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0 pointsars3y ago0 comments

No, I am not wrong. That's what's sad about this. People actually believe in all these things, not realizing they don't help the environment. And once people do find out how badly they have been mislead they tend to have a backlash and turn completely against anything an environmentalists suggests.

Go read a study on the energy and water costs of recycling plastic. But I'll give you a quick summary:

Plastic has two energy components. The energy embodied in it because it's flammable, and the energy to manufacture it.

It takes more energy to recycle plastic, than it does to manufacture it. So why do people want to recycle it? Because they want to recover the energy embodied in it!

But if you burn it, you get that energy back, AND you got to use the plastic for some productive purpose. And since recycling it takes more energy than manufacturing it new, burning plastic is always better than recycling it.

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ZeroGravitas3y ago· 2 in thread

Here's a meta review of Life Cycle Analysis that says otherwise.

Different countries, different methodologies, different assumptions but recycling being better than burning which is in turn better than landfill across a range of environmental impacts is fairly consistent.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/10/5340/pdf

> Overall, this review found that for all the studies which aiming to compare waste treatment technologies, mechanical recycling comes out as the environmentally preferable option in most cases

Hopefully this:

> And once people do find out how badly they have been mislead they tend to have a backlash and turn completely against anything an environmentalists suggests.

also applies to you finding out that you've been lied to by people who have a vested interest in generating exactly that backlash against environmentalist.

arsOP3y ago

That study is making the exact same error I already mentioned: They are counting the embodied energy of the flammable plastic as GWP, while not discounting the energy saved by burning the plastic instead of some other fuel.

ZeroGravitas3y ago

They literally cite that as the benefit it provides over landfill. All of the studies, that this is a meta review of, do that. It's just a fact that it releases CO2.

> Similar discretion is needed while comparing the results obtained for the WTE [waste to energy] option by the four studies. It is known that the incineration process emits greenhouse gases, but it also generates thermal energy and electricity which can be used as an alternative to fossil fuel consumption. However, the results indicate that overall, the WTE option contributes adversely towards the global warming problem, with all high positive impact values between 50% and 100%. However, all four studies indicated a negative impact value for AP, indicating that the incineration process is advantageous in reducing the impact of acidification, making it the second most environmentally friendly method of disposal, and suitable for disposal of the residues discarded by the MRF process.

The key point being, if you can get your heat or electricity from a non-fossil source, then it's preferable to do so. Because releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is bad for climate change.

But luckily for WTE, the are other aspects that make landfill even worse. Still not as good as recycling, just like all those environmentalists have been saying, correctly, for years. How boringly non-contrarian of them.

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