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The problem with plastic recycling is not that it doesn't work. It doesn't, of course, but that's not the problem with it.

The problem with plastic is that it leaks into the environment. The only problem with a landfill solution for plastic is that not all of the plastic makes it into the landfill.

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Wouldn't plasma gassification be a much better way to recycle plastic? In theory it might even give a way to recycle some of the metal that makes its way there.

That requires a lot more infrastructure than a hole in the ground.

Infrastructure creates jobs and inspires tech progress, and holes in the ground take up space

Yes, various types of burning with energy recovery are better than landfill on various metrics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy

You can extract metals from the ashes as you mention.

For regularly used things like drink containers it's not quite as good as recycling them though.

And as more renewables enter the grid, theres less fossil fuel to displace but if the RDF (resource derived fuel) can be stored then it acts as a kind of storage.

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