Landfills really aren't that bad. modern landfills have multiple layers of lining to prevent leaking into water supplies and soil. After they are full, they are covered with earth and can become usable land. Their gases have to be managed (can be burned for electricity or processed in other ways) but overall putting trash in the ground and covering it seems alright to me. The amount of land that you actually need isn't that much too.
Single use plastics are a carbon sequestration technology.
We take oil out of the ground, and instead of burning it we turn it into a solid and bury it again.
Something like 30% of the oil we consume never ends up getting burned. While that's probably not a 30% reduction in CO2 gasses, the price pressure plastics put on fossil fuels is not negligible.
when oil prices were negative, why didn't environmental enthusiasts figure out how to buy (that is, be paid to receive) a ton of oil, take delivery, and simply not use it? they could bury it right back into the ground, no?
Oil prices were negative because there was nowhere to store it. It’s doubtful the delivery terminal of the pipeline would allow you to discharge your oil in their facility.
I guess so, but it seems to me it would be far more efficient to use already-above-ground materials (there are loads of them floating in the ocean!) and leave the oil in the ground.
The point is that we may not have plastic forever. Oil is a finite resource. An easy, cheap replacement hasn't been found yet. Either we abide by reducing and reusing (where we should be focused), or we should actually recycle.
PLA plastic as commonly used in 3d printers comes from plant materials not oil. We know how to make any plastic from pure CO2 (and whatever else needed for the atoms) - however the massive amount of energy needed to do so makes it uneconomical.
Also celluloid (made from cellulose), which I was pretty surprised to learn is about 170 years old. Plastics from oil were mostly invented after WWI and took off during WWII, but they had some kinds before that.
Oil is a finite resource, although we keep finding new deposits so the numbers on "we only have 10 years left!" tend to be hyperbolic.
With our current exposure, it is estimated that 40-50 years worth of oil remains, although there is likely to be new locations found and an overall reduction of oil usage in the coming years.
Try holding up a sign in the street anywhere in China that says anything remotely critical of the Chinese government. Or live in China and post something online remotely critical of China. You will be arrested, thrown in jail for years.
Democracy isn't just having an election every four years. We have rights that we shouldn't take for granted.
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