The article has a typo:
"Most will be melted and turned into fuel that is burned, adding to carbon emissions."
That should say "reducing carbon emissions", not adding. Burning plastic for energy is a net reduction in CO2 emission.
"Most will be melted and turned into fuel that is burned, adding to carbon emissions."
That should say "reducing carbon emissions", not adding. Burning plastic for energy is a net reduction in CO2 emission.
According to [1], the gCO2e/kWh for the relevant energy sources are: Coal 850g Natural gas 385g Plastic incineration 512g
According to [2], in the US in 2023, 43.1% of electricity was from natural gas and 16.2% from coal. Based on that, the average fossil fuel kWh resulted in 512 gCO2e.
So, if you substitute the average fossil fuel with burning plastic, there is NO net improvement in CO2 emissions per kWh. Against just natural gas, burning plastic actually produces 33% more gCO2e.
I think the above approach is the correct way to evaluate this. Basically, to get your kWh from nonrenewable sources, you are still burning something and have to choose one thing or another to be burned. Choosing plastic allows you to defer burning your fossil fuel (or, in other words, gives you more total fuel to burn), but it doesn’t help climate change efforts.
[1] https://www.clientearth.org/media/1h2nalrh/greenhouse-gas-an... (page 29) [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
It's actually quite a high amount! With plastic you get that for free.
However, plastic sure isn’t free in that regard! 8-10% of petroleum (which is pulled out of the ground, with increasing effort each year) is used to produce plastics. I’d put good odds on extraction and transportation CO2 costs for petroleum exceeding those for LNG - no good guess on coal. That also doesn’t account for your energy costs in moving the post-consumer plastic around.
Plus, natural gas has significantly lower emissions than plastic to begin with.
Obviously, which others touched on, it’s better to displace burning fossil fuels and plastics (arguably fossil fuel too) with renewables —- an effort that continues to accelerate.
The point is that it's free once it gets to the recycling stage. You could just dump the plastic in a landfill, or you can use it for energy.
Basically the efficiency comes from using the plastic twice, but paying for it only once.
> Plus, natural gas has significantly lower emissions than plastic to begin with.
Well the question is this then: Are we burning any oil at all for electricity? If zero oil in the entire US, then you can make this point. Until then, lets replace that oil with plastic.
As for your renewable comment, this is intended as something to do today, to at least help. Over time it won't be needed, and that's fine, but let's work on today.
Transforming plastic into fuel is more efficient than obtaining new fossil fuel. It actually reduces emissions compared to using net new fossil fuels.
Still, transforming plastic into fuel is not an emissions reduction compared to renewable energy sources.
That's not to say burying plastic is a good thing. It's obviously better to not have used single-use plastic in the first place.
And? Is that news to anyway? Your earlier point is the correct one: In a world where hydrocarbons are burned for energy, burning plastic the best possible way to deal with plastic.
Once we transition to a different world we can do something else, but until then we should burn plastic.
Not sure I understand that math. You have plastic. You burn it. That is a net increase in atmospheric CO2.
The other option is you bury it, which sounds horrible, but at least doesn't increase atmospheric CO2.
The problem is you're going to say that instead of burning the plastic, we burn something else. But maybe we don't do that, either?
Explain what you mean by that? I mean, out here in the real world, we are burning things for energy.
Are you talking about some theoretic magical world that doesn't exist?
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?
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?
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.
> 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?
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.
This is a monstrously insane statement.
I am looking at a piece of plastic. Let's say it's a plastic bag. Other than the (considerable!) emissions that came from its mining, manufacture and shipping, it has zero CO2 emissions.
I now set fire to it. I'm, uh, seeing a fair bit of smoke come off it. I'm thinking there might possibly be some emissions happening there.
It also smells really acrid, and I'm getting these weird premonitions of winding up in a cancer ward suddenly.
You burn plastic instead of oil, and if you burn it properly it has zero toxic emissions.
In the net, you have reduced CO2 emissions, because now you don't need to pull extra oil out of the ground - you instead burn the oil in your hand.
> This is a monstrously insane statement.
I suppose if your plan is to hold plastic bags in your hand and burn them. Of course that's not the actual suggestion you were replying to - so you basically made up a scenario, then criticized it.
Yes, that's a good plan - don't do the thing that no one was suggesting anyone do.