Until the last coal fired power plant is decommissioned, the rational way to "recycle" plastic is to burn it. There's you're "not common trigger:" the temperature in a coal furnace.
Currently, plastic packaging is measured in the tens of millions of tons per year, while coal is measured in the billions of tons.
No, burning it is not "rational", it is the very opposite. We talk so much of carbon sequestration, and then "rationally" try to release all of the already-sequestered carbon back in the atmosphere.
If the plastic to be burned substitutes for coal or oil, it is carbon neutral. Isn't that what the Scandinavian countries do with their trash as an alternative to landfilling it?
Not burning the plastic risks its turning into microplastics, which will tend to interfere with the physiology of all plants and animals.
It's not carbon neutral, it still adds to the problem. We need to replace our carbon emitting power generation with renewable energy, not burn our trash to keep emitting the same. And trash can just be buried, it doesn't need to be burned.
There's a lot of talk generally of running carbon sequestration technologies and how important that will be. Burying plastic waste is exactly doing that, without spending the extra power to actually extract the carbon from the air.
That's like nicking a vein while you have a arterial hemmohrage - sure, it won't make a big difference, but it also doesn't help in any way. We need to stop burning coal, oil, and methane - and replacing any of them with plastic would not be helpful in the least.
It's technically correct that it doesn't help with reducing CO2 emissions. But plastic recycling is a flop and a charade. Reducing use of plastic is going to be the only effective way to reduce the harm from plastic. But if we're up to our asses in plastic that's going into the environment in our bodies, burning it isn't a bad choice.
I'm not talking about recycling plastic, but about burying it it in landfills.
The plastic in our bodies is not generally getting there from environmental pollution, it's getting there from us using plastic to wrap and cook the majority of our food and drink and cosmetics etc.
Currently, plastic packaging is measured in the tens of millions of tons per year, while coal is measured in the billions of tons.