic traps carbon" is 99.997% performative pretend environmentalism.

[tsimionescu]

The goal is to reach net 0 carbon emissions. We can at least theoretically power some of these things with renewable electricity. We can't replace plastic with any otheratetial in many uses - so finding a way to dispose of plastic waste while staying at net 0 emissions (if we ever get there) is going to mean that burning it is not a solution.

[bell-cot]

The goal is get every last drop of unwanted water out of the Titanic. We can at least theoretically spread heavy canvas over some the huge gash in the bow, so you are focusing on a leaky water cooler in the stern.

[tsimionescu]

No, I'm just saying that we shouldn't start taking buckets and pouring more water in. The default behavior is to store garbage in landfills. Let's leave it like that, rather than burning it to produce even more CO2.