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Comment by adrianN | Hacker News Reader

Recycling a plastic bag is not necessarily better for the environment than burning it.

good point, and countries that do this on a massive (clean) scale count it (probably correctly) in their efficiency and non-fossil fuel stats. We really under-report the cost ($$$ and energy) of the full recycling chain, both complicated parts like plastics that should probably be burned and capture/treat the results, and simple things like glass; other than reuse it should NOT be recycled.

I have concluded, as a general rule of thumb, that if something costs more to recycle than to produce naturally, it is probably more harmful to the environment to recycle it than to create it fresh and dispose of it properly.

There are certain exceptions to this -- nickel cadmium batteries come to mind -- but for things like this, the question isn't "is it more economic to produce it new than to recycle it?" so much as it's "is it more economic to recycle it than to dispose of it properly?"

I think 'dispose of it properly' is doing a lot work there. I understand that for something like plastic, properly disposing it would be to chemically render it down to it's constituents rather than just landfilling it. If the thought was to burn it, well then how are you properly disposing the released greenhouse gases?

On the other hand if a pound of plastic being burned offsets a pound of coal then that is probably better for the environment. We are nowhere near not burning anything so I'm largely OK with incinerators.

That might be true. I guess the point I was thinking of was more related to the cost of producing new vs recycling or disposing of. I think that in a lot of cases,the cost of producing new does not take into account the lifecycle of the product - it does not factor in the cost to retrieve it to be burnt, it does not factor in the cost to develop and implement technology like carbon capture. It seems that the industry that creates plastic does not pay for its proper disposal, which is why it is so cheap to make new plastic.

That probably means that recycling is not worth it, so the only responsible way is to reduce its usage as much as possible (reusing or replacing with better solutions)

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