Depends on what the waste products are and how they are captured, otherwise you trade one problem for another. The plastic takes up space but if it's in a landfill you have carbon capture, best not to release that carbon into the air as CH4 or CO2.
> ...and a circular carbon economy for PET is theoretically attainable through rapid enzymatic depolymerization followed by repolymerization or conversion/valorization into other products
> Finally, we demonstrate a closed-loop PET recycling process by using FAST-PETase and resynthesizing PET from the recovered monomers. Collectively, our results demonstrate a viable route for enzymatic plastic recycling at the industrial scale.
Thus, successful recycling of plastic would mean less new plastic being made, and less emission. Before renewables, petroleum not made into plastic would instead be burned as fuel. But now, or soon, maybe it will be left in the ground, instead, as not worth pumping out. It is better to leave carbon sequestered where it is than to extract and then sequester it.
And, as you say, they're pretty good carbon deposits, which is supposed to be The Most Important Thing.
... yet?
All material that can end up in landfills is already on Earth.
Is it that it comes out as methane from landfills but less harmful CO2 from a little pile? That should be solved by flaring the methane.
We need to reduce the amount of trash we produce, not hope for a miracle technology.
https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/19/18273029/milpitas-odor-studi...
https://www.clf.org/blog/all-landfills-leak-and-our-health-a...
Plastic in a landfill is just... Stuck there. It's unnatural, sure, but it's not immensely harmful, not nearly on the same scale as CO2, and realistically, in the future, we'll be able to mine it out of there and refine it into something usable if we need it.
[0] https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/publication/ghost-gear-t...
If the CO2 levels spike, life on the planet (including many or maybe even most humans) will survive. If you look at historic levels, they were hundreds of times higher and the planet was the greenest it has ever been.
If/when that toxic waste leaks out and starts killing, NOTHING will survive.
And the thing is that these are actually harming the people who are near the area where they are disposed, so the harm is more direct. CO2 is more like a global problem, so not as worrisome for the local population.
Only if you're talking about Putin's Little Green Men, in which case most were last seen heading to their deathbed in Belarus after having exposed themselves to deadly levels radiation after occupying the area and trenching it, to the total dismay of local Ukrainians and Plant workers!
Life does indeed find a way, but not in the way most think.
> In a way radioactivity is one of the easiest contaminants to deal...
What an absurd statement, if that were the case you'd go live and work in Fukushima and take advantage of all the open area and low cost real estate, and all the plentiful food that comes from that region.
Radiation to this day still hasn't been cleaned up in Chernobyl, which happened almost 40 years ago, and an Evacuation Zone is still in place.
And by the way their is an ongoing fire in the area as we speak that is cause for concern [0].
0: https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-cris...
We leak it all over the place, with no plans to plug the holes. Instead we keep adding new piping all over.
You have my sympathies for going through a this procedure even though I never had to do that.
But I'm sorry you've put such an important emphasis on having kids in your relationship. The fact that you live in a society where that's reasonable is immensely sad, to me.
You should feel whole without children, and the fact that you don't is the real tragedy, IMO.
Are you always this antagonistic and reductive?
Every couple of years this concern bubbles up. It seems to be established that sperm counts in males are going down. But I’ve yet to see substantial evidence about the possible causes. The effect of plasticisers e.g. were found in animal models usually with rather high doses. An increase of obesity over the last 50 years might also be a likely cause as obesity is linked with hormonal issues. Furthermore, the average age of first time parents has increased significantly. That could also explain why IVF got more popular as sperm counts (and egg „quality“) are age dependent as well.
AFAIK there is no empirical study today proving any link between environmental issues and sperm counts.
Apparently it's happening in dogs too: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160809095138.h...
But not necessarily in farm animals.
We know for a fact that phthalates have an effect on embryo development, and good luck avoiding those.
So while yes, for people it may be less of an issue, the same cannot be said for wildlife, where it becomes another nail in the extinction coffin.
> Per the most recent Inventory Report, U.S. landfills released an estimated 109.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) of methane into the atmosphere in 2020; this represents 16.8 percent of the total U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions across all sectors.
https://www.epa.gov/lmop/frequent-questions-about-landfill-g....
https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/sustainable-...
A very large fraction of those are from plastic waste in Asian countries that gets dumped into waterways instead of being landfilled.
But if you do, the smell, view, and fact that ground water becomes undrinkable will convern you. Not to mention the space they take, where little life can live on.
In the USA, you have a huge space, including deserts, so a landfill may be out of most human reach. But in France, landfills can't be far, and take the place of either a forest, or accomodations.
We don't have a better way to deal with the huge amount of trash than landfills for now. But reducing the number or size of them would be a nice to have.
I don't mean it should be a priority compared to most urging issues like climate change, but let's not get too comfy with it either.
Not even going to get into plastics being contaminated by toxic things and leeching chemicals. Landfills are not harmless to ecosystems and aquifers, either- they're a short term way of not dealing with the issue of waste materials, at best.
Not saying it's good, but burning plastic if it has environmental and health benefits is not out of question. Probably most of it is burned already (it definitely is in Asian countries).
Germany seems to have invented the term "thermal recycling", i.e. burning plastics. IIRC, it is actually considered a renewable energy source by the law.
It's not the worst idea per se, if done right, and waste separation is actually significant here because it simplifies calorific value control.