Eli5: why can’t we burn all our garbage and filter out all the toxic fumes?

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I understand it’s probably a more complex issue, but could it be similar to a 4th grade science project where you filter water through a bottle with a variety of rocks, sticks, moss etc?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Ultimately, even when burned with a plasma arc, some of our garbage is still very toxic to us like mercury, cadmiun, nuclear waste, etc. We will still need landfills or some kind of hazardous waste storage.

Japan is doing something along the lines of your post with plasma waste converters/recyclers. Garbage gets sorted, recycled, where the leftover is burned and syngas is collected.

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