Trash, Trash, Trash...  Burn    

So, I'd like to talk about something.  Like a lot of the other topics I bring up here its something that I thought of, did some research on, and then came to the startling conclusion that what I had been told just simply wasn't true (which is an ishmael moment).  

Burning plastics.

Now, this might not occur to a lot of people, but living on an island like I do I was curious.  Does burning plastics actually cause any harm to the environment?  The resounding answer I got was that NO: it doesn't - not when burned properly (in a hot fire).  Its waste products are carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide - the same as wood or any other organic material.

But ever since I was a kit I was told not to burn plastics.  Well, truth be told I wasn't burning them in a hot fire at the time; so there's that - but I also think there is a misconception about the environmental danger associated with burning plastics.

Now, if you're already searching for the internet - let me tell you that there are some contrary sources and before you reply with a nasty email telling me how plastic burning destroys the ozone layer because so and so schmuckety-much says so, check their credentials.  Plastic doesn't contain CFC's, so it doesn't hurt the ozone like refrigerators do and I don't see anyone up in arms about getting rid of refrigerators.

Plastic is burned in incinerators across the country every day, generating electricity that would otherwise come from OTHER sources of dead dinosaur fuel.  The energy embodied in plastics is already out of the earth, and it makes more sense to use it than to pull something else out and let the plastic sit in the ground.  Plastic doesn't rot like other organic things, so burning it, in my mind, represents the best way to get that trapped carbon back into the natural environment so it can be part of the cycle.  I've shared before that I don't feel that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a bad thing, but I do know that accumulating a waste product in a form that is outside of the normal cycle of decomposition is a perversion and one that no other creature in nature could, or would, ever perpetrate.  The best other examples are shells; which trap calcium and carbon - which is tied up for a good long time as chalk and then limestone and marble.  But even these, eventually become part of the environment again - whereas plastics are outside of the cycle entirely.

Anyhow.  That's my daily bug-a-boo.  If we can get more use out of something while we have it, it makes sense to do that, because it saves money and decreases strains on the landfills.  I know some of you are going to say, "What about recycling?" and if you want to recycle some of your plastics thats great.  But no plastics that are recycled come back as the products they were originally (unlike recycling aluminum), and when you recycle you are just creating a cheaper feedstock for carpetmakers.  I was hit hard when I found out that my recycling efforts (as least as far as plastics are concerned) were completely wasted - and that huge stockpiles of unwanted plastics exist across the country so large that many major municipailities have stopped recycling plastics all together.  

So, I don't feel bad from a resourse standpoint in burning them - because they can't really be reused by anyone else, and in dealing with my own waste stream not only am I getting more use (HEAT) out of something I purchased, but I am also taking responsibility and putting locked carbon back into the environment where it belongs rather than trapping it in a form that is not decomposable and seizing it from nature for the forseeable future and that makes me feel good.  It also makes me more concious about what I purchase - knowing that I burn all my wastes I have to be.  I might opt for a paper container over a plastic bottle; or a thin plastic bulk-food bag rather than a thick plastic one with advertisements on the front.  These are things that I do anyway, but being concious of the end-result of my waste stream only magnifys that conciousness, at least for me.

That's all.

I long for a world in which there is no non-organic waste stream because food was bartered between neighbors and the biggest problem in waste management is returning the plate the cookies came on.  But then I wonder: when we get there, who is going to mill the flour?  Because I still don't know how to do that.

Be well!

Dominic