I am assuming it adds more carbon and pollution to the atmosphere, but aren’t cars and cargo ships doing the same thing? If that’s the case why can’t we just burn it instead of dumping it in the ocean? Is dumping it into the sea really that much of a better option? Why is it better to pollute the sea with large clumps of plastic?
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Some waste to energy plants *do* burn plastic, because plastic burns hotter than the typical waste they process. Contrary to what you might expect, it makes the process cleaner, since the higher temperature destroys more of the toxic chemicals.
That said, you have some incorrect assumptions in your question.
> but aren’t cars and cargo ships doing the same thing?
You don’t do something you know is wrong just because you see someone else doing it, even if they’re doing it on a much larger scale. This is a basic rule of life most of us are taught from a very young age.
> why can’t we just burn it instead of dumping it in the ocean?
We don’t dump it in the ocean. The plastic in the ocean got there mainly through careless inattention or accident, it was not intentional for the most part.
> Why is it better to pollute the sea with large clumps of plastic?
It’s not. We’re generally trying to *stop* plastic from getting in the ocean while recycling plastic we can, and *cleanly* burning the stuff we can’t.
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