We all know plastics aren’t biodegradable and that’s bad, so why can’t we just use chemical science to break them down ourselves?
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What it breaks down into can be worse. When you depolymerize a plastic, you get it’s components. There are some bacteria that can eat plastic but it’s not really for prime-time yet.
We can, but the problem is you end up with a soup of toxic chemicals that cant be economically reused. It all comes down to money – it is cheaper to burn or bury the plastics than to resuse them – it may also be greener to bury them as at least the CO2 is locked up for a longer time.
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