How come plastic waste isn’t being burned for energy in specialized power plants?

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Here’s what I know: 1) Plastic burns. 2) Heat can be used to generate energy with steam turbines, which I’m pretty sure is how nuclear power plants and fossil fuel plants work. 3) A specialized power plant can focus on increasing efficiency and decreasing pollution. 4) Plastic recycling is really hard and has been generally unsuccessful.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

This common in Finland. It requires a big efficient powerplant with proper gas scrubbers etc. We use it for district heating. And even after burning a lot of plastic remains in the ash. Disposing of the ashes must be done in a way that prevents that residue from becoming micro plastics and leeching in to the environment.

Although, micro plastic is already everywhere. We have a lot of district heating plants that burn peat and wood. Even the ash from those plants contains considerable amounts of micro plastics. Trees pull it up from ground water.

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