Sure at some point we won't burn oil, and then we can do something different (recycle the plastic), but we are decades away from that, so doing that now is harmful.
Of course, you can burn the plastic and make some change that makes people burn less oil. But if we are talking about government intervention, you will get much more return if you focus on reducing the fossil fuels usage alone and bury the plastic.
It's exactly this attitude that is causing the trouble.
Are you sure you are on the correct thread?
Now I have to hardly disagree, because we won't solve that problem without some amount of discomfort. And increasing the price of energy so the non-fossil sources can compete better is how can give up the least of it.
Anyway, the production of any of those is almost completely inelastic.
Correct. The atoms are the same, just in a different order. Although you may occasionally get chlorine which is not in oil, but it's not common in plastic (other than PVC).
>> Intuition tells me harmful chemicals would be released. Is it that the burning would be contained and the air filtered?
No need for much filtering, you just need proper incinerator that provides enough air. You will need to filter out chlorine, but that's so reactive it's very easy to filter.
The harmful chemicals from burning plastic are caused by incomplete combustion.
The vast vast majority of plastic is just carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Burn them fully and there's nothing harmful emitted.